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International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Vol XXXV, Part B4. Istanbul 2004
disasters. Today user has big expectations of modeling systems
and in many instances relies on the output being of a high
quality both in presentation and content.
Natural disasters are often talked about in relation to the risk to
an individual, group of people or a valued resource. Spatial
modeling and cartographic visualization can be used to assess
the risk associated with a natural disaster. The analyst must also
realize that the products can only represent simplified versions
of what may possibly be very complex natural systems.
(Spatial)
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Figurel. Graphic representation of use of spatial data
1.2 Motivation
The ecologic problem in Bakar Bay is connected with recovery
of polluted part of land and sea at the place next to the Coke
plant in Bakar Bay. That factory was working for 16 years from
1978 to 1994. During that time cca. 11x10 tons of coke has
been produced.. A single ton of coke leaves 40 kg of coke tar,
so altogether through the mentioned period 440 000 t of coke
tar was produced. Polluted environment is mostly caused
because of unfinished complex for cleaning the coke. The coke
factory is now closed and demolished in 2001. Dangerous gases
and coke supplements together with dangerous gases are still in
ground and urgent recovery is needed.
The data related to this study we got from other sources are
talking about surface, thickness and composition of the polluted
ground, without any map or plan that represents those data.
Based on that information, a team of experts had chosen the
way of recovering, which was appropriate to the ecological
activists. The activists claim that the way of recovery could
cause even more damage to the area.
Further actions for recovery of that polluted area are now
active, and other ways of recovery is considering, for that
purpose this visualization could help.
Polluted sea ground is also shown on this map, but for recovery
of sea bottom there is no option yet and there is no any
successful example in the world today as well.
1.3 Objective
Considering the fact that there is no any map used in this study
and for better, direct and detailed approaches to the problem,
this visualization could help. In this paper, visualization of
amount of coke in ground and sea ground is shown through
GeoVRML standard.
Aim of the visualization is to develop infrastructure for
analyzing of data (data base, GIS, WWW servers). Result of
which is data base and WWW service for monitoring of
pollution, analyzing and controlling of the recovery process
459
Results are of primary importance for different scientific groups
ccology, population biology, biogeography, forestry
pharmacy, agriculture and regional planning.
2. VRML AND GEOVRML
2.1 Description of standards
Geographic visualization emerged from geoinformation
processing and displaying technology, such as cartography,
GIS, Virtual Reality and visualization in scientific computing
environment. It appearance lead to a lot of fundamental changes
in many fields, for example data exploring, making social
decision and understanding how things work. There are several
reasons for its use:
e visualization helps users comprehend large quantities of
data,
e visual attributes can present abstract representations of
data,
e relationships among displayed entities become apparent,
e graphical techniques allow more direct intuitive
interactions with the entities of interest.
VRML is one of internet applications whose focus is on the 3D
graphics. GeoVRML is used for visualization of georeferenced
data using VRML 97 standard. Some of alternative approaches
can do some of the things better than VRML but they have
disadvantages too (Java3D, 3DML, PGML...)
VRML is an ISO standard and it is the most popular format,
according to many of the authors publishing research papers in
area of web 3D graphic. GeoVRML is a standard which is
added to VRML97 ISO specification.
Advantages of Virtual reality are 3D-interactivity, immersion,
imagination. VRML might visualize intelligent geoinformation
in WWW 3D environment, especially if model components are
linked to spatial databases.
GeoVRML 1.0 is a new standard Web-based 3D technology. It
is an extension of VRML which allows exact presentation of
spatially defined data, giving to the Internet user possibility of
integrating forms defined in 3D into the Virtual Reality.
GcoVRML is 3D representation of georeferenced data on the
web i.e. integration of GIS with VRML to allow users to create
models and simulations that are grounded in physical real-world
data.
In a general 3D-simulation system, the user is only an external
observer, and he or she can see only the graphic that computer
generates through the screen. But VR allows the user to become
an inside participant of environment through all kinds of
function combination. We can easily say it is a new way of
seeing and exploring the world. Only the VRML can be
practically used for walk-through simulation.
VRML is a high-performance language for 3-D visualization on
the WWW. As a programming language and library for 3-D
computer graphics, VRML has many functions such as shading,
setting objects, projection, and texture mapping. Virtual reality
worlds can be easily built on the WWW with this technology.
VRML 1.0 was introduced in 1994 and VRML 2.0 (97) with
more dynamic and interactive functions was made in 1996.
GeoVRML and X3D, are the successors of VRML. In this
