Chapter 42 Are Current Scientific Visualisation and Virtual Reality Techniques Capable to Represent Real Soil-Landscapes?

Abstract Real soil-landscapes are complex consisting of an inextricable mix of patterns and noise varying continuously in the space–time continuum. Soils and parent material show gradual variations in the horizontal and vertical planes forming three-dimensional (3D) bodies that are commonly anisotropic. There is no real beginning and end point in soil-landscapes because environmental conditions are dynamically changed through water flow, biogeochemical processes and human activities. The strengths of soil-landscape modelling lies in hypothesis testing, understanding causal linkages between environmental factors and their interrelationships within a spatial and temporal explicit context. To develop virtual soil-landscape models entails: (i) conceptualisation, that is defining the model framework (e.g. finite space elements); (ii) reconstruction, that is describing and quantifying underlying conditions and behaviour and (iii) scientific visualisation (SciVis), that is abstracting real soil-landscapes into a format that we can comprehend and that helps us to understand the complexity of soil-landscapes. The primary objective in data visualisation is to gain insight into an information space by mapping data onto graphical primitives. Capabilities and limitations of SciVis and virtual reality (VR) techniques are discussed in this chapter. Only recently 3D soil-landscape models have been emerging. We present a case study that translated the spatio-temporal water-table dynamics of a flatwood soil-landscape in Florida into a virtual domain using a geostatistical method to reconstruct the soil-landscape and Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML) enhanced with External Authoring Interface (EAI) for visualisation and implementation of interactive functions. Just as maps can visually enhance the spatial understanding of phenomena, interactive spatio-temporal applications can enhance our understanding of complex environmental systems and the underlying transport processes driving soil and water quality.