2008 S.C. Water Resources Conference - Addressing Water Challenges Facing the State and Regio

Geist, Robert M, III

Hallstrom, Jason O

Hitchcock, Daniel R

Song, Bo

Steele, Jay

English

Clemson University: TigerPrints

It’s a Small World: Enhancing HumanCognition through Virtual DioramasRobert M. Geist III a, Jason O. Hallstrom a,Daniel R. Hitchcock b, Bo Song b, Jay Steele aa School of Computing, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634-0974b Belle W. Baruch Institute of Coastal Ecology and Forest Science, ClemsonUniversity, P.O. Box 596, Georgetown, SC 29442-0596AbstractEnvironmental science stands at the epicenter of a transformative wave reshapingthe landscape of scientific discovery. Unprecedented access to environmental datafrom across the globe affords new opportunities for understanding complex naturalphenomena and improving the health and welfare of the planet. Yet despite recentprogress, significant obstacles impede the deployment and utilization of an ultra-dense earth monitoring fabric: (O1) Sensor platforms remain expensive. (O2) In situnetworks are difficult to construct. (O3) Access portals provide insufficient analyticalabstractions for target data consumers. (O4) Environmental models are fragmentedand compartmentalized. These are the challenges addressed by the Small Worldproject.Our team is developing an end-to-end hardware/software infrastructure that com-plements Clemson’s new data acquisition backbone to create additional opportuni-ties for environmental discovery. The goal is to enable non-programmer scientiststo deploy ultra-dense in situ networks that are inexpensive and reliable, and toconvey the impact of aggregated data to policymakers, community leaders, and thepublic at large. The approach relies on the concept of a virtual diorama. Like itsphysical counterpart, a virtual diorama is a visual representation intended to distillthe essential details of a larger physical scene. Each is backed by a remote sensordeployment and a corresponding data repository to enable real-time and historicalvisualizations depicting the microclimate under study. Integrated hydrological andecological models support historical and prospective views of forest and landscapechange. In effect, each diorama serves as a window into a miniaturized world thatreflects our own — yesterday, today, and tomorrow. An example scene generatedusing rendering techniques developed as part of this project appears in Figure 1.This project leverages collaborative work with colleagues from the Ohio StateUniversity, the University of Iowa, the University of Texas at Austin, and Cleve-land State University. Portions of the work are supported by the National ScienceFoundation and Clemson PSA.Fig. 1. A Generated Diorama ScenePresenter Biography. Jason O. Hallstrom is an Assistant Professor in theSchool of Computing at Clemson University. He holds the B.S. and M.A.degrees from Miami University in Systems Analysis and Economics, respec-tively. He also holds the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Ohio State University inComputer and Information Science and has approximately 10 years of indus-try development experience. His research is at the intersection of embeddednetwork design and software engineering. Specifically, he works to enable thereliable design, deployment, and maintenance of long-lived embedded networkapplications at scale. He has published numerous journal, conference, andworkshop papers across these areas. He is currently supported by grants fromthe NSF (CNS[CAREER]-0745846, DUE[CCLI]-0633506) and was previouslysupported by the NASA Space Grant Consortium and Microsoft Research.Email addresses: rmg@cs.clemson.edu (Robert M. Geist III),jasonoh@cs.clemson.edu (Jason O. Hallstrom), dhitchc@clemson.edu (DanielR. Hitchcock), bosong@clemson.edu (Bo Song), jesteel@cs.clemson.edu (JaySteele).2

It\u27s a Small World: Enhancing Human Cognition through Virtual Dioramas

https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1251&amp;context=scwrc

It\u27s a Small World: Enhancing Human Cognition through Virtual Dioramas

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