BBC Weather - Powered by nVidia

[Diplo]

Video gaming graphics technology is set to transform how BBC weather is done.

A version of 3D software Weatherscape XT has been developed by New Zealand firm Metra and the BBC to give viewers a realistic-looking forecast.

Combining high-end gaming graphics and processing power means visuals are generated instantly, in real-time.

The virtual reality technology takes constantly-updated data and translates it into 3D images. The new forecasts will be on air from early next year.

"It thinks and works a bit like a computer game," said Colin Tregear, project director at the BBC's Weather Centre.

"We are trying to take weather data and generate weather graphics on a 3D map that actually looks like the weather." ....

...Real-time rendering means data is translated into 3D models, hourly satellite images of cloud cover for instance, immediately.

Each forecaster will have their own high end PC with graphics card running the 3D software and every studio or office across the country will have a weather graphics server.

This will consist of a top end PC with graphics card and video card, which will also run the software, which will generate weather graphics in a format suitable for broadcast.

According to a caption the "top end" workstation PC is:

P4, 2.6GHz/800MHz
1GB 333Mhz DDR SDRAM
80GB IDE (7,200rpm) hard drive
NVidia FX6800 Ultra (sic) 256MB graphics card

More info: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3572562.stm

"The Way It's Meant To Rain"

 

[IgnorancePersonified]

Saw that on the bbc without the specs so ta for posting them. Had me wondering. We have had that here for awhile as they said on Ch9 ...it's good -bout bloody time cause Mike Bailey used to use a yellow clour for the land and blue for the ocean for waaaaaaay to many years!

 

[Diplo]

Well, going off the weather in Britain I hope they have a decent rain-generating algorithm

On a more serious note, though, I think the time is rapidly approaching when real-time 3D graphics are of a standard that they are going to feature a lot more in TV and ultimately films (I believe both Carmack and Sweeney have commented on how films in the future may utilise real-time 3D graphics for storyboards and ultimately films).

 

[Jodi]

TV one in NZ

I'm going to make the assumption that the 3d weather they have on TV1 over here is the same as what the BBC is getting.

From memory, it looks like a textured hightmap of the country (no self shadowing, or bump mapping) with sprite based tranperant overlays for clouds (ie they arnt volumetric, they just all look flat, and the same) and rain/snow shown sorta like quad based point sprites. And it stutters a bit too.

Info wise its great! graphics wise its about DX7 styles.

Ill pay closer attention to the weather next time I get to see it (I normally get home after the news) and make more detailed notes.

 

[AlNom]

Pretty soon we'll have Nalu doing the weather reports with the obligatory "The Way It's Meant To Be Reported."


...


Anyhow, maybe they can really do some cool stuff then.... like... a heat haze on the weather map when and where it's hot... and maybe do some nice HDR effects when they show the weather forecast (they show the sun for each day or clouds whatever....).

 

[hughJ]

Re: TV one in NZ

...And it stutters a bit too.

I want my weather at 60FPS - no less... and no brilinear either.

 

[Moloch]

Pretty soon we'll have Nalu doing the weather reports with the obligatory "The Way It's Meant To Be Reported."


...


Anyhow, maybe they can really do some cool stuff then.... like... a heat haze on the weather map when and where it's hot... and maybe do some nice HDR effects when they show the weather forecast (they show the sun for each day or clouds whatever....).

 

[Farid]

According to a caption the "top end" workstation PC is:

P4, 2.6GHz/800MHz
1GB 333Mhz DDR SDRAM
80GB IDE (7,200rpm) hard drive
NVidia FX6800 Ultra (sic) 256MB graphics card

The graphics servers is quite different:

INSIDE THE GRAPHICS SERVERS
Dual 3.06GHz Xeon Processors (533MHz FSB / 1MB cache)
2 GB Dual Channel DDR 266Mhz ECC SDRAM
2 SCSI 73GB (15,000rpm) hard drives
Ultra 320/M SCSI Controller Card
NVidia FX6800 Ultra 256MB graphics card

 

[nutball]

Re: TV one in NZ

From memory, it looks like a textured hightmap of the country (no self shadowing, or bump mapping) with sprite based tranperant overlays for clouds (ie they arnt volumetric, they just all look flat, and the same) and rain/snow shown sorta like quad based point sprites. And it stutters a bit too.

That would be a bit lame. Self-shadowed clouds aren't hard to do in real(-ish) time (and it's not like the system would ever be rendering anything other than clouds ).

