Two students, Cherryle Heu and Roderick “RJ” Tabalba, have clinched the grand prize in the (AGU) . Their user-friendly data visualization tool is aiding �鶹��ý ranchers in navigating the challenges of drought.

Heu, a master’s student in the and Tabalba a PhD student in the , created an easy-to-use customizable dashboard, which visualizes rainfall and temperature data from the (HCDP).

Judges of the competition gave glowing reviews including, “This high-quality submission is worthy of the Visualization award, as the tool has impressive interactive components, enabling users to build bespoke dashboards to analyze rainfall and air temperature.”

The HCDP was developed as a part of the �鶹��ý EPSCoR Change �鶹��ý project to provide the state with high-quality reliable climate data and information.

“The HCDP is a groundbreaking website and made this data available to the public. It’s publicly available for anyone to see and access,” said Heu. “The tool that RJ has developed allows anyone to access and manipulate a wealth of real-time data and create it into information they need for themselves whether they are ranchers, conservationists, forecasters or researchers.”

Power of collaboration

Collaboration and co-creation were essential at every stage of this project. Working closely with resource managers in collaboration with the , Heu and others as a part of the stewardship team helped to facilitate knowledge exchange and co-production of drought data and products based on community needs.

The power of collaboration was further demonstrated by Heu and Tabalba’s multidisciplinary approach that combined geoscience and computer science to develop their data visualization tool.

“I took the opportunity to enter this competition with another student, Cherryle, who was already using the HCDP. It was a good match-up. She had the knowledge, use cases and background to create tools,” said Tabalba. “Cherryle really filled in that gap of knowledge. Climate is different in �鶹��ý, it might be raining in one area and not raining in the next. It really motivates the need that farmers need to have their custom-made dashboard.”

Presenting to NASA

Heu and Tabalba were awarded a total of $6,000 to attend this year’s AGU Annual Meeting in December in San Francisco and to support additional professional development activities. They will also have the opportunity for exclusive career advice and support from a professional career consultant and to present their grand prize winning project to NASA and AGU in December and at AGU headquarters in Washington, D.C. in early 2024.

Tabalba looks forward to graduating in 2024 and working in industry with a top IT company. He plans to take the skills he learned by receiving feedback from others to gain new perspectives and elevate his own work. Heu, who finds her field extremely fulfilling, plans to complete her degree and continue creating impactful work that others find useful.

—By Maria Dumanlang

New findings reveal the spread of a fungal disease killing off hundreds of thousands of mature ʻōhiʻa trees (Metrosideros polymorpha) on �鶹��ý Island could be exacerbated by the presence of ungulates or animals with hooves. A geographer at the , along with colleagues from the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Department of Agriculture, published a collaborative study that closely examines .

Lead investigator of the study, Ryan Perroy, an associate professor of at UH Hilo, specializes in remote sensing and was integral in obtaining aerial imagery to detect ʻōhiʻa mortality at an individual tree level. The study’s co-authors collected field samples and conducted laboratory testing using data from impacted areas within �鶹��ý Volcanoes National Park (HAVO) and the Laupāhoehoe Forest Reserve.

The spatial patterns of ʻōhiʻa mortality observed across all four sites included in the study show significant differences in areas with and without ungulates, suggesting that ungulate exclusion is an effective management tool to lessen the impacts of ROD in forested areas in �鶹��ý.

“The results from this work show us that the impacts of ROD can vary across the landscape,” said Perroy. “We hope this information can be useful in managing and caring for our native forests.”

Learn more about UH’s work with rapid ʻōhiʻa death

Perroy leads the UH Hilo Spatial Data Analysis & Visualization Research Laboratory alongside Timo Sullivan and Daniel Duda. They all joined forces with a �鶹��ý Island-based research team, which includes David Benitez, an ecologist at HAVO; Flint Hughes, an ecologist at the Institute of Pacific Islands Forestry; and Lisa Keith, Eva Brill and Karma Kissinger, plant pathologists from the Daniel K. Inouye U.S. Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center.

The researchers discovered the number of suspected ROD trees in unfenced areas were significantly higher (more than 50 times greater for one location) than those found in fenced areas that prevent hoofed animal access.

