LIME: Software for 3-D Visualization, Interpretation, and Communication of Virtual Geoscience Models Simon J
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LIME: Software for 3-D visualization, interpretation, and communication of virtual geoscience models Simon J. Buckley, Kari Ringdal, Nicole Naumann, Benjamin Dolva, Tobias H. Kurz, John A. Howell, Thomas Dewez To cite this version: Simon J. Buckley, Kari Ringdal, Nicole Naumann, Benjamin Dolva, Tobias H. Kurz, et al.. LIME: Software for 3-D visualization, interpretation, and communication of virtual geoscience models. Geo- sphere, Geological Society of America, 2019, 15, pp.222-235. 10.1130/GES02002.1. hal-02380693 HAL Id: hal-02380693 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02380693 Submitted on 28 Nov 2019 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Software Contribution GEOSPHERE LIME: Software for 3-D visualization, interpretation, and communication of virtual geoscience models GEOSPHERE, v. 15, no. 1 Simon J. Buckley1,2, Kari Ringdal1, Nicole Naumann1, Benjamin Dolva1, Tobias H. Kurz1, John A. Howell3, and Thomas J.B. Dewez4 1NORCE Norwegian Research Centre AS, P.O. Box 22, N-5838 Bergen, Norway https://doi.org/10.1130/GES02002.1 2Department of Earth Science, University of Bergen, P.O. Box 7803, N-5020 Bergen, Norway 3Department of Geology and Petroleum Geology, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB24 3UE, UK 9 figures 4BRGM–French Geological Survey, 45060 Orléans, France CORRESPONDENCE: [email protected] ABSTRACT science, volcanology, natural hazards, hydrology, energy, infrastructure, and CITATION: Buckley, S.J., Ringdal, K., Naumann, N., Dolva, B., Kurz, T.H., Howell, J.A., and Dewez, mining). Laser scanning (lidar), global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), T.J.B., 2019, LIME: Software for 3-D visualization, The use of three-dimensional (3-D), photo-textured representations of to- digital photogrammetry (also referred to as structure from motion [SfM]), and interpretation, and communication of virtual geosci- pography from laser scanning and photogrammetry is becoming increasingly imaging remote sensing have all evolved heavily over the last two decades, ence models: Geosphere, v. 15, no. 1, p. 222–235, https://doi.org/10.1130/GES02002.1. common across the geosciences. This rapid adoption is driven by recent inno- and are distinguished by unprecedented resolution, precision, and ease of vations in acquisition hardware, software automation, and sensor platforms, use. Computing hardware has developed to facilitate field-based acquisition Science Editor: Shanaka de Silva including unmanned aerial vehicles. In addition, fusion of surface geometry (Weng et al., 2012; Kehl et al., 2017), and more analysis tools are available with imaging sensors, such as multispectral, hyperspectral, thermal, and in geographical information systems (GIS). The evolving state of the art can Received 13 April 2018 ground-based radar, and geophysical methods creates complex and visual be followed through the scientific literature, from early adoption to the status Revision received 30 August 2018 data sets that provide a fundamental spatial framework to address open geo- quo. This is exemplified by rapid adoption across the many arms of the geo- Accepted 16 October 2018 science research questions. science subdisciplines (see, e.g., McCaffrey et al. [2005], Pringle et al. [2006], Published online 10 January 2019 Despite the current ease of acquiring and processing 3-D photo-textured Buckley et al. [2008a], Kääb [2008], Pavlis et al. [2010], Jaboyedoff et al. [2012], models, the accessibility of tools for analyzing and presenting data remains Hodgetts [2013], Bemis et al. [2014], Eitel et al. [2016], Eltner et al. [2016], Kehl et problematic, characterized by steep learning curves and custom solutions for al. [2017], and Squelch [2017] as a small subset of papers providing snapshots individual geoscience applications. Interpretation and measurement is es- of developments through time). sential for quantitative analysis of 3-D data sets, and qualitative methods are The reinvention of photogrammetry—a technique that has advanced in valuable for presentation purposes, for planning, and in education. This con- line with photographic innovations—has recently intensified the adoption of tribution presents LIME, a lightweight and high-performance 3-D software for three-dimensional (3-D) spatial data by geoscientists. This has been driven interpreting and co-visualizing 3-D models and related image data. The soft- by the ubiquity of digital cameras and major increases in automation arising