Useful Links

• Dr. Dawn Wright of Oregon State University has a comprehensive web site dedicated to marine/coastal GIS and the processing, production, visualization, and interpretation of seafloor maps.
• The Ocean Mapping Group at the University of New Brunswick focuses on developing new and innovative techniques and tools for the management, processing, visualization, and interpretation of ocean mapping data.
• An interesting PDF article from ERDAS on Visualizing The Sea Floor .

• The National Geophysical Data Center (GEODAS), produces digital bathymetry databases of ship-based soundings. These data have recently been released as CD-ROM sets with PC-compatible search and retrieval software.
• Scripps Institute Of Oceanography has developed new 2 minute worldwide seafloor topography bathymetry data using satellite imagery and ship-based depth soundings. The huge (132 meg) dataset can be downloaded or a CD is about to be produced for distribution.
• The Digital Bathymetric Database - Variable (DBDB-V) from the Naval Oceanographic Office (NAVOCEANO) is a digital bathymetric database that provides ocean depths at various gridded resolutions. This online database may be queried by specifying point location, an arc of a great circle, or a bounding rectangle. Information and specifications about the database can be found here . This dataset is a good starting point because the data are spline interpolated to the resolution requested by the user. However, it lacks accuracy (particularly below 29 degrees North) and requires updating from measured sources such as the GEODAS data set.
• USGS Seafloor Mapping Server .
• Online Marine Databases .
• NOAA's Bathymetry, Topography, and Global Relief site.

• The GTOPO30 data format page. GTOPO30 is a 30 arc second binary DEM format that is a good model for submarine topography data.
• The University of Iowa provides a very large list of geodata information sources .

• Kriging Interpolation notes and source code by Chao-yi Lang at Cornell. If you are a C programmer, this site will prevent you from "re-inventing the wheel". Chao bases his code on a great book -- An Introduction To Applied Geostatistics by Isaaks & Srivastava. Oxford University Press, 1989 ISBN 0-19-505013-4.
• There are a number of techniques for statistically interpolating geospatial data that are described in lecture notes and outlines from various institutions.
  • University of British Columbia
  • Alexei Sharov's lecture notes on geostatistics.
• Fractal methods for developing landscapes have been become famous.
  • A link to Ken Musgrave's book Texturing and Modeling -- A Procedural Approach . A must book!!!
  • John Beale's home page where Gforge and other programs (with C source code) that develop heightfields for fractal landscapes are included .

• The NCSA HDF data file format home page. HDF is potentially a great format for multidimensional marine databases. Any comments or suggestions???
• Dr. Dawn Wright, ESRI, and a team of collaborators are developing specifications for a Marine Data Model. Progress of this important work can be monitored at a regularly updated web site. While this current effort is oriented toward ESRI ArcGIS standards, the work is expected to expand to include other formats.

• Extensive list of links to GIS and remote sensing sites .
• Erdas web site.
• Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) web site.
• NCGIA Core Curriculum for GIS.

• Reviews and comments about Stephen Wolfram's book A New Kind Of Science .
  • Reader comments at Amazon.com. This is a LONG list -- Wolfram has generated the controversy he desired.
  • Ray Kurzweil comments -- well balanced commentary.
  • American Scientist -- another well balanced article.
  • W. Edwin Clark's web site with an extensive list of reviews .
• Xiaoyuan Tu's home page where she provides information on her extraordinary work with artificial fishes . A link to her famous PhD thesis is at this site.
• Craig Reynolds ' (the well known boids guy) home page. Lots of good stuff on flocking and schooling.
• Santa Fe Institute's Artificial Life On-Line .
• The mission of the Digital Biology Project is to promote and assist in the engineering of complete, biologically-inspired, synthetic ecosystems and organisms. This involves the creation and deployment of digital tools and environments for simulation, research, and learning about living systems both natural and artificial. These tools could range from simple genetic algorithms all the way up to full multi-user virtual environments.
• CALResCo has a marvelous site with a large number of links to Web sites and papers that address various aspects of Complex Systems and Artificial Life.
• Complex Adaptive Systems and Artificial Life is an extensive site with journal and conference references in addition to site links.

• Steven Baum's Virtual Cave provides a variety of information and links regarding oceanography, numerical methods, and science in general. The site includes links to software for graphics and analysis.