Phased Array Radar Isosurface

This is all-around cool stuff ... it brings together a lot of the different research my group is doing. The biggest research effort at the lab right now is modifying a Navy SPY-1 phased array radar so that it can be used for weather detection. The fact that we could collect this data is itself the product of a lot of new and innovative stuff.

Then ... hand-editing functionality to dealias the velocity data from the phased array radar, because automated methods don't work well on it just yet. We may need to use the human-edited data to create a good dealiasing technique in the future.

Then, an automated algorithm (called LLSD: local least squares derivative) to identify areas of rotation based on the velocity data.

And finally (the newest thing in this list): a multi-product, multi-source interactive, isosurfacing capability.

Put all of this work together, and you get this great picture:
The red is the hail core of the storm. The blue/teal shows where the air cores are rotating (i.e. the tornado) and the grey/black shows the entire thunderstorm structure.

What's my role in all of this work? Only on the periphery of all of this ... I developed statistical methods to verify the calibration of the radar, and techniques to correctly assemble the data as it is adaptively scanned. Also, I designed the system -- WDSS-II -- within which much of this work is done. But nothing sexy, like the isosurface picture!