Visualizing Astronomical Data with Blender

Kent, Brian R.

doi:10.1086/671412

Cited by 42 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 65 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Relevant to the work presented here are a number of freely available astronomical software packages, such as, Eyes on the Solar System by NASA [29], also tools for planetary rendering in free software such as Blender [32,47] can provide engaging experiences for a wide range of users. These solutions are focusing on general astronomical visualization and do not provide the out-of-core level-of-detail surface rendering required to visualize globes in high detail.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Globe Browsing: Contextualized Spatio-Temporal Planetary Surface Visualization

Bladin

Axelsson

Broberg

et al. 2018

IEEE Trans. Visual. Comput. Graphics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract-Results of planetary mapping are often shared openly for use in scientific research and mission planning. In its raw format, however, the data is not accessible to non-experts due to the difficulty in grasping the context and the intricate acquisition process. We present work on tailoring and integration of multiple data processing and visualization methods to interactively contextualize geospatial surface data of celestial bodies for use in science communication. As our approach handles dynamic data sources, streamed from online repositories, we are significantly shortening the time between discovery and dissemination of data and results. We describe the image acquisition pipeline, the pre-processing steps to derive a 2.5D terrain, and a chunked level-of-detail, out-of-core rendering approach to enable interactive exploration of global maps and high-resolution digital terrain models. The results are demonstrated for three different celestial bodies. The first case addresses high-resolution map data on the surface of Mars. A second case is showing dynamic processes, such as concurrent weather conditions on Earth that require temporal datasets. As a final example we use data from the New Horizons spacecraft which acquired images during a single flyby of Pluto. We visualize the acquisition process as well as the resulting surface data. Our work has been implemented in the OpenSpace software [8], which enables interactive presentations in a range of environments such as immersive dome theaters, interactive touch tables, and virtual reality headsets.

show abstract

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Globe Browsing: Contextualized Spatio-Temporal Planetary Surface Visualization

Bladin

Axelsson

Broberg

et al. 2018

IEEE Trans. Visual. Comput. Graphics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Such problems are often solved with computer graphic software originally not intended for scientific research (Filippov & Sobolev, 2002;Hansen & Johnson, 2005;Lipşa et al, 2012;Johnson & Hertig, 2014). One such package is Blender (Blender Foundation, 2003, whose 3D tools are systematically utilized in various disciplines (Kent, 2015;Filippov, 2018), for instance, biology (Autin, Johnson, Hake, Olson, & Sanner, 2012), astronomy (Kent, 2013), geoinformatics (Scianna, 2013), geomorphometry (Florinsky & Filippov, 2017), and so on. Huffman (2014Huffman ( , 2017 used 3D Blender tools to produce 2D hill-shaded relief maps.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Three‐dimensional terrain modeling with multiple‐source illumination

Florinsky

Filippov

2019

Transactions in GIS

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Three‐dimensional (3D) terrain modeling based on digital elevation models (DEMs) with the use of orthographic and perspective projections is a standard procedure implemented in many commercial and open‐source geoinformation systems. However, standard tools may be insufficient for 3D scientific visualization. In particular, single‐source illumination of 3D models may be deficient for topographically complex terrains. We present an approach for 3D terrain modeling with multiple‐source illumination in the virtual environment of the Blender free and open‐source software. The approach includes the following key stages: (1) automatic creation of a polygonal object; (2) selecting an algorithm to model the 3D geometry; (3) selecting a vertical exaggeration scale; (4) selecting types, parameters, a number, and positions of light sources; (5) selecting methods for generating shadows; (6) selecting a shading method for the 3D model; (7) selecting a material for the 3D model surface; (8) overlaying a texture on the 3D model; (9) setting a virtual camera; and (10) rendering the 3D model. To illustrate the approach, we processed a test DEM extracted from the International Bathymetric Chart of the Arctic Ocean version 3.0 (IBCAO 3.0). The approach is currently being used to develop a system for geomorphometric modeling of the Arctic Ocean floor.

show abstract

“…It includes a mesh-based 3D modeller, advanced materials and texture specification, animation system, a physically based renderer and a deeply integrated Python 2 Application Programming Interface (API) amongst other features. Some of these features have made Blender an increasingly popular host application for a range of scientific visualisation and analysis tools [2][3][4][5] including GIS data processing 3 and other GIS related visualisation applications [6][7][8]. These key features include:…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The VI-Suite: a set of environmental analysis tools with geospatial data applications

Southall

Biljecki

2017

Open geospatial data, softw. stand.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background:The VI-Suite is a free and open-source addon for the 3D content creation application Blender, developed primarily as a tool for the contextual and performative analysis of buildings. Its functionality has grown from simple, static lighting analysis to fully parametric lighting, shadowing, and building energy analyses. It adopts a flexible, mesh geometry based approach to the specification of calculation points and this has made it suitable for certain types of 3D geospatial analyses and data visualisation. Results: As this is the first academic paper to discuss the VI-Suite, a history of its development is presented along with a review of its capabilities of relevance to geospatial analysis. As the VI-Suite combines the functionality of 3D design software with performance simulation, some of the benefits of this combination are discussed including aspects that make it suitable for the processing and analysis of potentially large geospatial datasets. Example use cases with a 3D city model of the Hague are used to demonstrate some of the geospatial workflows possible and some of the result visualisation options. Conclusions:The free and open-source nature of the VI-Suite, combined with the use of Blender mesh geometry to define calculation points, has encouraged usage scenarios not originally intended by the authors, for example large scale urban shadow and radiation analyses. The flexibility inherent in this mesh based approach enables the analysis of large geospatial datasets by giving the user refined control over the distribution of calculation points within the model. The integration of GIS analysis into a digital design package such as Blender offers advanced geometry/material editing and specification, provides tools such as ray casting and BVH tree generation to speed up the simulation of large datasets, and enhanced visualisation of GIS simulation data including animated city fly-throughs and high quality image production. The VI-Suite is part of a completely open-source tool chain and contributions from the community are welcome to further enhance its current geospatial data capabilities.

show abstract

Visualizing Astronomical Data with Blender

Cited by 42 publications

References 65 publications

Globe Browsing: Contextualized Spatio-Temporal Planetary Surface Visualization

Globe Browsing: Contextualized Spatio-Temporal Planetary Surface Visualization

Three‐dimensional terrain modeling with multiple‐source illumination

The VI-Suite: a set of environmental analysis tools with geospatial data applications

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About