• Related UH News story: Tracking the spread of Rapid ʻŌhiʻa Death on Kauaʻi, October 12, 2020

ROD was first discovered on �鶹��ý Island in 2014 and has since obliterated hundreds of acres of once sprawling ʻōhiʻa. It is also found on Kauaʻi, Maui and Oʻahu. The deadly disease is caused by two invasive fungi, Ceratocystis huliohia and Ceratocystis lukuohia, and, if left unstopped, could irreversibly change Hawaiian ecosystems and cultural traditions by diminishing the keystone native tree in Hawaiian forests.

Study enhances ROD data collection

Based on collected aerial imagery, the researchers developed a rating system based on tree canopy condition to identify ʻōhiʻa that may be infected. They developed a custom imaging system for helicopter mapping operations, which enables a much wider surveying scale.

Using this system, the researchers quickly generate and share suspect tree candidate locations with partner agencies to rapidly detect new mortality outbreaks and prioritize field sampling efforts. The studies revealed disparities between sites, illustrating challenges to definitively determine the cause of ʻōhiʻa mortality from aerial imagery alone. The integrated approach of imagery, field sampling and lab work proved better at effectively discerning causative factors.

This research identifies effective strategies for HAVO and other protected areas, where study co-author Benitez considers ROD to be a top threat to native forests and ecosystems. “The focal sites include forests near the summit of Kīlauea, including Nāhuku and the ʻŌlaʻa Tract rainforests and the Kahuku Unit,” Benitez explained. “We are very excited about this collaborative research, and the resulting technologies such as a safer and more cost effective airborne mapping system which can pinpoint ROD outbreaks across vast areas on all Hawaiian Islands.”

Need for feral animal control

An unexpected event at one of the study sites showed the impact feral pigs caused after they breached a fenced area. Suspect ROD tree densities in the area rose from practically none to nearly three trees per hectare (nearly 2.5 acres) highlighting the need for ungulate control.

“There are lots of remaining questions that still need to be addressed relating to ungulate species-specific behavior and impacts (pigs vs. goats vs sheep vs. cattle), differences between domesticated and feral animals, and lots of remaining questions regarding non-ungulate factors we think play a role in ʻōhiʻa mortality, from boring beetles to storm events,” said Perroy.

The paper also illustrates the importance of removing infected trees to suppress ʻōhiʻa mortality levels across affected regions.

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—Story by Susan Enright

Geographers at the recently completed a pilot project with the County of �鶹��ý Department of Planning to help modernize the county’s public access program. Shoreline public access locations and associated permitting documents were digitized in a pilot geospatial database by UH Hilo geographical data experts and UH Hilo students and recent graduates.

The collaborative project focused on the South Kona district but includes a feasibility analysis for extending the project to an island-wide scale.

Ryan Perroy, an associate professor of geography who founded the UH Hilo research laboratory, said the work features a partnership between UH Hilo and the county on a project that benefits the local community and gives university students experience in the real world.

“This project highlights the ability of UH Hilo to contribute to local governance by using our expertise in geospatial technology to improve an existing antiquated system for accessing information,” said Perroy. “In this case, files and permits associated with public access issues.”

The pilot project’s purpose was to digitize paper files and link them to an interactive map interface, so that county planners can simply click on a few lines on a map on screen and access relevant files instead of having to physically pull and pore over physical paper documents.

“So this means some major time savings that will allow them to better and more quickly serve the public when there are queries about public access,” Perroy explained.

Public access project

The project will help the county fulfill its mandate to give the general public access to specific areas for activities related to valued cultural and natural resources. An updated and more comprehensive public access inventory management system will better enable the Department of Planning to execute its public access mandates in the areas of planning, permit vetting, implementation and enforcement. This is especially important for the issuance of land-use permits for developments such as subdivisions and certain developments within the Special Management Area.

Perroy is principal investigator with a team of geospatial research specialists; UH Hilo alumni Shawna Blackford and Eszter Collier from the lab are critical contributors. This first phase was done in coordination with two county land-use planners, Kamuela Plunkett and Rob Leasure. Plunkett earned his master of arts in heritage management in 2018 from UH Hilo.

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—Story by Susan Enright

An interactive 3D projection-mapped model of Oʻahu developed by students, showing layers of data for the state’s plan to run on 100-percent renewable energy by 2045, generated lots of buzz at a national energy conference in February in Washington, D.C.

“A dozen or more states were interested in adopting the technology,” said Chris Yunker, energy systems and planning branch manager for the . “Assistant Secretary of the Office of Electricity Bruce Walker had come by and he showed interest for the [Department of Energy] to adopt the technology itself.”

