Proposal. We propose to develop an RGPS Visualization Tool in the ASF Science Program.

Objective. The objective of the RGPS Visualization Tool is to provide high-quality visual access to the RGPS data products.

The Product. The visualization tools for the RGPS products should be consistent with design requirements of other ASF developed user tools. Elements of the ASF software development standards, which specify what is required for portable, well documented, easy to maintain software, include; a language preference (ANSI C), UNIX man page, no dependence on commercial software packages, and command usage.

The first functional requirement is for an RGPS file reader that can extract the RGPS files and write them to convenient flat files for ingestion into another program. This calls for the definition and application of some form of wrapper, possibly HDF, so that the file histories can be traced. The application should allow the user the ability to ingest and display auxiliary data such as a time-series from a surface platform or the output of a model.

The RGPS products include a number of geophysical products which were derived from RADARSAT ScanSAR data. These include such things as ice motion, ice thickness histogram, area of open water fraction, and ice age histogram to name a few. Some of the products will contain point data and others will be uniformly gridded at a fixed scale. Visualization tools will allow for these data sets to be displayed graphically for a defined geographic area or for the entire grid and to be presented as animation sequence which can stop on individual frames for closer examination of values, or to print an individual product.. The techniques used should provide scientists with the ability to rapidly scan large time sequences of data in order to quantify changes with locale or time and to locate specific phenomena. The visualization tools should be flexible in terms of scale, and area of interest, and should offer scientists the ability to adjust how and what is displayed, thereby optimizing the visual presentation of data. It is also desirable for the user to be able to view multiple data sets at once, displaying relationships between individual data products. For instance, it would be desirable to drape ice motion vectors over a colorized image showing open water fraction or a corresponding SAR image mosaic of the same time period.

Approach. Our approach to this project will be to reach a development agreement with and fund for 2 years a graduate student and a faculty member in the UAF Computer Sciences Program (of the Mathematics Department); faculty funding would be for 6 weeks per year. The faculty member will be analogous to the project manager.

The ASF Chief Scientist will be the program manager for the task, and there will be weekly meetings of the Science staff with the student and monthly meetings with the student and the faculty member. We will also hold internal reviews chaired by the ASF Chief Scientist; the reviews would include a Requirements Review, a Visualization Strategy Review, a Design Review, a Product Review, and an Acceptance Review (approximately a review every 4 months). These reviews will be brief but comprehensive; they will occupy 2-4 hours each.

The first step in the project will be to develop a visualization scenario for RGPS data; we will then take that scenario and generate draft RGPS Visualization Requirements, and we will refine the scenario and Requirements list by working with the RGPS Working Group. The final requirements are the first deliverable, to be approved by the RGPS Working Group leadership and the Chief Scientist.

From the requirements we will construct a project plan for the visualization activity; this plan will guide the work, and its generation will be educational for the student. With the plan in hand the student would start the design activity and then the actual coding. From this point on the visualization task would become part of the RGPS development, meet with the RGPS Working Group, attend reviews, etc. We will ask a member of the RGPS Working Group to represent the Group as point of contact for the student.