cci visualisation corner · 2020. 8. 25. · cci visualisation corner an interactive presentation...

CCI Visualisation Corner An Interactive Presentation for

ESA’s Climate Change Initiative

Final Report

14th March 2014

author: Philip Eales

[email protected] tel +44 (0)1251 821 063

mob +44 (0)7804 866 408

Planetary Visions Limited 8 Mimosa Drive

Shinfield, Reading RG2 9AQ

www.planetaryvisions.com

CCI Visualisation Corner Copyright © 2014 Planetary Visions Limited of 17

CCI Visualisation Corner Final Report PE/PVL 14.3.14 1. Introduction The purpose of this document is to summarise the results of the CCI Visualisation Corner project, carried out for ESA by Planetary Visions Limited between March 2013 and February 2014. Work completed since the last progress report is reported in Appendix 1. According to the project’s Statement of Work, the activity would “create an interactive visualisation of CCI data sets to introduce the CCI programme, show and explore some of the CCI data sets, and compare one data set with another. The presentation is aimed at a technical audience familiar with Earth observation data”. The project was broken down into four main tasks - Design, Software, Data Content, Editorial Content - with progress on each described in sections 2-5 below. The Visualisation Corner has been publicly exhibited at international conferences as detailed in section 6. Section 7 makes recommendation for future development of the work. Project progress has been reported to ESA between significant milestones. Review documents have been prepared after significant milestones, and various documents prepared and circulated within the project team and to the wider CCI science team as required. A list of project documents is provided in section 8. 2. Design The design of the project was developed as described in the Design Specification v1.3, dated 2 July 2013. ESA design guidelines were followed, as set out in ESA’s Corporate Visual Identity Manual. Four template screen types were identified: Menu Screens (including the Type 0 Opening Screen), Data Screens (including Type 2 Map, and Type 3 Globe), Comparison Screens (including Type 3 Map Comparison and Type 5 Globe Comparison), and Info Screens (including project information, but also allowing for text and images, linear videos, and graphs). The navigation routes between screens evolved as the project developed, in response to user testing. The final configuration of links between the page types is shown in Fig 2. The Design task was undertaken in Illustrator, with the creation of runtime raster artwork completed in Photoshop. Design work for the opening screen included adaptation of the square CCI project logos to round “buttons”, which sit better around the globe. The circle of CCI projects around the globe was also used as the basis for the software’s MacOS icon.

Fig 1. MacOS icon for CCI Visualisation Corner


Fig 2. CCI Visualisation Corner structure. Arrows indicate links from specific buttons on the calling screen. The Back button always returns to the previous screen. The Home button always returns to the Opening Screen. (Screen Type 0.5 was not intended for implementation in this version since only one ECV per project is shown.)


An example of each screen type is shown in Figs 3-8 below.

Fig 3. Opening Screen (Type 0)

Fig 4. Globe Screen (Type 4)

Fig 5. Map Screen (Type 2)


Fig 6. Globe Comparison Screen (Type 5)

Fig 7. Map Comparison Screen (Type 3)

Fig 8. Info Screen (Type 1) To simplify the design and speed development, the map screen (Type 2) was implemented in the first instance as a simple equirectangular grid with equal spacing in latitude and longitude and a 2:1 aspect ratio, leaving clear areas above for titles and below for navigation. The final version includes the option to use the full height of the screen for maps and globes, with titles and navigation controls overlaid (supersize mode), maximising use of the screen area, and presenting a slightly less distorted world map (Fig 9).


