Weatherscape’s new Material Editor is part of a growing list of powerful and creative authoring tools that developer Metra has added to its weather presentation technology. It allows users to incorporate 3D graphics driven directly by weather data elements.
“A mountain snow line that changes with the freezing level or ocean waves that adapt to the forecasted wave height are just two examples of the exceptional graphical features that can be created easily using Material Editor”, says Tom Sutherland, international sales and marketing manager, Metra.
Material Editor allows users to create weather shows and scenes that are fully customised and change according to meteorological data. With advanced graphical shaders, weather shows can be created with superior special effects and greater integration with meteorological information. Even complex data graphing techniques are possible using weather data based shaders.
Material Editor simplifies the user interface to enable easy interaction with shader values. Users have more control and can easily change the appearance of graphical effects. It also makes the daily management of weather data easy, allowing users to develop unique and captivating weather shows and presenting viewers with greater realism in weather show presentations.
“Our dynamic graphics technology enables you to develop weather shows that viewers can really use and quickly understand because it takes them right into the weather”, says Sutherland.
Weatherscape XT simulates the real world by creating a 4D environment around the surface of the earth, with features including high resolution mapping capabilities, realistic lighting effects and textured water. Everything in Weatherscape XT is assigned a location, an altitude and a time. By manipulating these parameters, Weatherscape XT displays data as a realistic 4D simulation using either stylised or realistic graphics. Metra can fully customise Weatherscape XT for users.
Weatherscape XT is currently used by the World’s leading broadcasters including BBC, Channels Seven, Nine and SBS in Australia, and CNBC stations internationally.
