Tornado Visualization

Visualization of Tornadoes in mainland USA

In this project, I visualized Tornado Data from 1950 to 2005 in the states of mainland USA. I used The Visualization Toolkit (vtk) to create a pipeline of filters and render the images in real time.

Download the setup files for the project here.

Unzip this and run setup.exe. It will put a link for the executable and some data files in a folder on the Desktop. Run Tornadoes. When it asks for the path, point it to the MapData folder. The rest is intuition.

There are a host of features offered by this application:

First you select a state that you want to see the tornadoes in, narrow down on the F-Scale, date, month and time periods, injuries, fatalities and damage. The map and the tornadoes in it will change 'as-you-type' to quickly give you an idea of the way it happens.

For example, you can see all F-4 & 5 Tornadoes in Illinois from 1950 to 1980 that occurred in the months of June through August from noon to 6pm due to which there have been less than 5 deaths and more than 500 people injured.

Intuitive colors (by F Value, Injuries, Fatalities or Damage) and a translucent legend make life that much easier.

Choose two dates and click the play button and a video control panel will appear on the bottom and you can sit back and relax while the app show the tornadoes as they happened at the speed you choose! And yes, it can loop-back.

While all this is happening, you can pan, zoom and rotate the view and get a good view of the entire picture.

To get a better idea of what is where, check the box that says 'Show Major Cities' and pointers to some important cities in the state will show up. The city names always face you - even if you rotate the map all over the place.