Fig 9. Supersize mode (Map Screen Type 2 Option 3) 3. Software Software development was undertaken using C++ and OpenGL under the Qt 4.8 cross-platform development environment. This environment was chosen for its ease of deployment to a range of operating systems and hardware platforms, including MacOS and iPad. Software development was undertaken in accordance with the Design Specification v1.3, dated 2 July 2013. Documentation for the software can found in Appendix 2. The following major versions of the software were presented or delivered to ESA: Alpha version (0.9): presented at ESA Harwell, 11 July 2013. Beta version (2.0): presented at ESA Harwell, 22 August 2013. LPS version (2.4): delivered at LPS, Edinburgh, 9-13 November 2013. COP version (3.8): delivered 1 November 2013. Final version (4.14): delivered on 6 March 2013. 3.1 Prioritised Functionality A prioritised list of software functionality was established at the beginning of the project. Essential items were to be implemented for the LPS version of the software by 1 Sept. Preferred items would be implemented by LPS if possible, and certainly by the final version. Possible items were enhancements not regarded as essential to the success of the project, but would be candidates for follow-on work. Development was undertaken in such a way as to allow easy implementation of the Possible items in future. The functionality priorities are shown here with their status: Essential • Screen Type 1 displaying static database-driven text and images. - achieved by alpha • Opening Screen displaying rotating globe movie and icon links. - achieved by alpha • Screen Type 2 displaying flat-map time sequence. - achieved by alpha • Timeline control. - achieved by alpha; fine control added by final • Pop-up key overlay. - achieved by alpha (pop-up not considered necessary at kick-off) • Screen Type 4 displaying globe-mapped time sequence. - achieved by alpha • View angle control for Screen Type 4. - achieved by alpha Preferred • Screen Type 3 displaying two time sequences for comparison. - achieved by beta • Screen Type 5 displaying two globe-mapped time sequences for comparison. - achieved by beta • Clickable hot spots on flat map and globe. - achieved by COP • Graph drawing. - not a priority since only one graph received, presented as image rather than live data


Possible • Zoom/Pan control on flat maps and globes. - achieved by COP • Dynamic transitions. Initial version will use a simple fade through black between screens, but future versions might have animated overlay graphics such as logos and data moving/shrinking on/off/around the screen. - not a priority All essential software functionality from the Design Spec is now achieved. Of the preferred functionality, only graph-drawing is not achieved (only one graph dataset having been received). Of the possible functionality, zoom/pan is achieved, and screen type 0.5 functionality is achieved by making additional ECVs available through a secondary info screen. Achievements beyond the design spec include: • multiple ECVs for Land Cover, GHG, Soil Moisture • info screen headlines (bullet points, as requested at LPS) • editorial work associated with headlines and info text • software adjustments to accommodate non-target hardware, screen size and legacy OS 3.2 Target Platform The target platform for running the software was specified as a Mac OSX laptop with attached large-screen fullHD/HD1080 HDTV display connected via HDMI. Video Mirroring is used so the same image appears on both screens. Interaction is possible via mouse clicks only, although keyboard shortcuts are also available.

Fig 10. Visualisation Corner hardware configuration. Recommended hardware specification: MacBook Pro 15 inch Hi-Res Antiglare Widescreen Display 2.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i7, 8GB SDRAM, 128GB SSD, NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 512MB VRAM Screen Size (laptop): High Res Anti-Glare Screen 1680x1050 pixels (16:10 ratio). Screen Size (external display): HDTV 1920 x 1080 pixels (16:9 ratio). Size of 16:9 video shown full-width on MacBook Pro screen: 1680 x 945 pixels. The Hi-Res Display option is closest in pixel dimensions to full HDTV external display, ensuring common screen assets and similar quality on laptop and external display. Connected by HDMI to an external full-HDTV in Video Mirroring mode, the laptop screen should scale to full height, with black edges at the side. The edges are not apparent to the viewer, since the screens have been designed with a black background at all edges. In the worst case, if an HDTV model embeds the laptop screen pixel-for-pixel instead of scaling, there should only be 15 lines of black top and bottom (1.4% of screen height). The solid-state drive (SSD or flash drive) is recommended for the fastest access to the large volumes of data, particularly for those projects with larger maps.


