LidarVis:
LidarVis is a software program for visualizing distribution
data collected from lidar. LidarVis deals with the multivalue
nature of the data. That is, at each grid cell, there are
multiple values of a single variable. We refer to this data
type as distribution data. Examples of a distribution lidar
data set from forest provide information on forest structures,
tree size, and density. LidarVis provides advanced query
capabilities that allow the scientists to locate distributions
with specific characteristics. LidarVis also allows the
scientists to define the requirements of a significant
bump/peak by the percentage of the area covered by the
peak. Though, LidarVis was developed originally to deal
with multi-return lidar data sets, it can be easily used for
distribution data sets from other applications.
LidarVis was developed based on the PDFVis software
developed at NASA Ames Research Center. Many features
are inherited from PDFVis (see below of a description.)
PDFVis:
PDFVis is a software program for visualizing uncertainty,
which can be represented by a probability density function
(PDF) located at each grid cell in a spatial domain. A full
description of uncertainty at each grid cell is represented
using a probability distribution. The software allows
scientists to visualize the uncertainty in the given spatial
domain by creating maps of first, second, and third order
statistics summarizing the distributions.
PDFVis also provides an interacitve probe that allows users
to investigate the probability allows users distribution at any
grid cell or from a user-selectable profile in the spatial
domain.
Furthermore,
the
software
provides
shape
descriptions of the probability distribution by automatically
computing and displaying the modality (the number of
peaks) in the probability distributions. PDFVis also displays
shaded surfaces of the probability distributions so that the
shapes of the distributions are much easier to comprehend.
Features & Capabilities:
• displays several first, second, and third order statistics
of probability density functions (PDFs) simultaneously
in one image using various graphics display techniques
• provides an interactive probe that conveys various
forms of density estimates (e.g., histogram, kernel
density estimator) of the PDF at the grid cell
associated with the current probe position
• displays the density estimates of the distribution
associated with the current probe position
• displays shaded surfaces of PDFs from a userselectable profile (row or column) to the shapes of the
PDFs can be visualized, and color map the surfaces
according to a user-selectable scalar variable
• displays the modality of the PDFs at each grid cell and
the locality of the peaks in each grid cell
• allows scientists to query the modality of the PDF
based on user-specified range and criteria
• provides
simple
interactivity.
user
command
keys
for
easy
Contact:
For more information about LidarVis and PDFVis, contact
David
Kao
(dkao@mail.arc.nasa.gov),
Research Center.
NASA Ames