3D visualization of data from groundwater flow and transport models

Groundwater flow and transport models produce large amounts of data, which the human brain cannot possibly grasp. Taking advantage of the natural abilities of the human vision system, 3D visualization is often the tool of choice for understanding and communicating conceptual models, verifying model input, understanding model output, explaining and communicating conclusions and recommendations, and motivating expenses. A 3D visualization tool has therefore been developed for intelligence amplification of model data. The tool is based on a groundwater modeling system (Processing MODFLOW) and makes use of the results from existing groundwater flow (MODFLOW) and transport models (MT3DMS, PHT3D and RT3D.). The Visualization Toolkit (vtk), a C++ class library for visualization was used to render 3D geohydrological objects. Realistic scenes of 3D geospatial models and 3D distributions of geohydrological properties, such as hydraulic conductivity, heads and solute concentrations, can be rendered. The advantages of 3D visualization are evident by applying the visualization tool to case studies.