Seeing the invisible: From imagined to virtual urban landscapes

Ma, Yaxiong; Wright, Jessica; Gopal, Sucharita; Phillips, Nathan

doi:10.1016/j.cities.2019.102559

Cited by 47 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 40 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…For example, construction planning of buildings or wind turbines can be combined with the investigation of shadowing and visual axes, areas at the risk of flooding during heavy rainfall events can be identified, or heat demand for the development of urban districts can be measured. Thus, the synthesis of different geographic approaches and perspectives in VR-based 3D spatial representations can support the development of urban development concepts towards more smart, green and resilient cities (Jamei et al 2017;Ma et al 2020). Moreover, besides the basic ability to visualize space in 3D, VR is characterized by the component of immersion, which considerably intensifies the communication of spatial information (Hruby et al 2020b).…”

Section: The Potential Of Vr For Multi-perspective Research Approachementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such recreations are especially appealing for educational purposes; applications in the field of experimental archaeology are also conceivable. In contrast to no longer existing environments, Edler et al (2019a, b) show how virtual 3D environments and VR technology can be used to support urban planning and site marketing (see also Ma et al 2020). Game engine technologies are shown to be helpful for urban planners, architects and stakeholders, as they enable quick prototyping of building designs and spatial arrangements.…”

Section: The Capabilities Of Game Enginesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Creating Immersive Virtual Environments Based on Open Geospatial Data and Game Engines

Keil

Edler

Schmitt

et al. 2021

KN J. Cartogr. Geogr. Inf.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Modern game engines like Unity allow users to create realistic 3D environments containing terrains as well as natural and artificial objects easily and swiftly. In addition, recent advances of game engine capabilities enable effortless implementation of virtual reality (VR) compatibility. 3D environments created with VR compatibility can be experienced from an egocentric and stereoscopic perspective that surpasses the immersion of the ‘classical’ screen-based perception of 3D environments. Not only game developers benefit from the possibilities provided by game engines. The ability to use geospatial data to shape virtual 3D environments opens a multitude of possibilities for geographic applications, such as construction planning, spatial hazard simulations or representation of historical places. The multi-perspective, multimodal reconstruction of three-dimensional space based on game engine technology today supports the possibility of linking different approaches of geographic work more closely. Free geospatial data that can be used for spatial reconstructions is provided by numerous national and regional official institutions. However, the file format of these data sources is not standardized and game engines only support a limited number of file formats. Therefore, format transformation is usually required to apply geospatial data to virtual 3D environments. This paper presents several workflows to apply digital elevation data and 3D city model data from OpenStreetMap and the Open.NRW initiative to Unity-based 3D environments. Advantages and disadvantages of different sources of geospatial data are discussed. In addition, implementation of VR compatibility is described. Finally, benefits of immersive VR implementation and characteristics of current VR hardware are discussed in the context of specific geographic application scenarios.

show abstract

Section: The Potential Of Vr For Multi-perspective Research Approachementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Capabilities Of Game Enginesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Creating Immersive Virtual Environments Based on Open Geospatial Data and Game Engines

Keil

Edler

Schmitt

et al. 2021

KN J. Cartogr. Geogr. Inf.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Its practitioner has a long tradition of using the formalized and regularized symbology, its portrayal employs semantically rich 3D cadastre datasets, and the large quantity of its 3D scenes calls for automated cartography enrichment. Considering that other application domains of 3D mapping may encounter similar visualization requirements and challenges as those of 3D cadastre [7,8], this paper could be inspiring and may contribute valuable information in that regard.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…As the cadastre in multiple countries starts to register the 3D legal space and its right, restriction, and responsibility, many researchers believe that moving the cadastre map from 2D to 3D and cartographically enriching the raw data may bring a series of benefits to 3D legal space visualization [1], including intuitive presentations [2], 3D interactive navigation [3], and extra symbol design choices compared with 2D visualization [4]. The latest 3D mapping development in various application fields demonstrates the potential to create an immersive 3D environment by using not only visual but auditive channels [5,6], and such an immersive environment benefits a wide spectrum of users and tasks, such as noise evaluation, biodiversity, urban planning, site marketing, and cultural heritage displaying [5][6][7][8][9]. As 3D cadastre mapping often deals with congregated scenarios and complex legal realities, fine-tuning the cartographic enrichment is key to ensuring a usable mapping result.…”

