Check out or become a member of the new Blog dedicated to Geographical Visualization and Virtual Reality managed by Dr. Christopher J. Pettit (Melbourne) and Dr Andy Hudson-Smith (London) Working Group II/6 of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS): http://www.casa.ucl.ac.uk/geoviz/
You will find several live video recordings of the MODSIM 2009 / ISPRS WGII/6 session on Visualisation in support of management decisions.
ESRI has released a new version of its digital globe “ArcGIS Explorer”. The new version provides an improved interface; enhanced data support including kml/kmz; the opportunity to switch between 2D and 3D; a new presentation mode with titles, pop-ups, layers etc.; new online data libraries; a SDK for customization and plenty of projections to choose from. With the online data, there is also a direct link to BING maps and if some of you remember my previous article on the co-operation between Microsoft and ESRI, this is probably one of its first outcomes.
In the times of GoogleEarth, where is the niche for ArcGIS Explorer? Well, there are some good reasons, why ArcGIS Explorer might be worth a consideration for landscape planners: First, most of us are already working with ArcGIS and the workflow is easier than it is between ArcGIS and GoogleEarth, where you need CommunityViz or other plugins. Particularly, you can add plenty of geodata formats and your own DEM which is not possible in GoogleEarth. Then, the presentation mode is neat for planners who present to the public. And finally, the possibilities to choose a specific projection or even to customize your interface may meet expert needs that GoogleEarth cannot satisfy.
Biomass in Future Landscapes from Philip Paar on Vimeo.
Fly-throughs are quite popular, especially since the success of Google Earth but what matters more to landscape perception is the human perspective from eye-level view. Lenné3D, a Berlin based corporation, has been invited by the German Biomass Research Centre (DBFZ) to create this visual stunning simulation of future cultural landscape scenarios by virtually implementing biomass into an existing landscape. Our contribution tries to advance the paradigm of Humphrey Repton’s famous before-and-after landscape depictions with dynamic navigation, and to trigger fruitful discussions on the various aspects and issues of biomass in cultural landscapes.
The video animation “Biomass in Future Landscapes” shows both fly-through and walk-troughs and a time travel. New landscape scenery patterns and time and again views arise from implementation of linear structures such as alley-cropping systems.
The video is based on a virtual 3D model derived from geodata such as a digital elevation model and land use maps and field patterns, vegetation relevés, and descriptions of cropping practices. A plant distributor software arranges the vegetation cover. Finally, a virtual camera flies and walks though the 3D landscape model and the animation is rendered using the interactive Lenné3D-Player software.
The video was presented first at the international conference Biomass in Future Landscape, Berlin, March 31st – April 1st 2009.
This web portal on terrain modelling has been created at Forest and Landscape, University of Copenhagen by landscape architects José Lameiras and Ian Jørgensen. Both have a background teaching IT in landscape architecture. Focus is on digital technologies to interact with surface models and develop landscape design. So, this is about LIM – Landscape Information Modelling as a response to architect’s BIM (Building IM).
What will 2009 bring? Plans for the LVIZ blog include a detailed review of the new VNS3 and an overview of landscape visualization labs at universities around the world. Furthermore, the LVIZ blog community will formulate a mission statement, further develop its design and provide download resources for landscape visualization.
See you in 2009!
E-on software has released a new version of their landscape modelling and visualization software vue. According to the offical feature list a number of key methods and technologies have been improved significantly. Amongst the features are ecosystem models, volumetric clouds, tree generation, global ilumination, etc.
A look inside their gallery shows some very detailed and realistic scenes, e.g. the Picture of the Day, Wednesday, December 10, 2008.
I have made some tests with an earlier Version in 2004 and I have to say that it was a lot of fun to work with vue. The main problem was to integrate GIS data and to create realisitc plant distributions. I wonder if this has changed by now, because the visual quality which can be achieved is very impressive.
I am wondering if we should include the topic of virtual 3d city models or – as they are called lately – digital cities in our blog. After some considerations I think that we should include this topic for two main reasons.
First of all the authors of this blog come from research in landscape and environmental planning and we tend to have an all-embracing understanding of landscape. This means that the word ‘landscape’ is an concept which includes topography, vegetation and wildlife, land-use, housing, climate, etc.. In this all-embracing concept cities are part of the landscapes around us.
Secondly we do not do landscape visualization just for the fun of visualizing a landscape, but because we think that landscape visualizations can support planning descisions and communication processes in planning processes. Thus we have an aim, a goal why we visualize and this goal is the driver for visualizing rural landscapes, as well as suburban landscapes or cityscapes. I think that we will benefit if we are looking at concepts from landscape and city visualization/modelling at the same time and relate the visualization concepts to the underlying planning tasks.
Another reason to include digital cities from my point of view is that I am currently working on a project which deals with virtual 3d city models and visualization of the cityscape. The project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany and deals with the usability to support communication and information in urban land management by using virtual 3d city models as integration media for heterogeneous data. For more information hava a look at www.refina3d.de. (only in German)