GEOpod: Using a game-style interface to explore a serious meteorological database

Abstract

This paper discusses the human-computer interface component of the GEOPOD project, a software system that implements an interactive, intuitive interface – the GEOpod – that allows student users to probe a 3-D immersive environment of authentic geophysical data (i.e. based on real observations, assimilated data, and/or simulated output from physically consistent, numerical weather prediction modeling systems), actuate virtual atmospheric devices to collect data, and record observations. The system provides a guided instructional environment in which meteorology undergraduate students can explore a given atmospheric volume in a “shuttlepod-like” virtual flying machine. Because the atmospheric data consist of real-time observations and imagery, along with simulated data from numerical models based on actual physics, the exploration environment naturally exhibits technical accuracy, scientific soundness, physical consistency, authenticity, and high fidelity.