Walker tweeted from the 2019 NASEO Energy Policy Outlook Conference in February, “Checking out the 3D modeling capabilities at the Hawaii Visualization Energy Nexus booth at the @NASEO_Energy Conference. As we continue to provide technical assistance to Puerto Rico, tools like this can help determine the best types and locations of generation. #NASEOOutlook19”

The student-built project is called the �鶹��ý Advanced Visualization Environmental Nexus (HAVEN). It can show land ownership, and photovoltaic and windmill buildouts over time, among other data projected across a topographical map of the island of Oʻahu. The team has 3D models for data visualization on other islands in the state, too.

HAVEN was developed by a team of UH ����ԴDz� students at the (LAVA), under the supervision of LAVA Director Jason Leigh.

• James Hutchison—undergraduate, main developer
• Nurit Kirshenbaum—PhD student, tangible computing advisor
• Ryan Theriot—MS student, visualization
• Kaila Foltz—undergraduate, graphic design (user interface and banner)
• Kari Noe—MS student, graphic design (HAVEN logo)
• Serena Kobayashi—undergraduate, physical structure
• Tyson Seto-Mook—MS student, docent who did the demo in Washington, D.C.

“It was done not just by me, so that’s an important thing. It’s a collaborative effort,” said HAVEN main developer James Hutchison, a UH ����ԴDz� computer science undergraduate student. “It’s great. I’m definitely proud of it.”

HAVEN supports thousands of pages of data from the �鶹��ý State Energy Office and Hawaiian Electric Industries. It was developed to help decision makers and stakeholders with the energy planning process, with funding support from the state energy office, Department of Energy and the .

“It would make me feel really good that I would have a hand in the future of renewable energy and trying to get away from coal,” said graduate student Ryan Theriot, who did the open-source visualization coding for HAVEN.

Now that the the National Renewable Energy Laboratory has also shown interest in HAVEN, this UH student invention could end up having a significant impact across the nation and possibly beyond.

—By Kelli Trifonovitch

In honor of the 40th Anniversary of Star Wars, engineering graduate student Noel Kawano and computer science student Ryan Theriot created a 3D immersive visualization project—Star Wars Squadron and Tatooine.

Users can battle with lightsabers or dogfight through a universe filled with starfighters, TIE fighters and an armada of star destroyers.

The (research and fun) possibilities are endless now that UH ����ԴDz� is home to the best hybrid visualization system in the world that combines immersive virtual reality with ultra-high-resolution display walls. The , which stands for cyber-enabled Collaboration Analysis Navigation and Observation Environment.

“We wanted to take advantage of the [Destiny-class CyberCANOE’s] capabilities and make something really cool,” Kawano said.

CyberCANOE users can go under the sea, explore outer space and probe microscopic elements of the human body without leaving campus.

Computer and Information Sciences Professor is the system’s creator. His students were deeply involved in the design and construction of the CyberCANOE with investment and partnership from the and the .

With 256 megapixels, the cylindrical CyberCANOE is the ultimate tool for scientists and researchers to visualize big data at resolutions that are 100-times better than commercial 3D displays. The diameter is 16 feet, and the walls are eight-feet high.

The Destiny-class cost about $250,000 to build and is actually the seventh and best CyberCANOE Leigh has built in �鶹��ý over the past couple of years. His Laboratory for Advanced Visualization Applications (LAVA), where the Destiny-class CyberCANOE is housed, is planning to hold an open house in August 2017.

You could say the world’s best hybrid 3D visualization system is the apple of Noel Kawano’s eye. It should be. The masters in engineering student and a handful of others at the designed and built the immersive virtual reality environment with ultra-high-resolution display walls.

“I know every little bolt, every little nut and screw. There’s like thousands of pieces,” said Kawano, “I know every little detail of it.”

It’s called the , or CyberCANOE, under creator and Professor Jason Leigh.

“[The students] did everything from the design of the structure to coming up with the specs for the computer to developing the software that had to be used to drive the system. Even designed custom 3D printed parts so that we could align all of the displays together,” Leigh said.

The research tool enables visualization of big data and the immersive 3D environment with 256-million-pixel resolution needs the computing power equivalent to 32 of the latest 4K TV sets. The $250,000-project was funded by the and the . Information and computer science masters student Jack Lam eventually realized the CyberCANOE would need eight computers, much more power than he was used to.

