Map the World's Coral Reef with NeMO-Net App

[Ink]

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https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-calls-on-gamers-citizen-scientists-to-help-map-world-s-corals/

NASA invites video gamers and citizen scientists to embark on virtual ocean research expeditions to help map coral reefs around the world in an effort to better understand these threatened ecosystems.

Enter NeMO-Net, a video game in which players identify and classify corals using these 3D images while virtually traveling the ocean on their own research vessel, the Nautilus. Principal investigator Ved Chirayath at Ames developed the neural network behind the game, also called NeMO-Net, or the Neural Multi-Modal Observation and Training Network, which will use player input to build a global coral map

"NeMO-Net leverages the most powerful force on this planet: not a fancy camera or a supercomputer, but people," said Chirayath. "Anyone, even a first grader, can play this game and sort through these data to help us map one of the most beautiful forms of life we know of."

On each "dive," players interact with real NASA data, learning about the different kinds of corals that lie on the shallow ocean floor while highlighting where they appear in the imagery. Aboard their virtual research vessel, players will be able to track their progress, earn badges, read through the game's field guide, and access educational videos about life on the sea floor.

As they play the game, players’ actions help train NASA's Pleiades supercomputer at Ames to recognize corals from any image of the ocean floor, even those taken with less powerful instruments. The supercomputer "learns" from the coral classifications players make by hand, using machine learning techniques to classify on its own.

Available for iOS and macOS

‎NASA NeMO-Net

‎Join the NASA team by helping us classify coral reefs! Travel the world, make friends with ocean wildlife, and classify real coral by painting in 3D. The classifications you create go directly to NASA and help protect the oceans! 3D PAINTING - Relax and paint over beautiful 3D images to...

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Coming soon to Android
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