NCCS Hyperwall Show: MERRA Timeline

Released Friday, July 30, 2010

ID: 3726

- Visualizations by:
- Greg Shirah

This animation is a timeline intended to accompany the NCCS MERRA hyperwall show. The timeline shows the extent of the MERRA data set along with the period that the NCCS hyperwall MERRA show covers. The MERRA show includes visualizations from May through July for the years 1993 (a flood year for central North America) and 1988 (a drought year for central North America). Visualizations synchronized in time are shown above and below the timeline on the hyperwall.

MERRA. is the Modern Era Retrospective-analysis for Research and Applications. It is a 30-year continuous data record based on a computational atmospheric model that includes assimilated satellite data. MERRA uses the Goddard Earth Observing System Data Assimilation System Version 5 (GEOS-5) model.

This visualization was created for display on the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) hyperwall. This is a set of tiled high definition displays consisting of 5 displays across by 3 displays down. The full resolution of all combined displays is 6840 pixels accross by 2304 pixels down. This movie was rendered at this high resolution, then diced up into images to be displayed on each screen.

Fully composited version of MERRA timeline (all 5 tiles together)

The large animation above is diced-up into smaller pieces that can be played on the hyperwall. Each piece is named according to a standard spreadsheet convention with a1 at the upper left and e3 at the lower right. This image illustrates this naming convention used in the diced-up frame sets below.