Applying CAD/CAM Technology to Facilitate the Understanding of Bathymetric Data Sets

The highly detailed bathymetry data sets being produced by modern swath-mapp ing systems are outrunning the display capability of the traditional isobath contour chart. Other display formats do a better job of helping the viewer to visualize a topographic surface because they incorporate the same visual cues that the viewer uses as he looks at the world around him. The software and hardware systems developed to serve the computer-aided-design and computer-aided-manufacturing (CAD/CAM) industries incorporate various subsets of these visual cues to produce dynamic visual displays that are highly convincing, static displays that are highly realistic and physical scale models that are accurate and highly detailed.