Virtual City Exploration (Bachelor Project, Finished)

Author

Esther Mugdan

Description

In recent years, with advanced display and tracking technology, VR interfaces have become more immersive and new fields apply them. 

Simultaneously, yet unconnected, a global movement of Open Data, i.e. publicly provide certain (government) data emerges and one of the most recent steps in this direction is the release of Swiss cartography data for free.

This enables developers to get access to real-world information about buildings and cities from state sources, which previously would have had to use online map provides such as Google Maps.

Since the GoFind! project, initiated by researchers of the DBIS group, provides an AR based system to experience historic images at their real world location.

It serves as an interesting application of the new VR capabilities, paired with many (newly) released 3D city models.

Very recently, the first step in this direction was performed and GoFind! supports an AR mode for a particular historc 3D model of Basel, the so-called Merianplan.

 

Ultimately, it is interesting to see how VR could enhance the multimedia retrieval and result presentation aspects of GoFind! -- however, in a preparatory project, such 3D city models have to be evaluated and expermineted with.

In order to do so, this project includes the development of a sandbox VR application for navigating through a 3D city model, design and development of a data model to load, manage and swap various 3D models during runtime, and come up with a generic foundation for 3D city models, ultimately in preparation for result presentation in a similar fashion as GoFind! has.

Start / End Dates

2021/07/26 - 2021/09/20

Supervisors

Research Topics