NVIDIA graphics is considered a minimum requirement for reliable implementation of the OpenGL standard. Built-in Intel graphics have been known to be less than fully-compliant with some aspects of OpenGL. Having said that, we have not encountered a problem due to the use of built-in graphics when running on those machines that use them. HDMI is the recommended protocol for connection to an external display, allowing high quality and optimal resolution setting, as well as preserving the aspect ratio of the screen. VGA connection is limited to a 4:3 aspect ratio. 3.3 Other Hardware Some software engineering effort went into solving problems found on non-target hardware, enabling the software to run on some older and newer machines, including the following: • Mac Pro 2x quad-core Intel Xeon, 10GB, ATI Radeon HD2600 256MB VRAM • MacBook Air, NVIDIA GeForce 320M 256MB VRAM • MacBook Pro 15 inch 2.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i7, 4GB, NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 512MB VRAM (target hardware) • MacBook Pro 13 inch Retina 2.8GHz Intel Core i7, 8GB, Intel Iris graphics 1024MB VRAM • MacOS versions OS X 10.6.8, 10.8.5, 10.9.1 For Retina display models, the software must be run in low resolution mode (see http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5266). Although designed for widescreen displays, the screen layout is adaptive to screen size whilst preserving the shape of individual screen elements. It behaves reasonably on 4:3 screens, or when connected to external displays via VGA. 4. Data Content One parameter was chosen to represent each ECV, as listed in Appendix 1. In addition, four projects had additional parameters shown, two of them with local, detailed, close-up data, accessed through hotspots on the globe or map. Several types of production task were required to turn the scientific datasets into digital content (assets) for the presentation: • Data preparation tasks including data ingest, co-registering with background or context maps, data cleaning, data colour-coding and data merging were undertaken in GIS software, including Global Mapper, GDAL, QGIS. • Visualisation tasks including preparation of colour keys, background or context maps, design of appearance and motion for animation sequences, compilation of finished still images, image sequences and movie files were undertaken in GIS and 3D and 2D graphics software. 4.1 Data Treatment Placeholder datasets or linear animations were used in the early stages of the project if CCI project data was not yet available. Three levels of data treatment were required, depending on the status of the available data: 1) Existing animation available or simple image and text This required a small amount of work to integrate the existing content into the software. 2) Existing processed data, but new treatment This required the production of a new 2D visualisation from data already processed by Planetary Visions, and its integration into the software.


3) New data, new treatment This required the ingest and preparation of new data, its 2D visualisation, and its integration into the software. The level of data prep involved for the major versions of the software is summarised in Table 1 below. Table 1. Data Treatment

Data was ingested in a variety of formats (netCDF; netCDF within NetCDF; HDF5 within NetCDF; PNG; DAT). Although most datasets were global and stored on a geographical (latitude-longitude) grid, a custom map projection was set up for the Ice Sheets data, covering only Greenland. Additional local high-resolution data sets were processed for the Land Cover and Glaciers projects. 4.4 Data Gaps Some of the data sets have quite incomplete coverage at their full temporal resolution. In such cases the science teams suggested using versions of the data representing a wider time span – ten-day or monthly rather than daily. Data gaps are still present in some cases however. They can be quite distracting when animated, so efforts were made to reduce them. For example, for CO2 10-day averages, the edges of no-data areas were softened. For Aerosols, a rolling 15-day average was computed every 5 days from the daily CCI product. In some cases, data coverage and data quality improves through the data time span. For Ocean Colour and Sea Level, the earliest data is not shown due to poor quality on the advice of the science teams. For other projects, only the first batch of data has been completed by the science team, not the whole time span. The full CCI data time spans, and those shown by the software, are represented in Fig 11.


Fig 11. CCI Data Time Spans Grey lines represent full CCI data timespan. Black lines represent data processed and presented in the final version of the software. 4.2 Background Maps Neutral, monochrome, background maps were created to provide geographic context for the datasets, and a degree of consistency across their presentation. The background maps show land and sea areas, major lakes and hill-shaded topography. One monochrome background was developed for use with the coloured land and atmospheric datasets, and another for use with the ocean data. A third colour background with a blue sea was used with the monochrome Cloud and Sea Ice data. 4.3 Colour Schemes To aid comparison, it was felt that individual colour schemes should be developed for each data set. It has been suggested that presenting two datasets side-by-side with the same colour scale can be confusing to a non-technical public audience. Individual colour schemes also allow us to use more intuitive palettes tailored to each data set, which a non-technical audience might find easier to understand. A large part of the Data Content task was spent establishing colour schemes that satisfied the sometimes-conflicting requirements to be: • distinct • easily-understood • appropriate to the characteristics of the data • satisfactory to the science teams These requirements were further balanced against data visualisation best practice that a colour coding should be: • proportionate, with key colours equally-spaced by data value • monotonic, with constant brightness/saturation, or brightness/saturation increasing with data value • unambiguous, avoiding similar colours at opposite ends of the range (eg, red and purple in the common spectrum or rainbow palette) The Ozone colour scheme proved particularly difficult, with extreme high and low values appearing only in certain locations at certain times of year, and the need to distinguish ozone “holes” below a certain value. It went through six versions internally, with three versions delivered. For Ocean Colour, an intuitive scheme for chlorophyll concentration was rejected by the


science team in favour of the scheme traditionally used in their field - the ubiquitous spectrum palette. These colours were desaturated slightly to fit in better with other the maps. The scale for chlorophyll concentration is logarithmic, requiring the data key to be treated as a special case by the software. Divergent colour schemes were used for anomaly data such as that from the Sea Level and Soil Moisture projects. A thematic scheme was required for Land Cover Type (another special case for the software). Some of the colour schemes used on the project are shown in Fig11.

