Speaker: Schalko, Diana (TU Wien)
Traditionally geologists perform geological interpretations of rock outcrops and sediments in the field. At each outcrop they document their findings by taking notes and photographs, recording relevant measurements, and drawing sketches. The geological
interpretation entails the investigation of contacts. A contact delineates where one specific layer of rock ends, and a different one begins. In recent years, software tools have enabled geologists to perform their investigations remotely, for instance, on 3D surface
reconstructions of rock outcrops. On a digital outcrop the geologist traces contacts by drawing annotations in the form of polylines onto the 3D surface. On these annotations, geologists perform a statistical analysis. Such an analysis includes, for instance, the
aggregation of metric and angular measurements in histograms and rose diagrams, respectively. An important angular measurement is the calculation of Dip-and-Strike (DnS). DnS measurements provide information about the direction in which air or water
flowed in the geological past of a rock outcrop.
Typically, the tasks of annotating the 3D data and computing statistics on the data are performed separately, i.e. the annotated data is exported into a different software tool to perform the statistical analysis. This leads to an interruption of the geological interpretation workflow. The geologist must go back and forth between tools to refine the drawing and selection of annotations and to perform the statistical analysis anew. The aim of this thesis is to bridge this separation of tools. To this end, we conduct a design
study in collaboration with experts from the geology domain. We will implement a visualization prototype that meets their scientific requirements and allows them to perform the statistical analysis of a geological interpretation interactively and without
interruptions. Furthermore, we will analyze how the insights gained from this work relate to the larger research area of visualization. The prototype will be implemented within the software Planetary Robotics 3D (PRo3D) [1]. PRo3D is primarily used in planetary geology and offers tools to conduct remote geological analysis on high resolution 3D surface
reconstructions.
[1] Barnes R., Gupta S., Traxler C., Ortner T., Bauer A., et al. Geological analysis of Martian
rover-derived digital outcrop models using the 3D visualization tool, planetary robotics 3D
viewer PRo3D. Earth and Space Science, vol. 5, no. 7, pp. 285-307, 2018