CanVis
NOAA Office for Coastal Management, USDA National Agroforestry Center
Overview
This easy-to-use, downloadable visualization tool allows users to “see” potential changes, from coastal development (including a new building or marina) to sea level rise. Controls are similar to Photoshop, but with less of a learning curve. Users can quickly develop realistic visualizations for their stakeholders. Hundreds of coast-based icons (coastal object libraries) are provided.
Features
- Simulate potential on-the-ground impacts of various actions
- Compare outcomes of multiple scenarios
- Create a possible vision of the future
Additional Information
Coastal Object Libraries
CanVis is provided with libraries (groups of objects) from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agroforestry Center. The NOAA Office for Coastal Management provides additional objects (boats, docks, etc.) useful for organizations that manage coastal resources.
- Full Package (.zip, 90.1MB) - Preview
- Alternative Energy (.zip, 25.7KB) - Preview
- Aquaculture (.zip, 6.1MB) - Preview (Provided by NOAA’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science)
- Boats (.zip, 8.03B) - Preview
- Coastal Vegetation (.zip, 4.67MB) - Preview
- Commercial - Urban (.zip, 1.96B) - Preview
- Commercial - Water (.zip, 1MB) - Preview
- People (.zip, 3.7MB) - Preview
- Docks, Buoys, and Structures (.zip, 4.27MB) - Preview
- Houses (.zip, 12.7MB) - Preview
- Parks and Urban Areas (.zip, 5.12MB) - Preview
- Satellite and Aerial (.zip, 9.42MB) - Preview
- Symbols (.zip, 4.53KB) - Preview
- Transportation (.zip, 1.55MB) - Preview
- Walls and Buffers (.zip, 37.5MB) - Preview
The NOAA Office for Coastal Management recently developed a program that will automatically load all coastal object libraries into your CanVis application. Using this program means you will no longer need to load individual libraries manually. Please determine which version of CanVis you have installed on your computer before downloading.
IAN Symbol Libraries
The University of Maryland’s Integration and Application Network (IAN) created a library of over 2,000 symbols designed specifically for scientific conceptual diagrams. The NOAA Office for Coastal Management converted all of these symbols into a format which can be used in CanVis and is now available for download. Please determine which version of CanVis you have installed before downloading.
For more information about the Integration and Application Network please visit ian.umces.edu.
Guidance Documents
Instructional Videos
Overview
- Tutorial – An overview video on using CanVis
General Tools
- Aquire – Loading images into your design
- New – Opening a new blank document
- Open – Opening background images
- Save – Saving your visualizations
- Print – Preparing your work for printing
Base Image Editing
- Clone Texture – Copy areas of your base image
- Zoom – Adjust size of your base image
- Lighting – How to change lighting effects
Area Selection and Manipulation
Object Color and Blending
Object Editing and Manipulation