Lam said, “Being able to work on this set up is a dream.”

Undergraduate computer science major Ryan Theriot designed the all-important software for researchers and scientists to put their projects into the Destiny-class CyberCANOE.

“It teaches you a very good toolset in being able to work as a team in a very real world setting, instead of just in a classroom,” he said.

Interested in developing software for the Destiny-class CyberCANOE?

After you’ve helped to build the best hybrid data visualization environment in the world, what’s next? For some students it’s pitching the intellectual property to investors for possible commercialization.

“Our pitch is that we’ve taken tried, true systems…and we’ve made it 10-times better and we’ve done it here in �鶹��ý, all built by students,” Kawano said, “We definitely have the wow factor.”

And they want the University of �鶹��ý’s world-class researchers to use the Destiny-class and the next generation of CyberCANOEs to explore scientific worlds from inside the earth to deep space and beyond.

—By Kelli Trifonovitch

You can now go under the sea, explore outer space and probe microscopic elements of the human body without leaving campus. The 3D, immersive possibilities are endless now that the is home to the best hybrid visualization system in the world that combines immersive virtual reality with ultra-high-resolution display walls.

It’s called the , which stands for cyber-enabled Collaboration Analysis Navigation and Observation Environment. Professor Jason Leigh is the system’s creator. He says he built what was the best system in the world in 2012 and was motivated to build something better when he moved to �鶹��ý.

“UH has a lot of amazing scientists which have a lot of data available,” Leigh said. “Because we have so much resolution on Destiny and we have so much computing power to drive that, we have a real cool opportunity, a unique opportunity, to visualize data with the best lens possible, to look at this information in much deeper ways than we could have before.”

With 256 megapixels, this CyberCANOE is the ultimate tool for scientists and researchers to visualize big data at resolutions that are 100-times better than commercial 3D displays.

Interested in developing software for the Destiny-class CyberCANOE?

The Destiny-class cost about $250,000 to build and is actually the seventh and best CyberCANOE Leigh has built in �鶹��ý over the past couple of years. He’s involved students from day one with investment and partnership from the National Science Foundation and the .

UH Academy for Creative Media System Director Chris Lee said, “We just found ourselves really sympatico about how we saw technology changing both the students and the university and ultimately �鶹��ý’s economy in the future.”

Up next, even better CyberCANOEs for UH’s Experimental Program to Support Competitive Research, or EPSCoR’s, fresh water sustainability research and for the .

Leigh said, “Just as we continue to build higher resolution instruments for looking at the stars, for looking at the earth, this is the same kind of thing.”

You could say Leigh and his students are boldly going where no one has gone before and they are encouraging the research community to join them for a ride in the latest, greatest CyberCANOE.

—By Kelli Trifonovitch

The “CreaTable” is a one of a kind interactive table top display designed and built by Noel Kawano, an electrical engineering student at the . The CreaTable resides in the or LAVA belonging to Professor Jason Leigh.

Leigh and two co-investigators just got a grant from the National Science Foundation to build the best data visualization and virtual reality system in the nation. He designed the current top system called the CAVE2 when he was at the the .

• Related: December 14, 2015

The University of �鶹��ý’s new system will be called the Cyber-enabled Collabration Analysis Navigation and Observation Environment or CyberCANOE. That’s where the CreaTable and Kawano come in.

Over the summer, Leigh asked him to build a coffee table for the LAVA lab, but not just any coffee table. Something that would be suitably interactive and would inspire creativity in the lab’s students.

Kawano rose to the occasion, designing the CreaTable using autocad and building it out of extruded aluminum pieces in three days.

“It was kind of like a learning experience for me and I also built something really cool for the lab and Jason’s students,” said Kawano.

While the CreaTable is definitely cool, like an enormous iPhone with a huge touch screen that angles on gas shocks, it’s serving an even greater purpose.

“The fundamental knowledge that he learned to build this table is exactly what we need to build the new CyberCANOE,” said Leigh.

Kawano will be going from this summer project to helping to design and build the best data visualization and virtual reality system in the nation. Fitting, really, when you understand the vision for the CyberCANOE.

“If you think of the really hard problems in the world today, it’s not about just the chemistry problem or the physics problem or the biology or the education problem, it’s really all these things interconnected,” said Leigh. “And so the CyberCANOE sort of provides that platform for these other disciplines to think differently, work together in different ways that they never thought of before.”

