Introducing the UNAVCO GEON Integrated Data Viewer (IDV)
The UNAVCO IDV is a true 3D system for exploration of Earth-located data.
The IDV is for exploration of complex three-dimensional data in geophysics.
If you have Earth science data, the IDV is a powerful tool to investigate it.
The IDV is designed to help you discover and understand complex details in your data, and to compare diverse data sets in
fully-interactive 3D displays.
The IDV has extensive control over map projections, data display types, symbols, and coloring.
You can compare multiple data sets and multiple data types in single displays.
The IDV has full controls of depth of 3D displays, point of view, and time animation.
The IDV makes displays for any size of regions from meter-scale up to the full globe.
The IDV makes impressive data displays. Its first use is for exploring data, interactively and in 3D.
Live interactive presentations are another prime use. Making static final figures for
publication is secondary.
For a quick look at how the IDV can show your data, check out the displays below.
For more, see
Geophysical Data Types and IDV Displays
The IDV makes horizontal and vertical cross sections, vertical profiles with depth, 3D isosurfaces, and includes images
and shape file lines. Point data is displayed as symbols including special symbols such as GPS and focal mechanism symbols.
If your data is grids (2D, 3D, or 4D), point observations, imagery mapped on the Earth, tracks or soundings,
or most any data mapped in or on the Earth, you can interactively display it and explore it with the IDV.
You can display data in a globe or map view with most any projection,
area, and vertical scale. You can make your own map projection,
for example, a Lambert conformal map centered on your area.
The IDV has internal computational features to process single or multiple data sets, from
simple formulas to complete analysis programs. You can write your own processing code that the IDV uses internally.
There are online how-to-s and tutorials, and data sources.
You can save IDV displays as images and movies for use in presentations, publications, and
educational materials. You can run a GeoWall or other true 3D display systems
with the IDV. You can easily save the configuration of any simple or complex IDV display, to recreate it
later with one simple request.
The IDV is free, with an installer program including everything you need. You do not need to
compile anything, or install other software. The IDV runs on Windows, Linux, Mac, and Solaris.
The IDV uses a graphical user interface with menus.
There are no command lines in normal use, but
the IDV can be run by comand line in background, offscreen, to make displays of incoming new data,
or to make web page displays of data by online user request.
You can send a simple configuration file to others so they can run the IDV to see exactly what
you see, and then interact with the data. This is a powerful tool for collaboration and for
classroom and lab exercises.
Modern geoscience data, like the Earth which it represents, often is three-dimensional and time-varying, with complexity on all length scales. Finding and studying significant features in such data is greatly improved with new approaches that use interactive three-dimensional visualizations.
Although the IDV creates impressive 3D displays, it is
designed for careful and detailed data exploration and quantitative analysis. It is not merely a
tool to make illustrations.
Origins of the IDV
The UNAVCO GEON IDV is the solid-earth extension of the Unidata IDV (Integrated Data Viewer).
The
Unidata IDV is a "meteorologically oriented, platform-independent,
application for visualization and analysis."
Unidata is part of
UCAR, a top national meteorological research center funded by the NSF, in Boulder Colorado.
The UNAVCO IDV was created by UNAVCO with funding from the GEON program .
Click for larger image.
Geophysics summary cross section (Karlstrom al. 2006, Plate 3), geology map (Colorado State GS),
seismic tomography isosurface (S. Van der Lee et al.; orange), seismicity (IRIS DMC archive; blue crosses),
earthquake focal mechanism beachballs (Global CMT Project), surface faults (USGS; yellow),
and GPS surface velocity vectors (UNAVCO Plate Boundary Observatory, red).
The live display in the GEON IDV is fully interactive in 3D with zooming, panning and rotation in any direction, and toggling data types.
Recent IDV visits
2010 IDV visits