A real-time 3D animation environment for storm surge

This paper describes an approach to develop a high performance animation environment for storm surge. The system provides the capability to simulate the storm surge effects in the physical world by (1) modeling a region using the airborne light detection and ranging (LIDAR) data, USGS orthophotos, RLG road data and photos; (2) animating the storm impact by using the features of this model; and (3) providing the capability for users to explore the animation environment. We present our system by modeling the dataset collected from Ft. Lauderdale, a region in South Florida, USA.