ware allows measurement and interpretation via digitizing in the 3-D scene. In from scientific outputs from the computer vision discipline (e.g., interest op- addition, it features novel data integration and visualization of 3-D topography erators, feature point matching, and dense point cloud extraction; Granshaw with image sources such as logs and interpretation panels, supplementary and Fraser, 2015), which have been implemented in easy-to-use software OLD G wavelength imagery, geophysical data sets, and georeferenced maps and im- packages. In addition, new dynamic sensor platforms such as unmanned ae- ages. High-quality visual output can be generated for dissemination to aid rial vehicles (UAVs) and mobile mapping systems allow 3-D acquisition in a researchers with communication of their results. The motivation and an over- wide range of configurations, and extended-spectral-range imaging sensors view of the software are described, illustrated by example usage scenarios (multispectral and hyperspectral, thermal, radar; Eitel et al., 2016) provide OPEN ACCESS from outcrop geology, multi-sensor data fusion, and geophysical-geospatial new possibilities for complementing purely geometric approaches (Buckley data integration. et al., 2013). Finally, societal policy shifts have moved toward making geo- spatial data freely available to the public through public- or private-sector initiatives (Krishnan et al., 2011; U.S. Geological Survey, 2017; Norwegian INTRODUCTION Mapping Authority, 2017). These developments have facilitated workflows for obtaining 3-D dig- This paper is published under the terms of the The use of digital spatial data is becoming commonplace in many areas ital representations of surface topography across the range of scales (i.e., CC-BY-NC license. of the geosciences (for example in geology, geomorphology, cryospheric hand sample to regional elevation models). Consequently, geoscientists are © 2019 The Authors GEOSPHERE | Volume 15 | Number 1 Buckley et al. | LIME virtual geoscience software Downloaded from https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geosphere/article-pdf/15/1/222/4619098/222.pdf 222 by BRGM user on 28 November 2019 Software Contribution empowered to obtain their own spatial data, which once would have been un- The need for a high-performance, simple-to-use software for geoscience achievable without expensive equipment and high expertise levels. The result users to quickly start working with visual 3-D data sets was the initial mo- is the current rapid adoption of digital spatial data across the diverse arms of tivation for creating LIME. Although data acquisition and processing have the geosciences (Buckley et al., 2017). become easier, and computing power has been vastly improved with 64-bit Although data acquisition and processing have become more processors and more powerful graphics processing units (GPUs), issues in automated—embodied by the empowerment of field geoscientists who, these areas continue to exist (e.g., Hodgetts, 2013). Initially, LIME provided armed with digital cameras and easy-to-use SfM software, are now able measurement and digitization tools to aid quantitative interpretation, as well to capture and process image sets to make 3-D models, even during a field as level-of-detail rendering of large digital topographic 3-D models, where campaign—the exploitation of this data for many geoscience applications model resolution is adaptively loaded according to the user’s current posi- continues to lag behind. Applications commonly demand custom analysis tion and zoom when navigating the 3-D scene. Over time, the software has solutions; however, interpretation, visualization, and dissemination needs additionally become increasingly focused on novel co-visualization of dispa- are shared by many different geoscience subdisciplines. The limited avail- rate geoscience data types (e.g., Buckley et al., 2013) and visual presentation ability of accessible and fit-for-purpose software tools has been a continued (dissemination) of 3-D environments. This has resulted in LIME as a software barrier to adoption of 3-D spatial data for new users (e.g., Hodgetts, 2013). framework for compiling spatial and non-spatial data sets, to aid the inter- At the same time, quantitative and qualitative analysis is critical to maxi- pretation process by integrating tools in a coherent implementation useful mizing the full value of the 3-D spatial data sets now achievable. Thus, there to geoscientists. is still a need for cross-disciplinary software tools that allow geoscientists Another important motivation for LIME has been to facilitate the