Seeing the invisible: from imagined to virtual urban landscapes

Urban ecosystems consist of infrastructure features working together to provide services for inhabitants. Infrastructure functions akin to an ecosystem, having dynamic relationships and interdependencies. However, with age, urban infrastructure can deteriorate and stop functioning. Additional pressures on infrastructure include urbanizing populations and a changing climate that exposes vulnerabilities. To manage the urban infrastructure ecosystem in a modernizing world, urban planners need to integrate a coordinated management plan for these co-located and dependent infrastructure features. To implement such a management practice, an improved method for communicating how these infrastructure features interact is needed. This study aims to define urban infrastructure as a system, identify the systematic barriers preventing implementation of a more coordinated management model, and develop a virtual reality tool to provide visualization of the spatial system dynamics of urban infrastructure. Data was collected from a stakeholder workshop that highlighted a lack of appreciation for the system dynamics of urban infrastructure. An urban ecology VR model was created to highlight the interconnectedness of infrastructure features. VR proved to be useful for communicating spatial information to urban stakeholders about the complexities of infrastructure ecology and the interactions between infrastructure features.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2019.102559Published versio

Enhancing Citizen Participation through Serious Games in Virtual Reality

Recently, an increasing number of cities are in the process of developing new strategies and concepts to become Smart Cities. Participatory approaches that include all stakeholders are essential for urban developments to be smart and widely accepted. Nevertheless, only a few cities have linked their citizen participation with city planning. This is where this innovative Virtual Reality (VR) project comes in.Technological progress in VR now enables people to be virtually integrated into an emerging future. Incombination with gamification methods, educational tools with long term impacts can be created. As of yet, gamification in a non-VR environment has been successfully applied in different projects. This project aims to unlock the untapped potential and examines how a serious game in a high-end VR environment can increase citizen participation in a Smart City. To create the VR application, a user-centered design method was applied. In a first step, a prototype, the serious game “Virtual Energy Hero”, was developed, which addresses energy and sustainability topics. The game was very well received by more than 90% of approximately 250 players (by the end of 2018). The storyline of the game, as well as its game mechanics to enhance interactivity and immersion, are the main areas for improvement, as identified through interviews, a literature review, tests and surveys. Theselearnings were considered when designing the second game "Virtual Smart City Hero". By creating virtual scenarios of the Smart City Winterthur, based on the city’s 3D model, people are offered the opportunity to dive into the topic and interact with current and future Smart City elements. Through interactive mini-games, the players are given an immersive experience. The “Virtual Smart City Hero” is currently under development and still in the design phase. It is planned that after playing the game, the players are encouraged to join a web based innovation platform. There, they can conceptualize and discuss new ideas and participate in bottom-up initiatives. The platform will promote collaborations between different actors - citizens, administrations, research institutes and the private sector. Impact assessments will be made and it will be analyzed how the platform has to be designed for citizens to become active Smart Citizens

Evaluating presentation formats of local climate change in community planning with regard to process and outcomes

This study synthesizes two evaluations of a local climate change planning process in a rural town in British Columbia (Canada), which was supported through landscape visualizations. First, the impact of the visualizations, based on scientific environmental modeling and presented in three different presentation formats, verbal/visual presentation, posters and a virtual globe, was evaluated with regard to immediate impacts during the process. Second, the long-term impacts on decision-making and actual outcomes were evaluated in a retrospective evaluation 22 months after the end of the initial planning process. Two results are highlighted: according to the quantitative pre-/post-questionnaires, the visualizations contributed to increased awareness and understanding. Most importantly, the retrospective evaluation indicated that the process informed policy, operational and built changes in Kimberley, in which the landscape visualizations played a role. The post interviews with key decision-makers showed that they remembered most of the visualizations and some decision-makers were further using them, particularly the posters. The virtual globe seemed to be not a "sustainable" display format suitable for formal decision-making processes such as council meetings though. That may change with the further mainstreaming of visualization technologies or mobile devices. Until then, we recommend using display formats that can be re-used following a specific planning event such as an Open House, to ensure on-going support for effective decision-making over the longer-term

