The document outlines a 3D animation and visualization system with the following components: 1. The VTP platform is used to model terrain and simple structures. 2. Weather engines simulate wind, rain, clouds, lightning, and trees moving in the wind. 3. Ocean engines create waves and storm surge flooding along the coastline using particle systems and animated meshes. 4. A traffic system represents roads and vehicles that respond to flooding.

1. Outline
• Components Overview
• Purpose of 3D Animation and Visualization System
• System Architecture
– The VTP Platform
– 3D Scene Expansion for Storm Surge Simulation
• Terrain Creation and Building Model Distribution
• Weather Engines
– The Wind Engine
– The Rain Engine
– The Cloud Engine
– The Lightning Engine
• The Tree Animation
• The Ocean Engines
– The Wave and Surge Engine
– The Spray Engine
• The Traffic System

2. Components Overview
1
4
3
2
5
6
7

3. 3D Animation and Visualization System
• Purpose
–Provide more specific weather information and more vivid presentations of
numerical hurricane prediction models.
–Present the storm surge models to coastal residents in a visual way so that
the people can understand and appreciate the flooding impact.
–Help the scientists to demonstrate their research results and to educate the
students in the related areas.
–Help the emergency managers to educate the coastal residents about the
potential danger caused by storm surges and thus to facilitate the evacuation
process.
–Assist scientists in examining the meteorological phenomena/fields in the 3-
dimensional space since many of them are 3D.

4. System Architecture
• The VTP Platform
– An open-source project for easily constructing any part of the real world in
an interactive and 3D digital form.
– Primary function: modeling terrain and render simple building and plant
models.

5. System Architecture
• 3D Scene Expansion for Storm Surge Simulation.
‒ Terrain Creation with LIDAR Measurement.
‒ 3D Building Models Distribution on Terrain.
‒ Physical Engines Designed for Storm Surge Simulation.
3D Building
Models
Raw Terrain Physical Engines

6. Terrain Creation and Building Model Distribution
• Terrain Creation from LIDAR Data
‒ Airborne LIDAR Data: Rapid and Inexpensive Measurements of
Topography over A Large Area.
‒ Removing Non-Ground Measurements from LIDAR Data Using
Morphological Filter.
• Automatic Building Model Distribution on Terrain
‒ LIDAR measurements of ground objects – free from shadow and relief
displacement.
‒ Construction of Building Footprints from Non-Ground Measurements of
LIDAR Data.
‒ Model Designing and Distribution.

7. Weather Engines
• Wind Engine
– Important engine adjusting the wind intensity and direction according to
real-time NOAA meteorological data.
– Modulating the behavior of other engines, including Rain, Cloud, Wave,
Physics and Tree.
• Rain Engine
‒ Simulated with group of periodically dropping straight line. Rain direction
synchronized with wind direction. Rain sound rendered simultaneousy.
‒ Rendered only within a cube of limited volume that moves with the camera
and encloses it to keep computational overhead low.

8. Weather Engines
• Cloud Engine
‒ Each cloud texture is created by filtering a cloud picture with a opacity
mask so that the texture can have a realistic shape.
‒ 3D cloud are simulated with a sense of volume in animation by moving a
number of cloud texture billboards at different heights.

9. Weather Engines
• Lightning Engine
‒ Approximated with a sequence of lines.
‒ Triggered at random location and at random height
‒ Sub-branch might take place when the main branch is being
rendered.
‒ Thunder sound is played at the lightning-stricken point using Open-
Al.

10. Tree Animation
• Individual branch animation is realized.
• Each branch bends to a specific region dependent on which quadrant the branch
previously was. Quadrants are designated according to wind direction.
• Each branch consists of a couple (3) of bones, each bending to a unique angle
that increases with the bone’s distance from the trunk.
• For a consistent skin effect, each vertex’s position is updated using Vertex
Weighting technique.

11. Ocean Engines
• Wave Engine
‒ Simulated by mapping an ocean surface texture onto a geometric
mesh. Wave sound is simulated simultaneously.
‒ Each vertex of the mesh is moved by the engine to generate a
specific wave type, including Fast Fourier Transformation, Stokes,
Gerstner, Peach, Tessendorf and Fournier.
‒ Surge flooding simulated by raising the geometric mesh’s height
according to input NOAA data about real flood height.
• Spray Engine
‒ Simulated with a particle system.
‒ Rendered along the coastline.
‒ Groups of particles periodically execute projectile motion with
random initial speed, launch angle and flying time.

12. Traffic System
• Road represented by segment objects
‒ Each segment object records the segment’s coordinates, length, and
direction angles.
‒ Traffic animated by updating vehicle’s position at each new frame.
Movement is calculated by multiplying vehicle’s speed and elapsed
time. Vehicle’s specific position obtained by calculating the target
segment and in-segment offset.
• Vehicle Speed controlled according to collision-avoiding policy.
• When surge flooding is activated in ocean engine, vehicles will check water
height and respond correspondingly.
• Automatic lamp posts distribution along the roads.