Fig 12. Colour Schemes (from top): Standard spectrum; Modified spectrum used for sea surface temperature; Intuitive scheme for normalised difference vegetation index; Divergent scheme for sea level anomalies (red=positive, blue=negative); Inverted divergent scheme for soil moisture anomalies (red=dry, blue=wet). 4.5 Opening Movie An opening screen movie was produced showing a natural view of the rotating Earth with animated cloud cover, based on Planetary Visions’ Satellite Imagemap and clouds from a climate model. Production of an updated movie incorporating CCI data proceeded once all of the CCI datasets were completed and their colours finalised. The running order and storyboard for the movie are presented in the document Opening Screen Movie. 5. Editorial Content The data presentations are supported by editorial content found on each project’s Info Screens. Each project has at least two Info Screens covering the context and achievements for each project, relevant “headline” facts and figures, the project team and references for the facts and figures. In some cases links are provided to additional ECV parameters for the project, or to additional info screens that may include text, images, graphs, captions, and linear video sequences. Details of the structure of each info screen, and the text content, is provided in the document Info Screen Text (version 3), dated 17 January 2013. A first draft of the project info texts was compiled by Planetary Visions based on the CCI project web pages, and included in the LPS version of the software. The final version of the texts was written by ESA, with editing by Planetary Visions to fit the layout, and with headline facts and figures researched by Planetary Visions and ESA, drawing largely from the IPCC 5th Assessment Report. The CCI science teams were consulted and given the chance to amend both drafts of the text. Additional editorial content was provided by some of the science teams in the form of more detailed text, graphs or animations. In some cases new artwork was generated from the materials supplied in order to fit the design of the software. Five linear video animation sequences were provided by Planetary Visions from a previous project for ESA’s STSE programme. Total data budget for the software, including editorial as well as data content is over 4GB, as detailed in Table 2.


The software allows data comparisons for global data with overlapping time spans, but it was considered best to limit this to scientifically-useful comparisons. A matrix of allowed comparisons was drawn up in consultation with the science teams, as shown in Table 3. Table 2. Software Data budget

Table 3. Data Comparison Matrix


6. Conferences and Exhibitions

Fig 13. CCI Visualisation Corner at ESA Living Planet Symposium, Edinburgh, September 2013. The CCI Visualisation Corner was presented at the following conferences and exhibitions: • ESA Living Planet Symposium (LPS), Edinburgh, 9-13 September 2013 • American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting, San Francisco, 9-13 December 2013 • Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Ministerial Summit, Geneva, 13-17 January 2014 • CCI Co-location Meeting, Frascati, 4-6 February 2014 Planetary Visions staff attended the LPS and Co-location meetings to demonstrate the software and collate user feedback, as well as attending the CMUG Integration meeting in Hamburg, 3-5 June 2013.

Fig 14. CCI science team members being introduced to the software. 7. Recommendations for Future Work Further development of the project could expand the content for exhibition use, as well as address delivery of the content on other platforms. 7.1 Exhibition Version (MacOS) Suggested further development of the project under CCI Phase 2 includes: • Showing all parameters for all ECVs (up to 35 in total). • Showing more hotspot close-ups for the non-global ECVs. • Showing more supporting and contextual material (eg, graphs, maps, text, photos, illustrations, animations). • Updating of datasets as the ECV parameters are improved through Phase 2. 7.2 Exhibition Version (Windows) A Windows version with the same content and functionality as the Mac version is possible with relatively little effort since we have developed using a cross-platform development


