Multidisciplinary Scientific Visualization in European R&D Projects - Visual Computing: Scientific Visualization and Imaging Systems - page 28

Fig. 1.26 The security SERKET scenario

Objects in the 3D scenes are annotated with metadata and/or with links to metadata
describing the security context in relation to the displayed 3D objects. The 3D
rendition of the situation must provide an unambiguous, highly understandable
overview of the situation to the user, who should be able to switch between different
levels of viewing details and select, at each level, desired viewpoints (the locations
of the video cameras define the available viewpoints). The 3D model of situation-
security awareness is parameterized in space and time as shown in Fig. 1.26 .
The solution is based on the J2EE Application Server platform (JBoss). The
interface between the components is based on SOAP messaging. 3D objects and
scenes are using the X3D file format (an extended XML-based format for storing
graphics). The XML markup language is used for data exchange. X3D can be
extended to include metadata, thus nongraphical information related to the created
graphical object. The development of the graphical middleware visualization
components is done in Java, using the Eclipse environment. The 3D SERKET
desktop enables access, and treatment of security data from heterogeneous sources
and supports:

• 3D models with features
• Level of detail selection
• Navigation and interaction
Figure 1.27 illustrates the main functionality of the SERKET application;
clearly, 3D interaction and 3D models are key elements to a new generation of
visualization software which must now treat and be able to display general purpose
and abstract information such as ''security''.