Using Data Visualization Software to Aid in the Analysis of Geographical Data

NASA Web World Wind (Web WW) is designed to visualize and manage geographical data. As a first implementation of visualization and analysis, we designed an application to map earthquake data onto the globe. Portions of this code were merged with application monitoring magnetic field anomalies possibly associated with earthquake precursor activity. Web WW enabled the visualization of the directional vectors from this data to point to the source location of the earthquake. We also developed a prototype urban management application which utilizes OpenStreetMaps to provide simple features such as route navigation, geographical and services information in an area of interest. This application also enables a graphical method for handling other data pertaining to the area. Finally, Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) data was mapped onto the globe using Web WW. The data was then used to model the progression of flood water in an area. The method developed to map the LiDAR data onto the globe also enabled handling of massive data sets. This includes data sets which contain hundreds of thousands of points, each with multiple values associated with it