Researchers at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) and other organizations within the University of California, San Diego, have developed a novel way to encode and display vector data that clearly shows magnitude and direction. This new visualization technique may help seismologists to accurately analyze ground movements for an earthquake, measure magnetic turbulence in deep space, or allow medical researchers to study areas such as blood flow and nutrient absorption.

The earthquake simulation starts to the north, near Parkfield, and ruptures southeastward. The colors (white depicts the most intense shaking) show the amplitude of the waves as they are generated on the fault and radiate to surrounding areas. The number in the top right corner lists the time since the initiation of the earthquake. Notice how areas such as Ventura, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and the Coachella Valley generate some of the strongest (and longest duration) shaking, due to...

With advances in computational capabilities and refinement of seismic wave-propagation models in the past decade large three-dimensional simulations of earthquake ground motion have become possible. The resulting datasets from these simulations are multivariate, temporal and multi-terabyte in size. Past visual representations of results from seismic studies have been largely confined to static two-dimensional maps. New visual representations provide scientists with alternate ways of viewing...

Yifeng Cui discusses "Scientific Computing for Parallel Earthquake Simulation" at the Cyberinfrastructure Experiences for Graduate Students Spring Orientation Workshop in 2007. For more information see: http://www.sdsc.edu/us/training/index.html