I was a lead developer for this fun project. The USGS flew a drone with a LIDAR over a national park in Hawaii to create a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of the park and I used different GIS tools to convert and show the DEM as a 3D model in Unity3D. The sea level rise scenarios are based on NOAAs scenarios and local factors (more details in the app).
Conveying the urgency and the real risk posed to coastal communities due to sea level rise is immensely
important, not only to climate researchers but to laypersons and general population directly affected by
the effects of climate change. Standard scientific materials and tools for depicting sea level rise
projections, such as time series or static maps, often fail to communicate the immediacy and the real
threat posed to local communities and infrastructure. So the main goal of the app is to help general public conceptualize the threat imposed by sea level rise.
In future, the method could be scaled to be used at any coastal location (as long as we have the necessary data). If there is interest, I will go into more details on the data workflow of how the app was made. Android version should be live soon (under review).
One of the feature that this is missing is a plain 3D viewer (without the need for camera and augmented reality). And maybe a screenshot option to take a photo of the terrain and the impact. Probably going to be available in the next version.
Feel free to ask any questions.
