Conservation Biology Institute Webinar

Tangible Landscape

as a tool for modeling and science communication

Helena Mitasova, Anna Petrasova, Brendan Harmon, Vaclav Petras, Payam Tabrizian, Ross Meentemeyer

North Carolina State University

The webinar is presented by the GeoForAll Laboratory at the Center for Geospatial Analytics (CGA), North Carolina State University

CGA is an interdisciplinary research and education center with focus on geospatial computing, modeling, analytics and geovisualization.

We offer MGIST professional master's degree (on-line and on-campus) and a new PhD in Geospatial Analytics planned for launch in Fall 2017

geospatial.ncsu.edu

Authors

Helena Mitasova

Associate Director of Geovisualization

Anna Petrasova

PhD student at MEAS

Brendan Harmon

PhD student
College of Design

Vaclav Petras

PhD student at MEAS

Payam Tabrizian

PhD student
College of Design

Ross Meentemeyer

CGA Director

Motivation for Tangible Interfaces for GIS

Interaction through mouse, keyboard and display does not encourage creativity.
Manipulating computer models is not intuitive and requires specialized software and training.
Collaboration is restricted as typically only one user at a time can navigate and modify models.

The first tangible interface prototypes

Sandscape and Illuminating Clay

Ishii H., Ratti C., Piper B., Wang Y., Biderman A. and Ben-Joseph E. "Bringing clay and sand into digital design—continuous tangible user interfaces." BT technology journal 22.4 (2004): 287-299.

Image source: MIT Media Lab

Tangible interface linked with GIS

Tangible Geospatial Modeling System (TanGeoMS)

L. Tateosian, H. Mitasova, B. A. Harmon, B. Fogleman, K. Weaver, and R. S. Harmon, “TanGeoMS: tangible geospatial modeling system.,” IEEE Trans. Vis. Comput. Graph., vol. 16, no. 6, pp. 1605–12, 2010.

Kinect-based systems

Augmented Reality Sandbox by KeckCAVES

Expensive laser scanners replaced by low cost Kinect

Image source: http://idav.ucdavis.edu/

Tangible Landscape: real-time coupling with GIS

With Tangible Landscape you can hold a GIS in your hands - feeling the shape of the earth, sculpting its topography, and directing the flow of water.

How it works

Tangible Landscape couples a digital and a physical model through a continuous cycle of 3D scanning, geospatial modeling, and projection

Interactions

surface

points

lines

areas

Applications: topographic analysis

slope	erosion
landforms

Applications: visibility

Visibility and line of sight

Applications: solar analysis

Solar irradiation and cast shadows

Applications: trail planning

Optimized trail routing between waypoints based on energetics, topography, and cost maps with feedback including trail slopes and viewsheds

Applications: 3D soil moisture exploration

Applications: wildfire spread

Applications: Sudden Oak Death management

Using Tangible Landscape in participatory modeling:

participants together explore options to slow down the spread of SOD in Sonoma using tangible user interface
stochastic, spatially-explicit model (Meentemeyer et al. 2011) implemented in R (by F. Tonini)