—By Kelli Trifonovitch

More on the CyberCANOE

The will be home to the best data visualization system in the United States, thanks to a major research infrastructure grant from the (NSF).

The NSF provided $600,000 and the added $257,000 for a total of $857,000 to develop a large CyberCANOE, which stands for Cyber-enabled Collaboration Analysis Navigation and Observation Environment. The CyberCANOE is a visualization and collaboration infrastructure that allows students and researchers to work together more effectively using large amounts of data and information. It was designed by Professor Jason Leigh, who is also the founder and director of the (LAVA) at UH Mānoa.

UH’s CyberCANOE represents the culmination of over two decades of experience and expertise for Leigh, the grant’s principal investigator, who developed immersive virtual reality environments while at the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at the .

Exceeding capabilities

The UH CyberCANOE will provide an alternative approach to constructing ultra-resolution display environments by using new and completely seamless direct view light emitting diode displays, rather than traditional projection technologies or liquid crystal displays. The net effect is a visual instrument that exceeds the capabilities and overcomes the limitations of the current best-in-class systems at other U.S. universities.

“This comes at the best time for �鶹��ý as the number of students interested in information and computer science is skyrocketing. Last year about 170 freshman computer science students entered the program, this year we will receive 270,” said Leigh. “The University of �鶹��ý’s CyberCANOE will give these students access to better technology than what will be available on the continent.”

The new 2D and 3D stereoscopic display environment with almost 50 Megapixels of resolution will provide researchers with powerful and easy-to-use, information-rich instrumentation in support of cyberinfrastructure-enabled, data-intensive scientific discovery.

Increasingly, the nation’s computational science and engineering research communities work with international collaborators to tackle complex global problems. Advanced visualization instruments serve as the virtual eyepieces of a telescope or microscope, enabling research teams and their students to view their data in cyberspace, and better manage the increased scale and complexity of accessing and analyzing the data.

“I’m highly excited about this multidisciplinary collaboration between information and computer sciences, the Academy for Creative Media System and electrical engineering,” said co-principal investigator and UH Mānoa Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering David Garmire. “It will advance the state of the art in research infrastructure for information-rich visualization and immersive experience while providing unique opportunities for the student body.”

Creating new opportunities in computer science research

At least 46 researchers, 28 postdocs, 833 undergraduates and 45 graduate students spanning disciplines that include oceanography, astrobiology, mathematics, computer science, electrical engineering, biomedical research, archeology, and computational media are poised to use the CyberCANOE for their large-scale data visualization needs. The CyberCANOE will also open up new opportunities in computer science research at the intersection of data-intensive analysis and visualization, human-computer interaction and virtual reality.

UH System’s Academy for Creative Media (ACM) founder and director Chris Lee, who is also a co-principal investigator on the grant, said, “ACM System is thrilled to be able to continue to support Jason Leigh and his team in securing a second NSF Grant. This new CyberCANOE builds upon the two earlier ‘mini’ CyberCANOEs, which ACM System fully financed at UH Mānoa and UH West Oʻahu.”

The new CyberCANOE, which is expected to be built in about three years, will enable Leigh’s advanced visualization laboratory to provide scientific communities with highly integrated, visually rich collaboration environments; to work with industry to facilitate the creation of new technologies for the advancement of science and engineering; and to continue ongoing partnerships with many of the world’s best scientists in academia and industry. With the CyberCANOE, the lab will also support the country’s leadership position in high-performance computing and in contributing advancements to complex global issues, such as the environment, health and the economy.

—By Kelli Trifonovitch

Potential investors got to see some of the exciting developments at the at a technology showcase in October. The presentations included:

• “C������-CANOE 3D virtual reality environment” by Jason Leigh, UH ����ԴDz� professor of
• “Anatomical 3D models on the zSpace virtual reality platform” by Jesse Thompson, technical director for anatomical imaging at the
• “Telescope mirror technology for the solar industry” by Professor and MorphOptic co-founder Jeff Kuhn
• “Realistic brain phantom for MRI research and development” by UH ����ԴDz� graduate students Kyoko Fujimoto and Trent Robertson

The event was sponsored by UH’s , UH ����ԴDz�’s and .

Guests included entrepreneurs, potential investors, intellectual property attorneys, defense contractors and other parties interested in licensing UH innovations.

Photos from the event

View photos on the .

—By Kelli Trifonovitch