Examining Dynamically Linked Geographic Visualization
Theresa Marie Rhyne and Thomas Fowler
Lockheed Martin Technical Services
United States Environmental Protection Agency
Research Triangle Park, North Carolina 27711
Introduction
At the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA),
efforts are underway to integrate the agency's geographic
information systems (GIS), scientific visualization (SciVis) and
World Wide Web (WWW) suite of tools for comprehensive
environmental decision support. The EPA's National GIS Program
Office is the focal point of EPA's efforts to implement a
consistent Agency-wide spatial data management infrastructure.
One result of these efforts is the EPA Spatial Data Library
System (ESDLS) which is currently accessible via the WWW (1).
ESDLS utilizes the Environmental Systems Research Institute's
(ESRI) ARC/INFO data management software (entitled Librarian) and
complys with Spatial Data Transfer Standards. The ESDLS is EPA's
node on the Federal Geographic Data Committee's (FGDC) National
Geospatial Data Clearinghouse. (2)
During 1996, techniques for providing real time visualizations
of spatial data sets for the ESDLS were explored. The EPA's
Scientific Visualization Center, in collaboration with the
agency's GIS support team, conducted initial evaluations of
software that integrates visualization toolkits (i.e. the
Application Visualization System (AVS)) and geographic
information systems (i.e. ESRI's ARC/INFO). WWW user interfaces
to GIS and SciVis file servers were also successfully
implemented. This paper reports our efforts to provide
effective two and three dimensional visual displays of spatial
data sets. Using World Wide Web tools, we also investigated the
use of QuickTime Movies, Java applets, and the Virtual Reality
Modeling Language (VRML) as techniques for enhancing the
presentation and exploration of geographic visualizations. (3)
