Design and Implementation of a 3D Ocean Virtual Reality and Visualization Engine

In this study,a 3D virtual reality and visualization engine for rendering the ocean,named VV-Ocean,is designed for marine applications.The design goals of VV-Ocean aim at high fidelity simulation of ocean environment,visualization of massive and multidimensional marine data,and imitation of marine lives.VV-Ocean is composed of five modules,i.e.memory management module,resources management module,scene management module,rendering process management module and interaction management module.There are three core functions in VV-Ocean:reconstructing vivid virtual ocean scenes,visualizing real data dynamically in real time,imitating and simulating marine lives intuitively.Based on VV-Ocean,we establish a sea-land integration platform which can reproduce drifting and diffusion processes of oil spilling from sea bottom to surface.Environment factors such as ocean current and wind field have been considered in this simulation.On this platform oil spilling process can be abstracted as movements of abundant oil particles.The result shows that oil particles blend with water well and the platform meets the requirement for real-time and interactive rendering.VV-Ocean can be widely used in ocean applications such as demonstrating marine operations,facilitating maritime communications,developing ocean games,reducing marine hazards,forecasting the weather over oceans,serving marine tourism,and so on.Finally,further technological improvements of VV-Ocean are discussed.

Abundance and biomass of meiobenthos in the spawning ground of anchovy (Engraulis japanicus) in the southern Huanghai Sea

A grid of 22 stations, giving a broad coverage of the spawning ground of anchovy in the southern Huanghai Sea was selected. Undis- turbed sediments were taken from sampling stations during the cruise in June 2003. The average abundance of meiofauna is (1 584± 686) ind./10cm2, with corresponding biomass (dwt) of (1 086±425)!μg/10cm2. The pattern of abundance of meiofauna is similar to the pattern of biomass. There are 65.88% meiofauna in 0￣2 cm sediments, 27.66% in 2￣5 cm sediments and 6.47% in 5￣8 cm sediments. The Spearman correlation analysis between meiofauna and environmental factors shows that abundance of meiofauna, free living ma- rine nematodes, benthic copepods has significant positive correlations with Chl-a. And the abundance of copepods has significant posi- tive correlations with several factors such as Chl-a, Pha-a, Chl-a plus Pha-a and organic matter. A total of 18 meiofauna groups are i- dentified. Nematode is the most dominant group, average abundance (1 404±670) ind/10cm2, accounting for 88.65%, and the follow- ing groups are also important: benthic copepods (5.48%), kinorhyncha (1.26%), polychaeta (1.07%). By biomass, dominant groups are nematodes (51.72%), polychaeta (21.84%), copepods (14.87%), ostracoda (4.92%), kinorhyncha (3.67%). A total of 90 species of ne- matodes are identified. The species composition of nematodes is listed based on selected two stations 7794 (coastal area) and 10694 (cold water mass in deep waters).

Two new species of free-living nematodes of genus Tripyloides (Nematoda: Enoplida: Tripyloididae) from mangrove wetlands in the Xiamen Bay, China

Two new species of free living nematodes Tripyloides mangrovensis n. sp. and Tripyloides amoyanus n. sp. of genus Tripyloides de Man, 1886 are described from mangroves of the Tong＇an Bay and Haimen Island in the Xiamen Bay, China. The two species are both characterized by six stout outer labial setae, male without preanal papillae, tail conico-cylindrical without swollen terminally. Tripyloides mangrovensis n. sp. can be additionally by its buccal cavity consisting of two parts, amphid circular, distinct proximal conical and distal slender cylindrical portions, 2/3 of the tail cylindrical. Tripyloides amoyanus n. sp. is distinguished by buccal cavity consisting of three parts with small tooth, amphid small, rounded, like a comma-shaped loop, 1/3 of the tail cylindrical, gubernaculum with four denticles.