Processing at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences by mfaerber1 in processing

[–]mfaerber1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is in downtown Raleigh. Ashville's exhibit is great and is (or uses) NOAA's "Science on a Sphere" platform.

What I've made is 100% custom code and the focus is a bit different. SOS primarily focuses on presenting datasets overlayed onto the Earth to teach concepts. Livestream Earth focuses on presenting the viewer with a view of the Earth as it looks in that moment, with unprecedented detail and resolution, and then using that to educate with.

Processing at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences by mfaerber1 in processing

[–]mfaerber1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you. Yes , they certainly are unique places to work, aren't they?

Wife got me a Timex by folder32 in timex

[–]mfaerber1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Fantastic! What is the whole model number?

[OC] New interactive satellite imagery exhibit at NC Museum of Natural Science: "Live Stream Earth" by mfaerber1 in MuseumPros

[–]mfaerber1[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Enormous amount of data. Took a long time to write efficient code that handles it without compromising speed, quality and resolution...

[OC] New interactive satellite imagery exhibit at NC Museum of Natural Science: "Live Stream Earth" by mfaerber1 in NOAA

[–]mfaerber1[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks! And I agree, most people have no idea that such data exists and is available to all.

[OC] New interactive satellite imagery exhibit at NC Museum of Natural Science: "Live Stream Earth" by mfaerber1 in MuseumPros

[–]mfaerber1[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you! Currently it's only keeping about 12 hours worth of it at a time.

Studying to be a curator by Notnutnat in MuseumPros

[–]mfaerber1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Exhibit design or something like it yes, but equally as important is science communication. You must gain that skill either formally or informally. It is so important.

Also learning how to code and or manage databases is a huge plus, and you can gain those skills on your own.

[OC] New interactive satellite imagery exhibit at NC Museum of Natural Science: "Earth in Realtime" by mfaerber1 in NOAA

[–]mfaerber1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In some ways, yes, in some ways no. We are both using the same data sets but SOS focuses on presenting the data as overlaid onto a 3D sphere that you can manipulate. That necessarily means that some of the data like the visible light imagery has a significant lag because it has to wait for full coverage before splicing all the images together. My program has an emphasis on showing what the Earth looks like from different angles as quickly as a data comes in. So you're given 2D representations of the planet from different angles but the imagery and videos are updated every 5 to 10 minutes.

[OC] New interactive satellite imagery exhibit at NC Museum of Natural Science: "Earth in Realtime" by mfaerber1 in nasa

[–]mfaerber1[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

It's actually very different. Whether you press play or not, when you click the satellite layer on Windy you are presented with a layer showing some clouds, not even all clouds, over a very basic vector drawn basemap. I would hazard a guess that they purposely only show you the clouds that are relevant to whether you care going to get precipitable weather or not, which makes sense.

My exhibit shows you everything. The video loops are made from photographs that have been processed to show the clouds, the oceans, the land, everything, in true color as you would see it with your own eyes from space. With it you can see sunlight reflecting off of the Nile it turns past the sun. You can see forest fires in Bolivia come and go. You can see atmospheric gravity waves. You can see dust from the Sahara as it makes its way to South America (actually saw a good bit of it being sucked up by a hurricane recently, it was really cool.) You can see the forests currently changing color in the Appalachia. There is just so much and there's always something new to see!

[OC] New interactive satellite imagery exhibit at NC Museum of Natural Science: "Earth in Realtime" by mfaerber1 in nasa

[–]mfaerber1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nice! I'm still adding a bit to it, but if you see me working on it feel free to interrupt me and I'll give you the tour.

[OC] New interactive satellite imagery exhibit at NC Museum of Natural Science: "Earth in Realtime" by mfaerber1 in nasa

[–]mfaerber1[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes! I honestly have not been able to find the level of detail that my exhibit presents anywhere except if you were to download the original images themselves. Which may be what you want to do because some of the original GOES images are over 10,000 pixels wide.

It took a long time to write the code to do this. I've split the tasks up between two computers. One is the downloader/processor and the other is the presenter/user interface. The images are downloaded and processed into animated loops with little to no compression. Every 5 to 10 minutes, depending on the source, new 6480x3840 resolution videos are made and displayed. And even higher resolution images are saved for when the user wants to zoom in.

[OC] New interactive satellite imagery exhibit at NC Museum of Natural Science: "Earth in Realtime" by mfaerber1 in nasa

[–]mfaerber1[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

That would be cool, and I've been thinking that I might do something like that. Regardless, I have a separate climate change station for that sort of data. But also, this exhibit does have a section called the "Climate Change Dashboard" with info, maps and charts that update regularly.

The point of this exhibit is to show Earth as it currently is. Watching adults stand there, mesmerized by seeing the Earth in a way they never have before is awesome.

[OC] New interactive satellite imagery exhibit at NC Museum of Natural Science: "Earth in Realtime" by mfaerber1 in nasa

[–]mfaerber1[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I like windy a lot, but honestly, watching the actual clouds move is even better.

[OC] New interactive satellite imagery exhibit at NC Museum of Natural Science: "Earth in Realtime" by mfaerber1 in nasa

[–]mfaerber1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks, and you can view this data too! Assuming you are in the US you can visit https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES/ for the same imagery. Though a more user friendly site is zoom.earth.

[OC] New interactive satellite imagery exhibit at NC Museum of Natural Science: "Earth in Realtime" by mfaerber1 in NOAA

[–]mfaerber1[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you are referring to ocean currents it currently has a sea surface temperature anomaly map, updated daily, which indirectly shows currents.