D6.2 - Public, open-source release of a modernized version of OceanViz

The MarinePlan project develops a decision support system (DSS) to promote the implementation of a coherent and adaptive Ecosystem-based marine spatial planning (EB-MSP) framework in Europe, focused on co-development and co-creation of planning actions. The MarinePlan DSS unifies systematic conservation planning tools and marine ecosystem models to explore the trade-offs of planning actions on the marine ecosystems. Integrating non-experts in the use of complex DSS calls for disseminating scientific data in processed forms. OceanViz is an experimental platform that translates data that quantitatively describes the state of a marine ecosystem into a three-dimensional virtual underwater world and can provide side-by-side views of different states of the ecosystem to convey change caused by, for instance, management interventions (Steenbeek et al., 2021). The OceanViz approach is a promising tool to engage stakeholders but was built upon now deprecated technologies. Under MarinePlan it was agreed to modernize the OceanViz approach to a common gaming platform, and to share the updated OceanViz approach as an open source and freely available toolkit for visualizing the state of the Ocean. This deliverable aims to present the current state of the modernized OceanViz and its capabilities and features, as a programmable engine for visualizing marine ecosystems and how they change over time under influence of climate variability and change, and direct human activities. We also describe the connection points for configuring and interconnecting with OceanViz as an Application Programming Interface (API) and how OceanViz can be further customized and expanded on.