Thesis (f/m/x) - Visualization and Evaluation of Meteorological Information in Extended Reality

The DLR Institute of Software Technology sees software as a catalyst for research and innovation. The institute's staff, currently numbering around 200, make a significant contribution to advancements in the fields of aviation, space, energy, transportation, and security through the development of state-of-the-art software solutions and innovative research.

Our areas of competence include reliable and safety-critical software systems, artificial intelligence, high-performance computing and quantum computing, human-system interaction and visualisation, software and systems engineering as well as digital platforms and digital twins.

What to expect

This thesis aims to investigate how meteorological information can be effectively visualized in eXtended Reality (XR) environments for drone operations. Relevant weather information may include wind direction and wind speed, precipitation, visibility, cloud coverage, or other spatially varying environmental conditions.

Suitable weather data sources, APIs, or datasets are to be investigated to retrieve meteorological information for a selected geographical area. Different visualization concepts are to be designed and implemented, for example using three-dimensional vector fields, spatial overlays, volumetric regions, or context-dependent representations along predefined drone trajectories. The developed concepts are to be integrated into an XR-based demonstrator.

Depending on the scope of the thesis, different visualization approaches may additionally be evaluated in a user study with regard to usability, comprehensibility, situation awareness, or task performance.

Your tasks

• review existing approaches for visualizing meteorological and spatial information
• design suitable visualization concepts for selected weather-related information
• implement and integrate the developed concepts in Unreal Engine
• combine weather information with existing map and drone-related data
• develop suitable interaction and UI/UX concepts for exploring the visualized information
• compare and assess selected visualization approaches

Your profile

• You are studying in Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction, or similar courses.
• experience with Unreal Engine
• programming skiils in C++
• basic knowledge of AR/VR or 3D visualization
• interest in XR, spatial data visualization, and UI/UX
• And you are a team player with creativity, independence and personal responsibility.

We look forward to getting to know you!

If you have any questions about this position (Vacancy-ID 6757) please contact:

Anna Bahnmüller

Tel.: +49 531 2952912