Challenges in creating a 3D participatory platform for urban development ::a case study

This paper aims at underling difficulties regarding the establishment of citizen engagement processes. The specificity of citizen engagement processes lies in their evolution over time where objectives, constraints, and latitudes of a given project influence the relevance of the tools offered to citizens. Three categories of urban projects (trans-urban, major metropolitan, architectural design) have been described. These classes range from a local space with short deadlines to a regional space spread over several decades. Furthermore, the use of 3D platforms for a broad public is influenced by the users’ preferences, perception, and expertise. Throughout this study, major challenges that have been experienced during the design a 3D participatory platform are identified. They range from the issues of implementing adequate tools according to the project (temporal and spatial scalability), the participation forms (passive, consultative or interactive), to the difficulties of convincing the authorities to use new bottom-up methods. Finally, a conceptual framework for the creation of a 3D participatory platform has been introduced. It can be summarized by three major steps: (1) Meeting the needs of a decision maker, (2) Designing the participation tool in accordance with the context, (3) Translating collected raw data in order to respond to the initial request

ESTABLISHING PUBLIC CONSENSUS THROUGH DEVELOPING SPATIAL MULTIMEDIA SYSTEM TOWARDS SMART GOVERNANCE IN MANAGING CITYSCAPE PLANNING

The rapid development of information technology leads to the changes of the urban management system demanding the utilization of the smart city concept which aims to provide an environment for the community that is efficient, sustainable and secure, with the use of ICT (Information and Communications Technology). This paper utilized smart governance concept as one aspect of a smart city to improve and develop community participation in the visual quality control of urban spaces that meet the social aspects, economic efficiency and biological health of the community through visual quality evaluation activities on city space corridors. The development of spatial multimedia support system is one of the current development in urban planning that associated with public engagement. The objective of the study is to develop a scenario of the 3D spatial multimedia system as a Decision Planning Support System for structuring street corridor landscape based on 3D Interactive Simulation System. Through the scenario of interactivity development, 3D visualization in the virtual environment is expected to be efficient as well as supporting the development of the effectiveness of decision-making system in the evaluation of visual comfort quality in the streetscape

A Geo-Spatial Information Model for Rurban Planning

The Indian context of planning primarily focuses on urban settlements comprising approximately 30% of our land area. The rest two-thirds are composed of spatially isolated rural communities which lack access to adequate infrastructure, services and connectivity for which the absence of a standardized planning methodology is a pertinent reason. Since a spatial entity is never disconnected from its context, planning is most effective when undertaken in the context of a region, joining settlements in need of physical, economic and social connectivity. Within a region, the availability of a multihierarchical geo-spatial database is fundamental to spatial planning, and research identifies that it requires conspicuous attention in our rural planning strategy. The proposed paper addresses this lacuna of data infrastructure at the micro-regional level. An example of micro-region is the rurban cluster, comprising several village settlements around a central town, displaying potential for spatially integrated development. The rurban cluster is in compliance with the Shyama Prasad Mukherji National Rurban Mission (SPMNRM), a flagship programme initiated by the Ministry of Rural Development (Government of India) in 2016. The planning, implementation and execution of this scheme also sufferes due to the lack of geo-spatial database management. Borrowing from past experiences in the country and abroad, this paper constructs a model for geo-spatial planning of rurban clusters. The model takes care of all the stages of rurban cluster planning such as delineation of the micro-region, database design and management, analysis, evolution of alternative scenarios and finally implementation and monitoringthrough geo-spatial information systems. Once developed and applied, it objectively evaluates the corresponding stages of the SPMNRM (non-spatial) and the new model (geo-spatial), to demonstrate how the latter adds value to the planning process and produces superior results on ground

A Virtual Platform for Improving Coordination and Promoting Cooperation on Traffic Safety

