Visual communication in urban planning and urban design

This report documents the current status of visual communication in urban design and planning. Visual communication is examined through discussion of standalone and network media, specifically concentrating on visualisation on the World Wide Web(WWW).Firstly, we examine the use of Solid and Geometric Modelling for visualising urban planning and urban design. This report documents and compares examples of the use of Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML) and proprietary WWW based Virtual Reality modelling software. Examples include the modelling of Bath and Glasgow using both VRML 1.0 and 2.0. A review is carried out on the use of Virtual Worldsand their role in visualising urban form within multi-user environments. The use of Virtual Worlds is developed into a case study of the possibilities and limitations of Virtual Internet Design Arenas (ViDAs), an initiative undertaken at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London. The use of Virtual Worlds and their development towards ViDAs is seen as one of the most important developments in visual communication for urban planning and urban design since the development plan.Secondly, photorealistic media in the process of communicating plans is examined.The process of creating photorealistic media is documented, examples of the Virtual Streetscape and Wired Whitehall Virtual Urban Interface System are provided. The conclusion is drawn that although the use of photo-realistic media on the WWW provides a way to visually communicate planning information, its use is limited. The merging of photorealistic media and solid geometric modelling is reviewed in the creation of Augmented Reality. Augmented Reality is seen to provide an important step forward in the ability to quickly and easily visualise urban planning and urban design information.Thirdly, the role of visual communication of planning data through GIS is examined interms of desktop, three dimensional and Internet based GIS systems. The evolution to Internet GIS is seen as a critical component in the development of virtual cities which will allow urban planners and urban designers to visualise and model the complexity of the built environment in networked virtual reality.Finally a viewpoint is put forward of the Virtual City, linking Internet GIS with photorealistic multi-user Virtual Worlds. At present there are constraints on how far virtual cities can be developed, but a view is provided on how these networked virtual worlds are developing to aid visual communication in urban planning and urban design

Take Part Prototype: Creating New Ways of Participation Through Augmented and Virtual Reality [in press]

Famous examples like the Amazon headquarter in New York City or the Stuttgart 21 train station demonstrate that construction projects are often subjects of common interest and can therefore produce protests if citizens feel unheard in urban planning. In this manuscript, we would therefore like to investigate whether e-participation can be used as a tool to foster citizen involvement in construction projects that are of public interest. To this end, we present a prototype that combines participation with augmented and virtual reality. While offering a source for a better understanding of construction processes, our prototype allows users to bring in their own design suggestions and discuss these with others. With this prototype paper, we thus want to demonstrate how augmented and virtual reality can lay the ground for innovative ways of political participation that would offer great potential for project initiators and citizens

iCity. Transformative Research for the Livable, Intelligent, and Sustainable City

This open access book presents the exciting research results of the BMBF funded project iCity carried out at University of Applied Science Stuttgart to help cities to become more liveable, intelligent and sustainable, to become a LIScity. The research has been pursued with industry partners and NGOs from 2017 to 2020. A LIScity is increasingly digitally networked, uses resources efficiently, and implements intelligent mobility concepts. It guarantees the supply of its grid-bound infrastructure with a high proportion of renewable energy. Intelligent cities are increasingly human-centered, integrative, and flexible, thus placing the well-being of the citizens at the center of developments to increase the quality of life. The articles in this book cover research aimed to meet these criteria. The book covers research in the fields of energy (i.e. algorithms for heating and energy storage systems, simulation programs for thermal local heating supply, runtime optimization of combined heat and power (CHP), natural ventilation), mobility (i.e. charging distribution and deep learning, innovative emission-friendly mobility, routing apps, zero-emission urban logistics, augmented reality, artificial intelligence for individual route planning, mobility behavior), information platforms (i.e. 3DCity models in city planning: sunny places visualization, augmented reality for windy cities, internet of things (IoT) monitoring to visualize device performance, storing and visualizing dynamic energy data of smart cities), and buildings and city planning (i.e. sound insulation of sustainable facades and balconies, multi-camera mobile systems for inspection of tunnels, building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) as active façade elements, common space, the building envelopes potential in smart sustainable cities)

Mapping the visual magnitude of popular tourist sites in Edinburgh city

There is value in being able to automatically measure and visualise the visual magnitude of city sites (monuments and buildings, tourist sites) – for example in urban planning, as an aid to automated way finding, or in augmented reality city guides. Here we present the outputs of an algorithm able to calculate visual magnitude – both as an absolute measure of the façade area, and in terms of a building’s perceived magnitude (its lesser importance with distance). Both metrics influence the photogenic nature of a site. We therefore compared against maps showing the locations from where geo-located FlickR images were taken.  The results accord with the metrics and therefore help disambiguate the meaning  of FlickR tags

iCity. Transformative Research for the Livable, Intelligent, and Sustainable City

