Abstract: Analysis on the routing of flood caused by cofferdam failure is of great importance for water dam project design and disaster warning. Based on VRP (Virtual Reality Platform), a method is presented to intuitively demonstrate the flood routing on computer with graphic and image processing techniques for a systematic and comprehensive analysis of the interrelation of the flood elements over time and space. This method integrates several digital processing techniques to visualize the data. The evolution of hydraulic elements, inclusive of water level and water depth in the river channel over time, is displayed by establishing the mapping relation between sequential variations of hydraulic elements and graphics. A case study shows that the method could simulate the routing of cofferdam failure flood and achieve dynamic analysis and user interaction. The results indicate that the visualization of flood routing caused by cofferdam failure based on VRP is of a distinct advantage in the integrity analysis of flood risk.

Key words: 4D visualization, VRP, cofferdam failure, flood routing, digital processing, disaster warning