Daniel Cornel

• Dr.techn.
• Senior Researcher at VRVis GmbH

In computer graphics, stochastic sampling is frequently used to efficiently approximate complex functions and integrals. The error of approximation can be reduced by distributing samples according to an importance function, but cannot be eliminated completely. To avoid visible artifacts, sample distributions are sought to be random, but spatially u...

In this paper, we present a real‐time technique to visualize large‐scale adaptive height fields with C ‐continuous surface reconstruction. Grid‐based shallow water simulation is an indispensable tool for interactive flood management applications. Height fields defined on adaptive grids are often the only viable option to store and process the massi...

There are concerns that recent climate change is altering the frequency and magnitude of river floods in an unprecedented way1. Historical studies have identified flood-rich periods in the past half millennium in various regions of Europe2. However, because of the low temporal resolution of existing datasets and the relatively low number of series,...

As flood events tend to happen more frequently, there is a growing demand for understanding the vulnerability of infrastructure to flood-related hazards. Such demand exists both for flood management personnel and the general public. Modern software tools are capable of generating uncertainty-aware flood predictions. However, the information address...

Flow maps are widely used to provide an overview of geospatial transportation data. Existing solutions lack the support for the interactive exploration of multiple flow components at once. Flow components are given by different materials being transported, different flow directions, or by the need for comparing alternative scenarios. In this paper,...

With the increasing frequency and severity of flood events worldwide, the need for flood simulations has become more critical than ever, together with the communication of predicted hazards and possible mitigation measures. Since this communication frequently relies on static cartographic representations, it falls short in communicating complex spa...

Flood hazard mapping is currently in a transitional phase involving the use of data and methods that were traditionally in the domain of local studies in a regional or nationwide context. Challenges include the representation of local information such as hydrological particularities and small hydraulic structures, as well as computational and labou...

We propose an interactive web‐based application to inform the general public about personal flood risks. Flooding is the natural hazard affecting most people worldwide. Protection against flooding is not limited to mitigation measures, but also includes communicating its risks to affected individuals to raise awareness and preparedness for its adve...

Flood hazard mapping is currently in a transitional phase involving the use of data and methods that were traditionally the domain of local studies in a regional or nation-wide context. Challenges include the representation of local information such as hydrological particularities and small hydraulic structures, and computational and labour costs....

Climate change-related impacts such as heat stress, extreme weather events, and their consequences are particularly felt within densely built-up urban areas. Urban re-naturalisation is recognised as a promising cost effective strategy for improving urban resilience to these environmental and societal issues. In this respect, the present contributio...

This paper presents an integrated modeling framework aiming at accurate predictions of flood hazard from heavy rainfalls. The accuracy of such predictions generally depends on the complexity and resolution of the employed model components. We propose an integration of complementary models in one framework that facilitates GPUs to improve accuracy a...

This paper deals with the simulation of inundated areas for a region of 84,000 km² from estimated flood discharges at a resolution of 2 m. We develop a modeling framework that enables efficient parallel processing of the project region by splitting it into simulation tiles. For each simulation tile, the framework automatically calculates all input...

In this paper, we propose a method for the interactive visualization of medium-scale dynamic heightfields without visual artifacts. Our data fall into a category too large to be rendered directly at full resolution, but small enough to fit into GPU memory without pre-filtering and data streaming. We present the real-world use case of unfiltered flo...

Zusammenfassung Der vorliegende Beitrag beschreibt die Konzeption und die methodischen Schritte des Projekts HORA 3.0, in dem Hochwasserrisikoflächen für ganz Österreich berechnet wurden. Die Analyseschritte umfassen: Qualitätskontrolle und Korrektur des Gewässernetzes und der Einzugsgebietsgrenzen; Berechnung der Abflussscheitel und Frachten gegeb...

In this technical report, we document our attempt to visualize adaptive heightfields with smooth interpolation using ray casting in real time. The performance of ray casting depends strongly on the used interpolant and its efficient evaluation. Unfortunately, analytical solutions for ray-surface intersections are only given in the literature for ve...

The application potential of Visual Analytics (VA), with its supporting interactive 2D and 3D visualization techniques, in the environmental domain is unparalleled. Such advanced systems may enable an in-depth interactive exploration of multifaceted geospatial and temporal changes in very large and complex datasets. This is facilitated by a unique...

To be prepared for flooding events, disaster response personnel has to be trained to execute developed action plans. We present a collaborative operator-trainee setup for a flood response training system, by connecting an interactive flood simulation with a VR client, that allows to steer the remote simulation from within the virtual environment, d...

This paper proposes a context-preserving 3D visualization technique for interactive view- and distance-dependent cutaway visualization that reveals the subsurface urban infrastructure network. The infrastructure itself is displayed using the procedural billboarding technique, and its internals are revealed through a new cutaway algorithm that opera...

We present a new graphics processing unit implementation of two second-order numerical schemes of the shallow water equations on Cartesian grids. Previous implementations are not fast enough to evaluate multiple scenarios for a robust, uncertainty-aware decision support. To tackle this, we exploit the capabilities of the NVIDIA Kepler architecture....

In this paper, we introduce a simulation-based approach to design protection plans for flood events. Existing solutions require a lot of computation time for an exhaustive search, or demand for a time-consuming expert supervision and steering. We present a faster alternative based on the automated control of multiple parallel simulation runs. Run W...