MUSURF: visualizing geometric uncertainty of multiple surface interpolants
Hiroya Chiba, Suresh K. Lodha · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 1997
Uncertainty or errors are introduced in scientific visualization as the data is acquired, transformed and rendered. In this work, we focus on the uncertainty introduced by the interpolation process. Appropriate tools for investigating the geometry of these interpolants are crucial in determining the accuracy of these interpolants or comparing and contrasting these interpolants. A visualization tool for investigating this geometric uncertainty of surface interpolants was recently reported by Lodha et al. This tool combines various traditional techniques such as side-by-side viewing, differencing, pseudo-coloring with more modern techniques such as glyphs, transparency and texture. One of the limitations of this software was that it could be used to compare only tow surfaces at a time. This was rather inconvenient if one were to compare two surface interpolants at the same time with a given 'true' surface. MUSURF fills this gap by allowing users to visually compare two surface interpolants together with the 'true' surface. This simplifies the task of comparative evaluation of two interpolants considerably. MUSURF also extends the software in several directions. First, it adds a few more capabilities to the geometric uncertainty system. The two most important capabilities are cross-sectional contours and correlating the errors with glyphs. Finally, MUSURF incorporates sound capabilities to distinguish between several surface interpolants at the same time. We also present applications of MUSURF to analytic and digital elevation data sets.