User Interfaces

The Jason VirtualVan System

Today’s scientific underwater remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) generate a tremendous amount of data collected from a variety of sensors in real-time. Often integrated information such as multiple video streams, vehicle telemetry, and scientific data are only available to the users in the ROV control-van during real-time operations. Although all the data is logged, it is extremely difficult for scientists to re-create this integrated information and have the ability to view and access an entire dive data set in an integrated fashion. The Jason VirtualVan System enables us to preview dive video streams with navigation and logged scientific data similarly to users documenting the Jason dive operations and science discoveries in the control vans during cruises.

Jason VirtualVan System is capable of taking real-time information snapshopts during events that occur within the ROV control-van. Users snapshot “interesting” events as defined whenever a scientists enters an event via a computer in the control-van during ROV operations, and we also take snapshots at regular time intervals such as once a minute to ensure complete data coverage. The system is designed for both scientific and public outreach needs.

Each control-van snapshot seamlessly integrates the four simultaneous video snapshots with vehicle data such as navigation, depth, and heading, scientific instrument data from instruments such as a ctd and a magnetometer, and event data as entered by scientists. All this information is accessable via a web-browser in real-time and is also available to the scientists after the cruise for post-cruise data access and analysis.