Occurrence of Plant Bugs in North America
MAT 259, 2016
Han-Wei Kung

Concept
I visualize the occurrence of plant bugs across Canada, the United States, and Mexico. I first implement a program that converts data into 3D terrain-like maps and then collect insect occurrence data as an input to my program..

Query
I contacted Dr. Katja Seltmann and she provided my with plant bug datasets that can be read in Excel.

Process
I first wrote a program to draw triangle strips.



Then I implemented the midpoint displacement algorithm to generate cloud-like fractal.



Finally I integrated both programs and entered the information on where the bugs were collect into my program, creating the 3D terrain that visualize insect occurrence.


Final result
I also colored the terrain to show when the plant bugs were collected. The time frame ranges from 1800 to 2010.








Code
All work is developed within Processing
Source Code + Data