Harnessing the power of immersive virtual reality - visualization and analysis of 3D earth science data sets

Abstract

The availability and quantity of remotely sensed and terrestrial geospatial data sets are on the rise. Historically, these data sets have been analyzed and quarried on 2D desktop computers; however, immersive technologies and specifically immersive virtual reality (iVR) allow for the integration, visualization, analysis, and exploration of these 3D geospatial data sets. iVR can deliver remote and large-scale geospatial data sets to the laboratory, providing embodied experiences of field sites across the earth and beyond. We describe a workflow for the ingestion of geospatial data sets and the development of an iVR workbench, and present the application of these for an experience of Iceland's Thrihnukar volcano where we: (1) combined satellite imagery with terrain elevation data to create a basic reconstruction of the physical site; (2) used terrestrial LiDAR data to provide a geo-referenced point cloud model of the magmatic-volcanic system, as well as the LiDAR intensity values for the identification of rock types; and (3) used Structure-from-Motion (SfM) to construct a photorealistic point cloud of the inside volcano. The workbench provides tools for the direct manipulation of the georeferenced data sets, including scaling, rotation, and translation, and a suite of geometric measurement tools, including length, area, and volume. Future developments will be inspired by an ongoing user study that formally evaluates the workbench's mature components in the context of fieldwork and analyses activities.

Real world–based immersive Virtual Reality for research, teaching and communication in volcanology

“…The perception is obtained by surrounding the user with images, sound or other stimuli, providing the feeling of being immersed in the environment. In Earth Sciences, this is essentially achieved by surrounding images (Granshaw and Duggan-Haas, 2012;Trexler et al, 2018;Zhao et al, 2019). As immersive VR can be fun, and different, it also engages people and allows them to express their thoughts and feeling about natural sites.…”

A Walk in the Park? Examining the Impact of App-Based Weather Warnings on Affective Reactions and the Search for Information in a Virtual City

“…While this increases the reach and applicability of the virtual city framework, it also means lower realism than more complex and immersive virtual environments, such as virtual reality [59] that require additional equiment. In virtual reality, users can create photorealistic representations of real buildings and topographic structures, e.g., [60,61] that can increase immersive effects and perceived realism of the virtual environment. Virtual reality is already widely implemented in (geo-)spatial sciences [60] and construction [62] and it also holds promise for sociobehavioral spatial research, for instance, in evaluating warning compliance under realistic conditions (e.g., [63,64]).…”

Raumbezogene Visualisierung trifft auf Landschaftsforschung und „Pinballology“: Beispiele der Landschaftskonstruktion in Flipperspielen

“…Especially, video and computer games were identified as valuable sources to analyze and improve animation and interaction techniques in multimedia cartography (Coulton et al 2017;Dickmann 2016, 2017;Ahlqvist 2011;Lammes 2008). The discussions on the impact of games on cartographic visualization are currently influenced by rising opportunities to create environments in (immersive) virtual reality (VR) (e.g., Boletsis 2017;Büyüksalih et al 2020;Hruby et al 2019;Edler et al 2019a;Tschirschwitz et al 2019;Vetter 2019;Walmsley and Kersten 2020;Zhao et al 2019) and augmented reality (AR) (e.g., Çöltekin et al 2019;de Almeida Pereira et al 2017;Keil et al 2020;Lindner et al 2019;Werner 2019).…”