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To help the user identify which end is the start of the line, we give the start
and end points different colors and interpolate between them. Blue and red are t
he default colors, but they re user-configurable. Although day-to-day movement of
stations may seem erratic, by using this method, one can make out a general tren
d in the relative motion of a station.
Close-up of a single station s movement during the three year period from 2003 to
2006.
However, static renderings of this sort suffer from the same problem that veloci
ty vector images do; in regions with a high density of GNSS stations, tracks ove
rlap significantly with one another, obscuring details. To solve this problem, o
ur visualization lets the user interactively control the time range of interest,
the amount of amplification and other settings. In addition, by animating the l
ines from start to finish, the user gets a real sense of motion that s difficult t
o achieve in a static image.
We ve applied our new visualization to the ~20 years of data from the GEONET array
in Japan. Through it, we can see small but coherent changes in direction before
and after the great 2011 Tohoku earthquake.
GPS data sets (in .json format) for both the GEONET data in Japan and the Plate
Boundary Observatory (PBO) data in the western US are available at earthquake.rc
.fas.harvard.edu.
This short animation shows many of the visualization s interactive features. In or
der:
Modifying the multiplier adjusts how significantly the movements are magnified.
We can adjust the time slider nubs to select a particular time range of interest
.
Using the map controls provided by the Google Maps JavaScript API, we can zoom i
nto a tiny region of the map.
By enabling map markers, we can see information about individual GNSS stations.
By focusing on a stations of interest, we can even see curvature changes in the
time periods before and after the event.
Station designated 960601 of Japan s GEONET array is located on the island of Miku
ra-jima. Here we see the period from 2006 to 2012, with movement magnified 105.1
times (126,000x).
To achieve fast rendering of the line segments, we created a custom overlay usin
g THREE.js to render the lines in WebGL. Data for the GNSS stations is passed to
the GPU in a data texture, which allows our vertex shader to position each poin
t on-screen dynamically based on user settings and animation.
We re excited to continue this productive collaboration between Harvard and Google
as we explore opportunities for groundbreaking, new earthquake visualizations.
If you d like to try out the visualization yourself, follow the instructions at ea
rthquake.rc.fas.harvard.edu. It will walk you through the setup steps, including
how to download the available data sets. If you d like to report issues, great! P
lease submit them through the GitHub project page.
Acknowledgments
We wish to thank Bill Freeman, a researcher on Machine Perception, who hatched t
he idea and developed the initial prototypes, and Fernanda Vigas and Martin Watte
nberg of the Big Picture Team for their visualization design guidance.
References
[1] Loveless, J. P., and Meade, B. J. (2010). Geodetic imaging of plate motions,
slip rates, and partitioning of deformation in Japan, Journal of Geophysical Re
search.
By Jimbo Wilson, Software Engineer, Big Picture Team and Brendan Meade, Professo
r, Harvard Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences