Scientific Visualization, 2019, volume 11, number 1, pages 70 - 79, DOI: 10.26583/sv.11.1.06
Concept of a visualization method for Earth’s gravity field on plain maps
Authors: M.A. Boyarchuk1, I.G. Zhurkin2, V.B. Nepoklonov3
Moscow state university of geodesy and cartography (MIIGAiK), Moscow, Russia
1 ORCID: 0000-0001-8218-2677, stan931@rambler.ru
2 ORCID: 0000-0002-2277-1557, zhurkin@miigaik.ru
3 ORCID: 0000-0003-1241-1117, vbnep@miigaik.ru
Abstract
Currently in the study of Earth’s physical fields vector field components are represented as separate scalar fields. Moreover, application of GIS-technologies within a framework of physical scalar fields' mapping has increased recently. Digital representation of those fields is based on either regular grids or TIN-networks. Based on the analysis of existing geophysical field representation methods, a new method of Earth physical vector fields’ visualization that allows for simultaneous visualization for all components of a three dimensional vector on a plane map is presented. Application of quaternions for representation and visualization of vector fields is a distinctive feature of this method, which allows for an effective way for coordinate system transformations, finding of a resultant field and interpolation. À ruleset for converting quaternions’ components into color system coordinates is described as well as an example of vector components restoration from color image. Also, an illustrating experiment is presented. Described visualization method can be used in GIS for more complete and detailed representation of Earth’s physical fields. Moreover, quaternion representation may find its uses in navigation. The research was supported by Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR, grant 16-05-00720).
Keywords: geophysical fields, gravity field, GIS, visualization, multidimensional vector fields.