environment (Qt v4.8). 7.3 Exhibition Version (iPad) A port to iPad is a little more complicated than to another desktop platform, requiring an updated version of the development environment (Qt v5), the use of OpenGL-ES graphics, and translating the interaction from being mouse-driven to the touch-screen gestural interface of a tablet. 7.4 Extended iPad Version ESA have expressed interest in a version for iPad for wider distribution. There would be some key differences from the current (exhibition) version: • An iPad app is personal For an iPad app viewed by an individual there is the opportunity, and the expectation, that the content will be deeper, and provide more context, than is the case for an exhibition presentation. An iPad app can be closer to an electronic book than a PowerPoint show, with long-form reading and content that is more accessible to a wider audience. • Data volume is limited on iPad For an exhibition show delivered on dedicated hardware, we have no limit on the data volume, so we can present most of the CCI datasets at full temporal and spatial detail. The current version has over 4GB of data (see Table 2), with more expected as placeholders are replaced with complete datasets, and additional parameters are added in Phase 2. For delivery via web download, possibly wireless, there is a practical limit to the size of an iPad app. In the developers experience, image-rich commercial apps of around 2GB are acceptable. Download time can be split by having a basic app that calls for data downloads as and when it needs them, but this relies on having an internet connection whenever a new data download is required. There is still a practical installed data limit on a device with limited storage that is shared with other apps. • Data-lite version for iPad For the reasons outlined above it is likely that an iPad version will offer a subset of the data presented in the exhibition version – certainly no more than the current 4GB. However, it may offer more supporting content such as text and illustrations, which do not add greatly to the data volume. 7.5 Linear Video Animations Many of the science teams have asked if it is possible to have video sequences showing their data. Apart from the opening screen movie, no linear video animation was specified or undertaken as part of this work. It could be done in the form of screen-recordings of the CCI Visualisation Corner, or as custom-made 3D graphics sequences. Planetary Visions has many years’ experience in the production of 3D graphics for science communication, including animations for television documentaries and in recent years for ESA’s STSE and Cryosat programmes. This work typically sees about half the effort going on data preparation and half on 3D graphics production. Since much of the data preparation work would already be done for the Visualisation Corner, linear visualisations of CCI data could be produced quite efficiently. Experience on the STSE Visuals project suggests that the production of high quality 3D graphics helps ESA science stories reach a large public audience. Stories accompanied by data visualisations published on the ESA website have been picked up by tv news programmes and other media, including popular websites such as Gizmodo, giving viewing figures much higher than those for a typical ESA web story. One story had over a million hits on the BBC News website, making it the third most popular story that day. Another reached 9.8 million tv viewers when it was shown on the evening news programmes of all four major broadcasters in the UK on the same night. This could therefore be a highly effective way of presenting the CCI’s work and results to the general public.


8. Project Documents 2 July 2013 Design Specification v1.3 19 July 2013 Alpha version Review 28 Aug 2013 Beta version Review 1 Oct 2013 LPS version Review 11 Dec 2013 COP version Review 17 Jan 2014 Info Screen Text (version 3) 10 Mar 2014 Opening Screen Movie


Appendix 1. CCI Featured Data


Appendix 2. Software Documentation CCI Visualisation Corner BETA version 4.14 Copyright © 2014 Planetary Visions Limited System Requirements MacOS X 10.6 or above. MacOS 10.7 or higher, NVIDIA graphics and widescreen display recommended. Target hardware is 15" MacBook Pro with High Resolution Display. ESA corporate fonts are used. These can be installed from the files in CciContent/esafonts. In addition to the standard ESA fonts, there are two modified versions that need installing (ReykjavikAGauge.otf and ReykjavikCGuage.otf). Getting Started Copy the contents of the CCI disc to your computer's hard disc. From the Finder: Double-click the cci app. It starts in windowed mode at half size, going to full screen after a few seconds. Or from the Terminal: ./cci4.14.app/Contents/MacOS/cci -fullscreen launches fullscreen (default) -fullsize launches at the target size of 1920x1050 pixels -demosize launches at the size of a MacBook Pro standard screen (1280x800 pixels) -timeout <minutes> sets timeout period, after which the app returns to the opening screen (default 10 minutes) -supersize allows top/bottom of screen to be used for map display These options may be specified in a text file for double-click launch: CciContent/options.txt Keyboard Shortcuts H - return to home screen B - back to previous screen F - toggles fullscreen/windowed mode ESC - windowed mode S - supersize mode (maps and globes fill the whole screen or window) Q - quit SPACEBAR - pause/play movies or time sequences < > (left/right arrow) - step one frame backwards or forwards in time sequences ^ v (up/down arrow) - zoom in or out on globe or map External Display Software is optimised for use with an external full HD1080 display in video mirror mode, connected via HDMI. Some adjustment of the overscan may be necessary in System Preferences. Known Bugs Under MacOS 10.6, video playback reverts to blank screen at end of movie. Under MacOS 10.7 and later, movie end is not detected, so play/pause button becomes inactive. To replay the movie, click on the left end of the timeline. Problems with this software Philip Eales [email protected] +44 (0)1252 821 063 www.planetaryvisions.com