Section: Introduction 1backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design, Development and Applicability Evaluation of a Digital Cartographic Model for 3D Cadastre Mapping in China

Wang

2021

IJGI

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Structurally describing the portrayal-related information by using a standalone Digital Cartographic Model on top of a Digital Landscape Model has been proved applicable and beneficial for 2D mapping but has not yet been applied to 3D cadastre. This study, therefore, evaluates the applicability of digital cartographic model and the corresponding visualization pipeline for 3D cadastre in the context of Chinese urban cadastre. This research starts by identifying the requirements and design features of 3D cadastre mapping through a literature review and interviews with users and cartographers. Addressing the limitations of the existing general-purpose models, this paper proposes an ad hoc 3D cadastre digital cartographic model. The main developments of the proposed model are the inclusion of 3D content modeling, the support of the compound 3D symbols, and the introduction of the semantic transformation. The proposed model is then embedded into three parts of the cadastre visualization pipeline: the symbolic rule design, graphic content creation, and scene dissemination. The empirical result of qualitative proof-of-concept user tests supports that the proposed visualization pipeline is applicable and yields promising visualization results. The digital cartographic model-based visualization pipeline is a novel 3D cadastre mapping paradigm that facilitates designing, producing, sharing, and administrating.

show abstract

“…Discussions on immersive 3D environments are not only limited to questions addressing an improved visualization and use, but also they have already been suggested as valuable present and future tools for different application scenarios, such as landscape and urban planning (e.g., Jamei et al 2017;Ma et al 2020;Salter et al 2009;Virtanen et al 2015). The social construction of landscapes in video and computer games, which are based on modern visualization techniques, has only hardly been addressed so far (Edler et al 2018c; Fontaine 2017; Kühne 2019).…”

Section: Spatial Games and Cartographymentioning

confidence: 99%

Raumbezogene Visualisierung trifft auf Landschaftsforschung und „Pinballology“: Beispiele der Landschaftskonstruktion in Flipperspielen

Edler

2020

KN J. Cartogr. Geogr. Inf.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Maps and map-like visualizations in digital games have been repeatedly addressed in research of cartography and related disciplines. For example, visualization techniques and tools used in video and computer games, including navigation and locomotion tools in VR gaming, have been analyzed and adopted to VR-based 3D cartographic modeling in recent time. A successful and diversified game which has only hardly been considered in the literature so far is pinball. Modern pinball machines are equipped with sophisticated map-like playfields (and other related components) that allow pinball players to immerse into a rapidly changing spatial story which is directed by the pinball movement. The (endless) game of skill is cognitively challenging and it sometimes even 'plays with' overloading the cognitive capacity of players by activating a multitude of multisensory (spatial) events. An overloaded communication of spatial information is apparently part of the success story of the game. The successful story of pinball also includes several characteristic themes that seem to fascinate the worldwide community of players (and retro fans). These themes, including their map-like visualizations, invite players to be involved into the rapid spatial story, and they include many 'triggers' for the individual and social construction of landscapes. These landscapes can fulfill desires for escapism. This article presents characteristic examples of successful and established modern pinball themes and discusses their potentials for landscape construction, from a social constructivist perspective.

show abstract

Seeing the invisible: From imagined to virtual urban landscapes

Cited by 47 publications

References 40 publications

Creating Immersive Virtual Environments Based on Open Geospatial Data and Game Engines

Creating Immersive Virtual Environments Based on Open Geospatial Data and Game Engines

Design, Development and Applicability Evaluation of a Digital Cartographic Model for 3D Cadastre Mapping in China

Raumbezogene Visualisierung trifft auf Landschaftsforschung und „Pinballology“: Beispiele der Landschaftskonstruktion in Flipperspielen

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About