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River Runner: drop a raindrop anywhere in the USA, watch where it ends up

river-runner.samlearner.com

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Re: River Runner: drop a raindrop anywhere in the USA, watch where it ends up

#81

Post by MetallicCloud »

One thing which I suppose isn't surprising, but still was amazing to see at scale, is I put a drop in Colorado that ended up in the Gulf of Mexico. As the camera followed the path, it's nothing but farms, with the odd city sprinkled in. I got bored and left in Nebraska, but I imagine it's like that the whole way.

It's obvious it takes a lot of land to feed everyone, but to see it like that really drove it home.

Re: River Runner: drop a raindrop anywhere in the USA, watch where it ends up

#82

Post by leoedin »

samlearner wrote: post #70
chinathrow wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love it. Another feature request would be to not fly the path but just show the plotted flow.

I struggled with this a lot. Originally set that ending overview at the beginning, but was worried that practically a lot of users might miss the main feature. I've heard from a lot of people that they were surprised it went into the 3D view, and I think some people might see the plot and just assume that's it.

The 3D view is cool, but it would be great if you could turn it off. After a few goes, all I wanted to do was quickly look at a bunch of different places - I ended up closing the 3D view and going back to the map view anyway.

Re: River Runner: drop a raindrop anywhere in the USA, watch where it ends up

#85

Post by mason55 »

MetallicCloud wrote: post #81

One thing which I suppose isn't surprising, but still was amazing to see at scale, is I put a drop in Colorado that ended up in the Gulf of Mexico. As the camera followed the path, it's nothing but farms, with the odd city sprinkled in. I got bored and left in Nebraska, but I imagine it's like that the whole way. It's obvious it takes a lot of land to feed everyone, but to see it like that really drove it home.

Another neat thing about the eastern half of Colorado is the division between the Platte/Missouri and the Arkansas. A small difference in starting point has a huge impact on the route you travel to get to the Mississippi.

Re: River Runner: drop a raindrop anywhere in the USA, watch where it ends up

#86

Post by samlearner »

leoedin wrote: post #82
samlearner wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I struggled with this a lot. Originally set that ending overview at the beginning, but was worried that practically a lot of users might miss the main feature. I've heard from a lot of people that they were surprised it went into the 3D view, and I think some people might see the plot and just assume that's it.

The 3D view is cool, but it would be great if you could turn it off. After a few goes, all I wanted to do was quickly look at a bunch of different places - I ended up closing the 3D view and going back to the map view anyway.

Hmm ok, there's a fix here and it's probably something to do with a timer and a way to opt out, I'll work on this.

Re: River Runner: drop a raindrop anywhere in the USA, watch where it ends up

#87

Post by cpascal »

MetallicCloud wrote: post #81

One thing which I suppose isn't surprising, but still was amazing to see at scale, is I put a drop in Colorado that ended up in the Gulf of Mexico. As the camera followed the path, it's nothing but farms, with the odd city sprinkled in. I got bored and left in Nebraska, but I imagine it's like that the whole way. It's obvious it takes a lot of land to feed everyone, but to see it like that really drove it home.

Depending on where you placed that drop in Colorado it also could've ended up in the Pacific. The continental divide is in Colorado and all water west of the divide will eventually drain into the Pacific and all water east will drain to the Atlantic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Divide_of_the_Amer...

Re: River Runner: drop a raindrop anywhere in the USA, watch where it ends up

#88

Post by bernardv »

Very nicely done. What would be cool is the ability to switch from the terrain view to one showing height contours. Is overland runoff path hydrologically correct or are you essentially following stream flow. In any case, this would be a great exhibit in a first hydrology class.

Re: River Runner: drop a raindrop anywhere in the USA, watch where it ends up

#90

Post by davidw »

relaxing wrote: post #58
fouc wrote: post #42

Unconsciously I expected that the drop would always end up in larger bodies of water. So I was surprised when it went from a creek to a river and to a lake, and then back to a creek. We're probably missing some groundwater visualization :)

It could have been an endorheic basin, where the next step would be evaporation.

The Great Basin area is the first thing I checked, to see if that worked well, and it does.
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