3D Digital Twins of the Ocean: towards an intuitive and realistic visualization of wave parameters
- 1Institut Català de Recerca per a la Governança del Mar (ICATMAR), Barcelona, Spain (gerard.llorach@csic.es)
- 2Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM-CSIC), Barcelona, Spain
- 3SARTI-MAR Research Group, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Vilanova i la Geltrú, Spain
- 4School of Mechanical and Design Engineering, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK
Understanding and picturing the state of the sea surface according to wave parameters can be difficult for non-expert users. 3D digital twins of the ocean, i.e., realistic virtual copies of the sea state with live updates, can provide user-friendly visualizations. An animated visual representation offers users a more tangible reference to the actual sea state in the field than conventional swell and wind forecasts. Our work presents an interactive web-based open-source visualization of wave data in a 3D realistic environment. The wave data used is provided by a forecast model, CMEMS [1], and the in-situ observation platform OBSEA [2]. Both of these data products provide an open access API that can be accessed via the browser, following the FAIR principles. The challenge of this work is to translate the wave parameters of the data products into a real-time computer graphics simulation representing the real sea state. Different data products provide different parameters, for example, CMEMS forecast model computes wave significant height, wave period, and direction for ‘sea surface wave’, ‘wind wave’, ‘swell 1’, and ‘swell 2’, whereas OBSEA measures wave properties with an acoustic doppler wave array such as ‘Hm0’, ‘H1/10’, ‘H1/3’, and ‘directional spread’. We will discuss algorithms based on empirical observations to generate the virtual sea state from a selection of wave parameters. Subsequently both quantitative and qualitative metrics based on observations will be used to compare between the 3D digital twin and the real sea state. Preliminary results of the digital twin can be found at https://icatmar.github.io/CasablancaBuoy/ and https://cgi-dto.github.io/OBSEA/.
[1] Korres, G., Oikonomou, C., Denaxa, D., & Sotiropoulou, M. (2023). Mediterranean Sea Waves Analysis and Forecast (Copernicus Marine Service MED-Waves, MEDWAΜ4 system) (Version 1) [Data set]. Copernicus Marine Service (CMS). DOI: 10.25423/CMCC/MEDSEA_ANALYSISFORECAST_WAV_006_017_MEDWAM4
[2] Del Rio, J. [et al.]. Obsea: a decadal balance for a cabled observatory deployment. "IEEE access", 13 Febrer 2020, vol. 8, p. 33163-33177.
How to cite: Llorach-Tó, G., Martínez, E., Del-Río, J., Simarro, G., Pani, M., Bucchi, A., Huang, Y., and García-Ladona, E.: 3D Digital Twins of the Ocean: towards an intuitive and realistic visualization of wave parameters, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-19105, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-19105, 2024.
