Western Washington University graduate student Angela Diefenbach is pioneering a new method for the study and evaluation of active volcanoes and their risk for eruption. Diefenbach is using a technique called photogrammetry that involves taking pictures of an active volcano and using commercially available software, plot points on the pictures that the software is able to evaluate and turn into a three-dimensional model. The model can then be compared to past models to determine its volume and rate of growth, key indicators of volcanic activity.