Professional Documents
Culture Documents
A River Visualized
CH.01 CH.02 CH.03 CH.04 CH.05 CH.06 CH.07 CH.08
The Problem
The Goal
Given this isolation, it is important to reveal to design-
ers, engineers, policy makers, and urban residents
generally the presence, interconnection, scale, dyna-
mism, and necessity of fluvial watersheds in order to
encourage a rediscovery of healthy water-urbanism
relationships. While the goal or interpretation of the
data could be more critically or speculatively repre-
sented, the ultimate goal for an initial visualization
should present simply the hidden facts of flux and in-
tegrality.
In order to convey the scope of the river system, it Mississippi River and Tributaries
is essential to convey the many inputs, the extent of
interconnection, and the temporal effects in the sys-
tem. Each of these facets can be read in multiple di-
mensions: the inputs of physical topography, geology,
and precipitation; both geographical and ecological
interconnection; daily, seasonal, and annual temporal-
ity. Further still, these multi-faceted characteristics of
an interrelated system must be described at multiple
scales in order to convey the depth of impact. Finally
in terms of interface, it is most effective to relate to the
viewer both visually and tangibly.
The Data
River Levels
Monitoring stations along the length of all major and
most minor rivers and tributaries, operated by both
the United States Geological Survey and the United
States Army Corps of Engineers that record the level
of the river.
Precipitation
Doppler radar maps for the continental United States
are provided for download, designed to be used by lo-
cal weather reports and media groups.
Source - www.water.weather.gov/precip/
Operator - NOAA/National Weather Service
Scale - Continental US
Topography
Digital Elevation Models (DEM) are GIS files that rep-
resent topography in a two-dimensional format but
can be translated to a three-dimensional form via Rhi-
noTerrain.
Source - atlas.lsu.edu/
Operator - Louisiana State University
Extent - State of Louisiana
atlas.lsu.edu
Precisions - 5 meters
Availability - Manual download by 15’ quadrants
Digital Elevation Model At
Data Selection and Collection New Orleans Gauge
Each of the river level sources has its advantage.
Given the role of this project as demonstrative in a
short time of a large dataset, it is preferable to use a
historical dataset rather than real-time. The accumu-
lation of this data was time-consuming in that first the
monitoring stations sampled had to be reduced from
the total amount based on redundancy, inaccuracy, or
insufficient history. Once identified each dataset had
to be downloaded, organized, reformatted, and com-
piled into one dataset. With the aid of a custom Pro-
cessing sketch, the download and pixel manipulation
(hue shift) of the precipitation maps was able to be
automated. Finally the DEM files proved difficult due
to their astonishing resolution, far beyond what was
needed and thus were drastically simplified for use. Compiled Historical River Levels
CH.01 CH.02 CH.03 CH.04 CH.05 CH.06 CH.07 CH.08
The Format
This data already exists in certain disparate formats as
has been seen above, but none are particularly user-
friendly, indicative of trends in the data, nor compre-
hensive in scope of the river system. Thus the format
of the visualization will integrate the different data in
two digital, visual interfaces and a physical interface;
these will each address one of three scales of the sys-
tem: drainage basin (41% of continental US), individ-
ual river (Mississippi River), and local (New Orleans
topography). These interfaces will all be accessing
the same base historical river level information as a
real-time display would be impractically slow (every
Rendering of Proposed Installation
six hours). The user will have the option of controlling
all interfaces in one of two modes, cycling or scrolling,
thereby being able to experience different temporal
scales of the data (e.g. seasonally by cycling quickly,
day-to-day by cycling slowly, and comparing specific
times by scrolling from point to point in time).
CH.08 CH.07 CH.06 CH.05 CH.04 CH.03 CH.02 CH.01
Topography Model
Separate from the above interrelated interface, a sin-
gle monitoring point is isolated. The topography of
given point, here that of New Orleans, LA, is repre-
sented by a CNC-milled foam model from the DEM
data. This model is variably submerged by twin Ar-
duino-controlled standard servo motors mounted on
either side of the model to simulate the river’s level at
a given date, and in the case of New Orleans’ topog-
raphy below the height of the river: the effect of that
river level were there no levee protection. Due to the
limited speed of the motors, it is preferable to operate
them on an independent basis from the digital inter-
face. Thus a year’s worth of river level data particular Topography Model System
to the given monitoring point, from the same source
used elsewhere, is stored within the Arduino code, al-
lowing it to operated external of a computer’s input.
The design of the contraption is a delicate balance
of scale and technics. Given the extreme buoyancy
of foam and the limited torque of servo motors, it is
necessary to limit the size of the model to maintain
operability but also guard a minimum size to maintain
efficacy as demonstration. This is true also of the gear Arduino + River Time Display
design and the topography’s scale of exaggeration,
Level Display
gears must be optimized to the 180 degree limit of
standard servos, the necessary linear displacement,
and the maximum torque.
Inter-Visualization Communication
The need for two projected displays necessitated the
two digital interfaces to run on separate computers,
thus in order to sync their operation based on user
input it was necessary to communicate through a text
file hosted on a third location. Several options were Data Flow Chart
explored with speed the utmost concern. PHP access
via a website was initially explored but depended on
PHP support from the website and varying internet
speeds; hosting via the LAN server, Goliath, at the
GSD was preferable as higher speeds were attainable
but is not globally available; the fastest option is to run
both sketches on one computer and extend the moni-
tor output with dual monitors, each running a separate
sketch full screen, however this eliminates the pos-
sibility for dual monitors.
The Future
A fully formed version of this installation would fea-
ture primarily a more highly developed user interface,
detailed topography models, more quickly functioning
code, and cleaner mechanics. The user interface re-
quires refinement that guards tactility with a greater
degree of accuracy. Highly detailed digital topography
models are readily available but unusable with mod-
els as small as those used here. The code must be
more streamlined for demonstrations to function more
quickly, however a realistic future would be for a real-
time ambient installation that would not have these
groundlab.com
problems of processing speed. Finally the mechanics
GroundLab
of motors, gears, and electrics should be generally far
more streamlined and elegant. The overall message
of this visualization is very general in scope (to recog-
Data-Driven Urban Modelling
nize interconnected, dynamic natural systems), thus
this same data viewed in far more focused, narrowed,
smaller-scaled, and projective ways could be very
valuable and part of a lineage of visualizations begin
here. The ultimate goal would be the proposal of a
dynamic model of urbanism that respond, accepts, or
moves with the dynamic system; perhaps an integra-
tion of this data with Firefly plug-in for Grasshopper
could be a format for this kind of speculation.
inhabitat.com
duravermeer
Floating Houses