"Thanks to this system, we can discover so much more new data -- it's like discovering diamonds!" said Tetsuya Sato, a professor who heads the project at the state-run Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology.

Researchers -- and, once a year, the general public -- can observe the three-dimensional simulations of natural phenomena, including earthquakes, tornadoes and tsunamis.

Wearing special glasses with sensors, scientists step into a small cube-like room in Yokohama, near Tokyo. The computer projects data through 3D images that appear across the room.

If the researchers punch in figures for a powerful typhoon, they can watch images of clouds swirling around them.

"Earth simulators up until now used to only produce and stock digital data but we couldn't fully understand natural phenomena just by looking at numbers," Sato said.

"The computer processes the data and the system transforms it to appeal to the human senses such as vision."

The researchers can even simulate seeing deep inside the Earth's core using the technology, by creating an image of a flat miniature earth that glides across the walls and bounces into mid-air inside the room.

Streams of color zigzag inside the earth's core, representing the velocity of the molten iron.

"We can simulate how streams of molten iron move inside the earth's core and create the magnetic pull," said Akira Kageyama, who designed the system.

"We have a better forecast of weather and other phenomena than the weather agency does," he said with a laugh.

But he acknowledged the system had limitations and could not accurately observe more complicated phenomena such as global warming, which has too many factors and takes place for too long a period for an instant visual representation.

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Related Links
Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology
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When the Earth Quakes