An overview of virtual city modelling : emerging organisational issues

This paper presents a recent overview of the increasing use of Virtual Reality (VR) technologies for the simulation of urban environments. It builds on previous research conducted on the identification of three-dimensional (3D) city models and offers an analysis of the development, utilization and construction of VR city models. Issues pertaining to advantages, barriers and ownership are identified. The paper describes a case study of the development of a VR model for the city of Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK and outlines the role that academic institutions can play in both the creation and utilization of urban models. The study offers a new approach for the creation, management and update of urban models and reflects on issues which are emerging. Areas for future research are discussed

Virtual reality urban modelling - an overview

This paper offers an overview of the increasing use of Virtual Reality (VR) technologies for the simulation of urban environments. It provides a summary of cities worldwide where three-dimensional computer modelling is being utilised to aid urban planning. The study considers the need for a digital representation of cities and raises issues pertaining to advantages, barriers and ownership. A case study of a pilot project on the visualisation of Newcastle upon Tyne is examined to show an approach adopted for the representation of this city in North East England. The process of this visualisation is summarised and future research is outlined in relation to this city model

Initial Evaluation of Accessibility and Design Awareness with 3-D Immersive Environments

This paper describes an effort to build and evaluate the effectiveness of an immersive 3-D visualization system to help increase the awareness that students have when designing software that has a high level of accessibility for the differently abled. The demonstration utilizes an immersive virtual reality (VR) environment in which we simulated two types of colorblindness in a generally familiar environment. We report on the initial trial of this tool and the results of student surveys designed to assess impact on student perception and understanding and demonstrate that the use of virtual environments can give students greater empathy for individuals with visual impairments

Virtual cities management and organisation

This paper presents a recent overview of the increasing use of Virtual Reality (VR) technologies for the simulation of urban environments. It builds on previous research conducted on the identification of three-dimensional (3D) city models and offers an analysis of the development, utilization and construction of VR city models. Issues pertaining to advantages, barriers and ownership are identified. The paper describes a case study of the development of a VR model for the city of Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK and outlines the role that academic institutions can play in both the creation and utilization of urban models. The study offers a new approach for the creation, management and update of urban models and reflects on issues which are emerging. Areas for future research are discussed

Architecture, colour and images. Ideas and designs by Friedensreich Hundertwasser

Colour, imagination, inspiration, amazement. These four words very fittingly describe the work of the Viennese artist/architect Friedrich Stowasser, better known as Hundertwasser (meaning hundred water), a master of organic thinking who between 1928 and 2000 worked and lived in Vienna, Venice and New Zealand. He uses eye-catching images to convey his ideas, forcefully expressive chromatic forms and patterns that betray a strong link with a re-interpreted geometric structure. This contribution, inspired by Hundertwasser’s works, intends to study the unique relationship between creativity, imagination and architecture based on sociological, cultural and psychological principles

Usability evaluation of a virtual museum interface

The Augmented Representation of Cultural Objects (ARCO) system provides software and interface tools to museum curators to develop virtual museum exhibitions, as well as a virtual environment for museum visitors over the World Wide Web or in informative kiosks. The main purpose of the system is to offer an enhanced educative and entertaining experience to virtual museum visitors. In order to assess the usability of the system, two approaches have been employed: a questionnaire based survey and a Cognitive Walkthrough session. Both approaches employed expert evaluators, such as domain experts and usability experts. The result of this study shows a fair performance of the followed approach, as regards the consumed time, financial and other resources, as a great deal of usability problems has been uncovered and many aspects of the system have been investigated. The knowledge gathered aims at creating a conceptual framework for diagnose usability problems in systems in the area of Virtual Cultural Heritage

Photogrammetry and archaeological knowledge: toward a 3D<br />information system dedicated to medieval archaeology: a case study of<br />Shawbak Castle in Jordan

The paper presents an interdisciplinary project which is the first step towards a 3D Geographical Information System (GIS) dedicated to Cultural Heritage with a specific focus application on the Castle of Shawbak, also known as the ”Crac de Montral” in Jordan. The project continues to grow thanks to a synergy between a set of laboratories: The LSIS laboratory, France in charge of the pho- togrammetric survey phase connected with the knowledge based approach; ITABC, CNR lab in Roma, Italy in charge of the topometric survey, with DGPS and aerial photography with gas balloon, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Kyoto, Japan for the 3D view point seek connected to the database, the image processing aspect managed by Stratos documentation, SimVis from The Department of Computer Science, University of Hull, UK, for the virtual reality aspect and of course the Dipartimento di Studi storici e Geografici from the University of Florence, Italy, in charge of the archaeological part. Our project focuses on a building scale encompassing its atomic elements such as ashlars blocks, cement, stratigraphic units and archi- tectonic elements. At this scale we need a full 3D interface in order to manage accurate measurements, a huge quantity of observations and a mainly heterogeneous archaeological documentation. This project described in this paper is work in progress. After four photogrammetric campaigns in Jordan the first results are available on the project web site: http://www.shawbak.ne