Met.3D -- interactive 3-D visualization of gridded atmospheric (ensemble) data
Met.3D is a community open-source visualization tool for interactive,
three-dimensional visualization of gridded atmospheric model datasets. The tool
is implemented in C++ and OpenGL-4 and runs on standard commodity hardware. It
has originally been designed for weather forecasting during atmospheric
research field campaigns, however, have evolved into a general-purpose
meteorological visualization software. Besides being used as a visualization
tool, Met.3D is intended to serve as a framework to implement and evaluate new
3-D and ensemble visualization techniques for the atmospheric sciences.
The Met.3D reference publication has been published in "Geoscientific
Model Development" and is available online:
Rautenhaus, M., Kern, M., Schäfler, A., and Westermann, R.:
"Three-dimensional visualization of ensemble weather forecasts -- Part 1:
The visualization tool Met.3D (version 1.0)", Geosci. Model Dev., 8,
2329-2353, doi:10.5194/gmd-8-2329-2015, 2015.
Available at: http://www.geosci-model-dev.net/8/2329/2015/gmd-8-2329-2015.html
Met.3D is mainly developed at Universitaet Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.
We hope you find the tool useful for your work. Please let us know about your
experiences. We also highly appreciate contributions to the code or
documentation. Please contact us if you would like to contribute.
Features:
Met.3D runs under Linux (and possibly Windows). Its only "special" requirement
is an OpenGL-4.3 capable graphics card. A standard consumer (i.e. gaming) model
works fine. Met.3D's features include:
- Interactive 2-D horizontal sections in a 3-D context, including filled and line
contours, pseudo-colour plots and wind barbs.
- Interactive 2-D vertical sections in a 3-D context along arbitrary waypoints,
including filled and line contours.
- 3-D isosurface volume renderer that supports multiple isosurfaces. Isosurfaces
can be coloured according to an auxiliary variable.
- 3-D direct volume rendering (DVR) with an interactive transfer function editor.
- Surface shadows and interactive vertical axes to improve spatial perception.
- Navigation for forecast initialisation and valid time and ensemble member.
- Interactive computation of ensemble statistical quantities (mean, standard
deviation, probabilities, ...) of any ensemble data field.
- 3-D trajectory rendering for trajectories computed internally or externally
(the latter provided in NetCDF format).
- Computation of 3-D streamlines and trajectories from wind fields, following
computational schemes in the LAGRANTO model.
- On-the-fly gridding of ensemble trajectories into 3-D probability volumes.
- Support for 3-D model data that is regular in longitude and latitude in the
horizontal. In the vertical, the following is supported: (a) levels of
constant pressure, (b) sigma-hybrid-pressure-levels (ECMWF model), (c) any
type of structured grid as long as a 3-D field with pressure values is
available (this can be used, e.g. for data on geometric height levels).
- Support for data on projected and rotated grids (e.g., by the DWD COSMO model;
data can be displayed but not overlaid with data defined on geographic
lon/lat coordinates).
- Interactive ensemble Skew-T diagrams for analysis of vertical profiles.
- Data can be read from CF-compliant NetCDF files and from ECMWF/DWD GRIB files.
- A comprehensive session manager to save the current state of the program
and to revert earlier visualization steps.
- Interactive visual analysis of probability volumes.
- Multithreaded data pipeline architecture.
- Modular architecture designed to allow the straightforward implementation
of additional visualization/data processing/data analysis modules.
Documentation:
Documentation is available online at
https://met3d.wavestoweather.de
https://collaboration.cen.uni-hamburg.de/display/Met3D
Please refer to these websites for more details (and yes, any help is highly
appreciated).
Met.3D has been used in a number of scientific publications.
Please refer to the online documentation for a list.
Installation and configuration:
conda install -c conda-forge -c met3d met3d