This open access book presents the exciting research results of the BMBF funded project iCity carried out at University of Applied Science Stuttgart to help cities to become more liveable, intelligent and sustainable, to become a LIScity. The research has been pursued with industry partners and NGOs from 2017 to 2020. A LIScity is increasingly digitally networked, uses resources efficiently, and implements intelligent mobility concepts. It guarantees the supply of its grid-bound infrastructure with a high proportion of renewable energy. Intelligent cities are increasingly human-centered, integrative, and flexible, thus placing the well-being of the citizens at the center of developments to increase the quality of life. The articles in this book cover research aimed to meet these criteria. The book covers research in the fields of energy (i.e. algorithms for heating and energy storage systems, simulation programs for thermal local heating supply, runtime optimization of combined heat and power (CHP), natural ventilation), mobility (i.e. charging distribution and deep learning, innovative emission-friendly mobility, routing apps, zero-emission urban logistics, augmented reality, artificial intelligence for individual route planning, mobility behavior), information platforms (i.e. 3DCity models in city planning: sunny places visualization, augmented reality for windy cities, internet of things (IoT) monitoring to visualize device performance, storing and visualizing dynamic energy data of smart cities), and buildings and city planning (i.e. sound insulation of sustainable facades and balconies, multi-camera mobile systems for inspection of tunnels, building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) as active façade elements, common space, the building envelopes potential in smart sustainable cities)

ViBe (Virtual Berlin) - Immersive Interactive 3D Urban Data Visualization - Immersive interactive 3D urban data visualization

The project investigates the possibility of visualizing open source data in a 3D interactive virtual environment. We propose a new tool, 'ViBe'. We programmed 'ViBe' using Unity for its compatibility with HTC VIVE glasses for virtual reality (VR). ViBe offers an abstract visualization of open source data in a 3D interactive environment. The ViBe environment entails three main topics a) inhabitants, b) environmental factors, and c) land-use; acting as representatives of parameters for cities and urban design. Berlin serves as a case study. The data sets used are divided according to Berlin's twelve administrative districts. The user immerses into the virtual environment where they can choose, using the HTC Vive controllers, which district (or Berlin as a whole) they want information for and which topics they want to be visualized, and they can also teleport back and forth between the different districts. The goal of this project is to represent different urban parameters an abstract simulation where we correlate the corresponding data sets. By experiencing the city through visualized data, ViBe aims to provide the user with a clearer perspective onto the city and the relationship between its urban parameters. ViBe is designed for adults and kids, urban planners, politicians and real estate developers alike

Urban Emotions and Realtime Planning Methods

The Urban Emotions approach combines methods and technologies from Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI), Social Media, sensors and bio-statistical sensors to detect people’s perception for a new perspective about urban environment. In short, it is a methodology for gaining and extracting contextual information of emotion by using technologies from real-time human sensing systems and crowdsourcing methods. “Real-time planning” describes a system in which planning disciplines get a toolset for a fast and simple creation of visualization or simulation from municipal geodata in a consistent workflow. This includes applications from Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality as well as the above mentioned combination of real-time humane sensors and urban sensing systems. Due to the fact, that a real existing city never corresponds with a laboratory situation, Virtual Reality can be one of the solutions to fill the gap for detecting people’s perceptions concerning design, while filtering other unintended side effects. Insights and results from Urban Emotions project, granted by German Research Foundation and Austrian Science Fond, will be presented in this contribution. It is based on a German contribution, published earlier this year (Zeile 2017)

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

Interactive virtual environment focused on gamified tourism

Treball final de Grau en Disseny i Desenvolupament de Videojocs. Codi: VJ1241. Curs acadèmic: 2017/2018The present document constitutes the Final Degree Project’s Technical Report of the Video Games Design and Development Degree offered by the Universitat Jaume I. The work to be developed consists in creating an interactive virtual gamified environment focused on tourism, through geolocation and augmented reality tools based on smartphones. It covers aspects about the planning, decision making and conceptual design of the final product and implementation details involved in the development of the complete application during the course of a few months by Francisco Alfaro Moscardó, student of the before mentioned Degree. The aim of the project is providing both residents and visitors some knowledge about the main monuments and places of interest of the Valencia city historical centre (Spain). The application has been developed using Unity 3D game engine combined with a set of current libraries that allow to have a better performance and management of the event interaction and Augmented Reality. The geolocated system is based on the Global Positioning System (GPS) and is fully integrated with two different augmented reality mini games that are part of the whole experience and give players some added challenges before giving them the historical information about the monuments. Furthermore, the application communicates remotely with Google servers to provide services such as the modification of the database where the areas data is stored or the use of the Google user account for unlocking achievements and be part of a worldwide ranking