The WOW project is dedicated to bringing innovative ways to learn about the scientific world. The following tools are interactive visualization programs that can be used online to view specific types of data, manipulate variables, or even see changes over time. To use these program, all you need is a browser that runs Java version 1.1 applets. Netscape and Internet Explorer versions 4 and higher have this capability. If you are behind a firewall the standalone Profile Plotter and Color Mapper programs may be unable to communicate with our data server. The DVTools versions use a different method to get the data and should not have any trouble with firewalls.

1. Profile Plotter is a program that displays interactive line graphs. Users can choose from a number of different variables to plot and then run the program to see how those variables change over time. Simple plotting of a variable versus depth can show how the location of the thermocline varies with time and can illustrate events such as spring and winter turnover or even year to year variability. This program is meant to be used with current RUSS data and runs online.
   
2. Color Mapper is a visually appealing program which takes data and creates color maps combined with line plots for any 2 RUSS parameters for any lake. It steps through individual data profiles to create animations as per the Profile Plotter.
   
3. DVT Toolkit is a collection of programs -- it includes the Profile Plotter, the Color Mapper, and a third program, the Depth vs. Time Plotter (DxT). The DVT Toolkit can be run on-line, or downloaded and run without an Internet connection.