isac2014australiacanberragroup
Our project will deliver a proof of concept for a website showing the change in gravity using GOCE data and accounting for the Sun and Moon's location. To increase accessibility, the website employs a Google Maps interface with a heatmap layer, and allows the user to use their device's location service, or enter a location manually. A popup displays interesting information to the user. The architecture is scalable, and can be further developed to include magnetic or topographical layers.This project is solving the Gravity Map challenge. Description
The aim of the project is to provide users worldwide with access to accurate gravity data at any specified location on Earth via a highly functional web application.
Mission data from ESA’s Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) was utilised in order to provide users with accurate and detailed information on the Earth’s gravity field. Level-2 data from ESA was acquired for this project and then analysed using the GOCE User Toolbox (GUT) whereby quantities for gravity anomalies were computed for the WGS84 reference ellipsoid of Earth to a latitude and longitude resolution of 0.1 degrees. Gravity data points of a much higher resolution (0.002 degrees) of the Australian region were obtained from Curtin University’s Centre for Geodesy.
The processed data is stored in PostgreSQL, an open source and cross platform object-relational database management system. Users specify the location using latitude, longitude and elevation coordinates which generates a request by the web server to retrieve the corresponding gravity data. Gravity values are displayed as heat maps and then overlaid on Google Maps via utilisation of Google Maps’ API 3.0. Visualisation of the specified location is displayed according to the default magnifying factor set by Google Maps.
An additional feature included for gravity data visualisation is the variation of the gravitation at the user-specified location, date and time due to the positioning of the Earth’s Moon and the Sun. Also, users have the option to export the data visualised on the map to delimited text files with rows containing latitude, longitude and gravity field values.
Project Information
License: Academic Free License 3.0 (AFL-3.0)
Source Code/Project URL: https://github.com/isac2014canberra/isac2014
Resources
Application Host Location - http://jbossews-isac2014gravmap.rhcloud.com/
