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The solution described here is a planning and decision support system in the form of a solid terrain model shown in the photo above. We integrated a digital elevation model of land and sea floor for the Southern California-Northern Baja California region merging data from US and Mexico sources, that include San Diego County, Colorado River Delta, Imperial Valley, Salton Sea, down to Ensenada, Baja California. The continental shelf and slope to the Pacific Ocean basin is also included.

The geographic extent includes the mountain range from North San Diego to south of Ensenada, from the 6,000 feet deep Pacific Ocean basin to the desert of Arizona-California border with the magnificence of the Salton Sea and Colorado River delta.The US elevation data came from the Space Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM)a NASA project that use the same technology to map Mars and Venus many yeas ago. The 3D Regional Canvas was created by a company called Solid Terrain Modeling Inc. They cut physical terrain relief models from a single block of foam by a computer-driven milling machine, and then paint it using a unique 3D inkjet plotter with a natural color Landsat image mosaic. http://www.stm-usa.com/

The worlds largest solid terrain model is of a region of British Columbia, Canada : http://www.stm-usa.com/bc.htm

Data sources? US geological survey (USGS) elevation models from the SRTM NASA project: 1 second arc elevation grids.
? INEGI Mexican mapping agency, Mexico’s 3 second arc digital elevation models (DEMs)
? SCRIPPS Institution Oceanography (SIO), US sea floor data, Geologic data center.
? CICESE research Center from Ensenada, Baja California, provided the Mexican seafloor data.

Project Participants:
Alejandro Hinojosa
Dru Clark
Jeff Sale
Eric Augenstein
Shane DeGross
Debi Kilb
Graham Kent
Dan Henderson
Keith Pezzoli

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This model has been used in dozens of exhibits to great effect. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, a solid terrain model of this sort is even more powerful. Our experience is that it stirs in people a marvelous recognition of ones location is space. People like to touch the model and locate their home, and relate it to the surrounding landscape.

Regional planning researchers and decision-makers have a growing need for interactive, intuitive tools to use in presentations, workshops, and symposia, but cost, specialized features, and the lack of experience of many attendees make the use of high-end GIS software prohibitive. The RWBC provides expertise in how to apply education courseware development tools to fill the void between standard presentation software such as PowerPoint® and high-end GIS software such as ArcGIS®.

The first project resulting from this effort, utilizing data integrated in the course of creating the 3D Regional Canvas,  is an interactive land-use image “morph” of San Diego county, southern Riverside and Orange counties, and northing Baja, Mexico between the years 1982 and 2005. Users can pan around high-resolution satellite images and slide a slider to transition through the years to observe how land-use has changed over the 18 year time span.  http://www.edcenter.sdsu.edu/rwb/

Details about this effort can be read on-line at: http://regionalworkbench.org/databank/project_all.php?pid=15

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The solid terrain model is very heavy and difficult to move around. So we created a digital version accessible on-line. The digital version is ripe with opportunity to create all types of overlays useful for planning and decision support. The web-based version of the Regional WorkBench Consortium’s 3D Regional Canvas of the Californias is intended to provide free access to 3D visualization tools from anywhere in the world for decision-makers and educators in a wide range of disciplines including regional planning, water quality management, sustainable development, and homeland security. The San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) currently points to the RWBC’s model on their web site as a planning and decision support tool.

Regional planning decision-making groups such as the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) have a growing need for interactive, intuitive tools to use in presentations, workshops, and symposia where many attendees have a limited level of technical know-how. It is prohibitively expensive to equip workshop computer labs with high-end geographical information systems software, and unreasonable to expect attendees to be able to use these high-end software programs with little to no formal training.

Ideally, these interactive tools should be capable of being delivered both on a CDROM and via the web. Features of these tools must go beyond the basic presentation format of slide shows or videos, yet regional planning decision-makers cannot be expected to have the development skills necessary to build these tools themselves. This is an area where university-community-government collaboration is much needed.