ABSTRACTSuccessful management of traffic safety requires effective community participation in the process of traffic awareness, planning and management along with the executive bodies concerned with traffic planning and management. Just as important to reinforcing a shared vision among people and management bodies is the idea of people participation in decision-making. There is a strong need for cooperation among traffic users, planners and managers. Traffic users play a significant role in running the traffic and have been vocal about management issues. Users should be encouraged to be as involved and active as possible in all decisions that affect their traffic safety. Community Corporations go further and encourage participation by forming user organizations. Encouraging user participation also requires training for oversight and conflict resolution, in order to work through unresolved problems. It is also as important that users should try out their ideas in an open exchange, see how the ideas fare; and hopefully, the best ones will survive and users learn through each other. Therefore, there is a great need to provide users, traffic planners and managers with a platform that fosters such activities and allows traffic users to discuss, report and document their views, events, experiences related to their traffic safety, i.e. report on faults, cracks, breakdown, damages, etc. Making a good use of such data can substantially assist in improving the operation and management of traffic safety. Virtual environments can provide traffic users, planners and managers with an atmosphere to participate in a computer generated world. Virtual environments run on multiple processes in which information are shared among processes. Traffic users, planners and managers will be able to visualize and navigate the virtual traffic modeled in distributed virtual environments. Traffic management is essential to achieve better reliability and availability of traffic safety. It is important to minimize the obstacles that will impact the successful achievement of traffic safety. This paper proposes a virtual platform for encouraging users' participation in traffic safety in terms of awareness, operation and management developed and to be implemented in an interactive 3D virtual environment. This virtual environment promotes multiple participants and can be remotely accessed synchronously by different users within 3D object-oriented virtual models while they are aware of the presence of others and communicate with them. This virtual environment encourages users, planners and managers to participate in fostering the sense of community partnership and shared responsibility, while traffic managers will benefit from the users' views

CityScope: Enhanced Localozation and Synchronizing AR for Dynamic Urban Weather Visualization

CityScope uses augmented reality (AR) to change our interaction with weather data. The main goal is to develop real-time 3D weather visualizations, with Taiwan as the model. It displays live weather data from the Central Weather Bureau (CWB), projected onto a physical representation of Taiwan's landscape. A pivotal advancement in our project is the integration of AprilTag with plane detection technology. This innovative combination significantly enhances the precision of the virtual visualizations within the physical world. By accurately aligning AR elements with real-world environments, CityScope achieves a seamless and realistic amalgamation of weather data and the physical terrain of Taiwan. This breakthrough in AR technology not only enhances the accuracy of weather visualizations but also enriches user experience, offering an immersive and interactive way to understand and engage with meteorological information. CityScope stands as a testament to the potential of AR in transforming data visualization and public engagement in meteorology.Comment: 9 pages, 15 figure

Customising virtual globe tours to enhance community awareness of local landscape benefits

Our wellbeing depends upon the services provided by ecosystems and their components. Despite recent advances in academic understanding of ecosystem services, and consideration in UK national environmental policy, a greater awareness is needed at community and individual levels. Dynamic features of virtual globe applications have considerable potential for helping convey the multi-dimensional context of ecosystem services and promoting general awareness. In a case study targeting residents in a small urban fringe river catchment in Norfolk, UK, representatives from local authorities and responsible agencies collaborated with scientists to produce extensive customisation of virtual globes in this context. By implementing a virtual flight over the catchment, different views and scales are traversed to set the context for landscape features and ecosystem services. Characteristic sites, e.g. supplying cultural services, are displayed and relationships with the natural environment are explained using linked on-screen text. Implementation is cost-effective and described for practitioners in ecosystem and landscape management, who may be inexperienced in landscape visualisation. Supplied as three pre-packaged virtual tours, products are made available for download and are publicised at a variety of engagement events, including teaching events with schoolchildren. The tours have attracted public interest and generated positive feedback about improving knowledge of local natural assets. Schoolchildren show confidence with the interface, but supplementary problem-based activities can improve learning opportunities. The capacity of virtual globes to support more participatory involvement of the public in local ecosystem management may increase in the future, but such visualisations can already help promote community awareness of local landscape benefits