Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 11.13
A joint research group discussion where palaeontologists interacted with geologists
and seismologists (public engagement event for a National Geographic Channel science documentary)
palaeontologists regarding the spatial layout, in this case understanding why certain fossil
finds should occur at specific locations and where to explore in the next field trip. This visual
approach to analysis was found to have great savings in both time and financial resources. To
enable this visually, the fossil find locations are superimposed as sets of markers positioned
on top of the three-dimensional geological features of the surrounding terrain. This mode
of interactive visualization enabled a virtual field trip to occur that could never happen, or
would be very expensive, and to be repeated again and again.
Virtual environments becoming affordable
Unfortunately, all these systems suffer from being relatively expensive, in both resources
and management time, and are not portable. In recent years it has become possible to
build cheaply a small, portable version based upon a design concept product called a
GeoWall (Turner and LeBlanc, 2006), using commercially available components, for under
£10 000. Quality has been sacrificed at this stage, but these systems are now affordable across
disciplines for a variety of purposes. A basic projection and recording system is shown in
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