Integrating Virtual Environment aIntegrating Virtual Environment and GIS for 3D Virtual Citynd GIS for 3D Virtual City

Development and Urban PlanninDevelopment and Urban Planningg

Bin Chen, Fengru Huang, Yu FangPeking University

Content

• Introduction• Virtual World Technology• Integrate VW with GIS• A Practice of VW Based Virtual City• Conclusions and Future Work

Introduction

• Recently innovative technologies offer different ways of modelling and representing urban information with real-time interaction over the Internet.

• 3 generations of virtual city technology– Web listing by text, image and video– "Flat" cities by 2D map– 3D visualization virtual city

Virtual World Technology• Virtual World is a mult

i-user 3D creative platform based on virtual environment– Users immersed into virt

ual environment by avatars

– Online collaborative authoring and application development

– Different from traditional virtual reality

Features of Virtual World• Virtual reality environme

nt– Virtual terrain and virtual

atmosphere– Dynamics simulation

• 3D authoring platform– Network oriented 3D mode

lling– Script language

• interact among virtual environment, avatars and 3D models

• communicate with outer process

• Avatar system• Instant messaging

Virtual World Technology• As a general purpose development platf

orm, VW can be used to support applications from a wide range of fields– Online entertainment, virtual communities– Virtual education and trainning– Scientific visulization– Virtual tour, urban planning– Emergency response and drill– Facility Management

Virtual World Technology• VWs are becoming t

he new generation of mainstream Internet contents followed after text, image, audio and video

Integrate VW with GIS• Extending geodata model by virtual reality

– Integrate geodata with 3D models– Support realtime update and modification of virt

ual scenes• Online multi-user collaborative workflow

– Emphasize collaborative interaction of multi-user

– Increase performance of user-avatar interaction with virtual environment

– New method of mapping between 2D geodata and 3D models

Integrate VW with GIS

• Develop human-scale GIS application– Considering features of small scale space

• Enrich general purpose development platform of VW– Combined with geoprocess model library– Communicate with outer geodatabase and

workflow

VW Based Virtual City

• Advantages includes– Network oriented– Fast and low-cost 3D mo

deling– Multiple plans show– Multi-user collaborative

evaluation– Realtime plan modificati

on

A Practice of VW Based Virtual City• The project integrate th

e real Shunde Industrial Design City, which hosted in Guangdong of South China, with a virtual environment by geographic mapping and 3D virtual modeling.

• Based on VW server of Opensimulator

• About 4 square kilos

A Practice of VW Based Virtual City

• A joystick allows the user avatar to fly-through the 3D model in realtime

• have a look from different perspectives at complex topographic structures as well as the smallest architectural details.

A Practice of VW Based Virtual City

• Based on the 3D visualization of the real architecture and landscape of Shunde Industrial City, users of different levels and objectives can have varies activities and experiences in virtual environment– including interactive mapping and collaborative mode

lling, solid, geometric modelling photospatial panoramic views, and multi-user virtual worlds.

• For urban planning, the planners can construct or move landscape elements– such as roads, buildings, plants, sculptures, bridges,

water, etc– based on their observation and consideration in the vi

rtual city collaboratively.

Conclusions and Future Work• Applications based on virtual world ar

e becoming popular, virtual city and urban planning is a typical case

• Extending VW with GIS will make virtual city more powerful by many aspects including immersive virtual environment and collaborative interaction

• Further work will focus on the complete design and development of virtual applications of urban planning

End

• Thanks for your attention!