Web-Based Virtual-Reality for Collaboration on Urban Visual Environment Assessment

Abstract

This research aims to facilitate public participation in urban landscape visual assessment (ULVA). To support virtual collaboration in ULVA, it is desirable to provide both quantitative analysis and 3D simulation over the Internet. Although the rendering of urban models in common web browser plug-ins often lacks vividness compared with native workstation applications, the integration of VRML modeling and Java programming proves effective in sharing and rendering urban scenes through a familiar web interface. The ULVA simulation supports not only static scene rendering, but also interactive functional simulations. They include the viewpoint setting up, view corridor and panorama generation. Although popular VRML viewers such as CosmoPlayer provide similar functions, users are often disoriented by the interface. The obfuscation inhibits people’s immersion in the virtual urban environment and makes the assessment inconvenient. To eliminate such disorientation and improve users’ feelings of immersion, we integrate both a two-dimensional map and a three-dimensional model of the urban area in the user interface. The interaction between 2D map and 3D world includes the matching of avatar positions, visualization of avatar posture, and the setting up of viewpoints and view corridors. To support a web-based urban planning process, the system adopts client/server architecture. The city map is managed by a specific database management system (DBMS) on the server side. Users may retrieve information for various “what if” simulations. The system automatically remodels the virtual environment to respond to users’ requests.