Introducing a new app for 3D visualization of bird flight in the environmental context

Understanding and visualizing animal movement, particularly through bird tracking data, is essential across various disciplines for benefits such as conservation planning and climate change monitoring. Traditional analysis tools like R, while powerful, fall short in offering interactive and 3D visualization capabilities necessary for comprehending the multi-dimensional nature (longitude, latitude, altitude, and time) of bird tracking data. This masters project aimed to develop a web application that enables interactive 3D visualization of bird tracking data. Initial interviews with researchers highlighted the need for a tool that allows flexible data exploration, accurate bird model representation, and simplifies complex data for researchers, policymakers, and the public. Leveraging the Cesium library for 3D mapping for component-based application development, the project seeks to enhance user experience by improving data loading capabilities, visualization, and analysis features. The application is tested using a dataset on migration of European honey buzzard (Pernis apivorus). This tool is not intended to replace R but to complement it by offering new perspectives for data exploration and presentation, making scientific findings more accessible and understandable.