 

[euan]

Scottish TV (CH3) has had a full 3d weather thing going for a couple of years. They keep doing a cheesy "flyover" of parts of the country, going through the satellite cloud images, and over poorly detailed towns. You can actually see the towns, rivers hills and so on in 3d. I thought it was pretty poor, and not detailed enough. Looked like 800x600, rather than decent TV graphics such as a 4x SSAA mode rendered @ PAL resolution. Maybe what the BBC have is an updated version?

Can't wait for the BSOD's One has to happen eventually...

 

[Mariner]

Scottish TV (CH3) has had a full 3d weather thing going for a couple of years. They keep doing a cheesy "flyover" of parts of the country, going through the satellite cloud images, and over poorly detailed towns. You can actually see the towns, rivers hills and so on in 3d. I thought it was pretty poor, and not detailed enough. Looked like 800x600, rather than decent TV graphics such as a 4x SSAA mode rendered @ PAL resolution. Maybe what the BBC have is an updated version?

Can't wait for the BSOD's One has to happen eventually...

Oddly enough, when I went to Portugal in the Summer to watch Euro2004 I saw an amusing BSOD. At one of the games I went to, the large colour screens failed as the application showing the scoreline graphics and video replays crashed - revealed what looked like a Win2000 desktop. I had to chuckle as they needed to reboot to get the system working correctly again!

 

[IgnorancePersonified]

It would be good if a client was released that hooked into a live feed so this could happen on *anyones* PC at home. Only data would be streamed of course.

 

[rabidrabbit]

We have something similar here in Finland on CH4 weather reports.
Actually, I hate the 3D weather map.
It looks like it's just done to look more visually impressive, without paying attention to legibility.

The camera in the 3D map pans too fast over the country, showing the biggest towns with a name and the weather in that area. It is only confusing, not clear to read as it should be. You don't get an overall view of the weather as you do with a 2D map, and the weather animation doesn't really tell as much as the traditional weather symbols.
Fortunately they also still have the 2D map.

The 2D map is so much better. 3D map is just a gimmick.

 

[IgnorancePersonified]

How do you show different atmospheric level weather effects on a 2d map other than with, for eg, a dotted line?
How about showing high level cloud with differernt layers underneath?
How many maps do you think they are going to show on prime time TV to people that are going to only need to find out if it's going to rain the next day?
Shading a map to show all the differernt aspects of weather and not just 1 or 2 components leads to information overload. I like a synoptic chart just like everyone else but there's a lot more that can be displayed than a line with semi circles and flashing "thunderstorm" icons to indicate the scale of a frontal system. I'm betting the system is customisable by the client and will be extended in future.
What i would like to see is similar to the "SkyCam's" they show atm only simulated so a proper flyby can be created and allows not only meteor like edge-of-the-atmosphere flyby's but a moving camera that can raised vertically tilted zoomed in and out etc etc. I don't think this is too far away.

Maybe need to find out if it's the same system as in one the 1st post since I have seen similar systems but the one(here ch9) they refer too is the same and is quite a lot better.

 

[rabidrabbit]

While the 3D weather maps do have the possibility to show more wysiwywg weather info, the problem is in the 3D map, camera and the limited time in which to display the information.

It might be great for the bigger cities, where the reporter is likely concentrating his/hers zooming on the map.
But as the camera is most of the time tilted at an angle to the country, you really can't localize very accurately where the clouds or whatever weather effect is respective to the ground.
And do the general public really need to know more than if it is raining, sunny, partially cloudy, thunder, snow... who cares about the cloud types and such and the forecasts are most of the time not as accurate as the 3D map anyway.

Likely the BBC and NZ maps are more advanced than what I've seen, and on which I base my moaning.

Still, I can't help but to think it's just another victim of the "let's make it 3D, it's all the rage now and it looks so cool. Maybe it does not serve the purpose as well as good old 2D, but it looks better"

 

[hoom]

I would think its the new 3d weather on TV3 not the old TV1 weather.

The TV3 weather is much prettier & more dynamic.
Its still not exactly spectacular 3d graphics but its a big improvement on the scale of weather forcasting graphics.

ps: The TV3 weather girl is way hotter
Mmmm husky voice (possibly not worksafe due to audio but nothing dirty)

 

[dream caster]

The History Channel has already shown recreations of some historical battles using the engine of Rome Total War engine, so we have some "serious" uses of game engines.

 

[hoom]

BBC did it first with Rome