Improving urban planning with virtual reality

Date:
July 14, 2023
Source:
Ruhr-University Bochum
Summary:
What should the city we live in look like? How do structural
changes affect the people who move around it? Cartographers use
virtual reality tools to explore these questions before a great
deal of money is spent on building measures. Using the Unity3 game
engine, they recreate scenarios in 3D where people can experience
potential changes through immersion.

They were able to prove that the physical reaction to this
experience is measurable.


Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIN Email

==========================================================================
FULL STORY ==========================================================================
What should the city we live in look like? How do structural changes
affect the people who move around it? Cartographers at Ruhr University
Bochum use virtual reality tools to explore these questions before a
great deal of money is spent on building measures. Using the Unity3
game engine, they recreate scenarios in 3D where people can experience potential changes through immersion. They were able to prove that the
physical reaction to this experience is measurable.

Julian Keil and Marco Weissmann from Professor Frank Dickmann's team
published their findings in KN -- Journal of Cartography and Geographic Information on 1 May 2023 and in Applied Sciences on 13 May 2023.

Lab kit for urban scenarios Construction measures that transform
urban settings change the environment of both the people who live there permanently and those who visit them temporarily. It's not always possible
to foresee the effects in advance. In such cases, it helps to recreate the setting in a 3D model which people can experience through immersion. To
this end, the cartographers working with Marco Weissmann use software that
was originally designed to programme computer game environments. "We've developed a lab kit of sorts in which you can simulate an environment virtually, complete with traffic," explains Weissmann. The researchers can
use it to directly visualise the effects of planned structural changes:
how does the traffic flow? Do cars and pedestrians get in each other's
way or not? Measuring the implicit effects of spaces Moreover, the space
that surrounds us affects our well-being. We do notice it sometimes,
but not always. "People who've lived on a noisy street for a long time,
for example, might think they don't even hear the noise anymore," says
Julian Keil. "But we know that, objectively speaking, residents in such
streets experience significantly higher stress levels than others." In
order to determine such implicit effects of urban planning measures before
a lot of money has been poured into them, the cartography team developed
a method to measure them in advance. For this purpose, they programmed an
urban environment in virtual reality and had test participants experience
the scenarios. At the same time, they measured the skin conductivity of
the test persons, which provides information about their stress level.

They showed that a higher traffic volume in a street clearly upset the
test persons, as measured by their skin conductivity. To corroborate their findings, a study is planned to incorporate more physical measurements
that will provide information about the participants' stress levels
and various emotions, including heart rate, blood pressure and pupil
size. "Until now, residents and other stakeholders have been involved
in the planning stage of construction measures, but only in the form
of surveys, i.e. explicit statements," says Keil, whose background is
in psychology. "Our method enables spatial planners to assess implicit
effects of possible measures and to include them in the planning, too." Climate-friendly experiments The experiments for both studies were
conducted in a climate-friendly way using electricity from a mobile
solar system on the roof of the institute building.

* RELATED_TOPICS
o Matter_&_Energy
# Civil_Engineering # Virtual_Environment # Engineering
o Earth_&_Climate
# Geography # Global_Warming # Air_Pollution
o Computers_&_Math
# Virtual_Reality # Video_Games # Computer_Modeling
* RELATED_TERMS
o Virtual_reality o Microeconomics o Seasonal_affective_disorder
o Urbanization o Massively_multiplayer_online_game
o Mountain_building o Internal_combustion_engine o
Full_motion_video

==========================================================================

Print

Email

Share ========================================================================== ****** 1 ****** ***** 2 ***** **** 3 ****
*** 4 *** ** 5 ** Breaking this hour ==========================================================================
* Sports_Safety:_Liquid_Cushioning_Technology *
First-Ever_'Dark_Stars' * Genes_for_Learning:_650_Million_Years_Old
* Stellar_Cradles_and_Graves_in_Faraway_Galaxy *
Overflowing_Cosmic_'Jug' * Ghost_Stars_in_Our_Galaxy *
Multiple_Ecosystems_in_Hot_Water * How_an_'AI-Tocracy'_Emerges
* Building_a_Better_Tree_With_CRISPR_Gene_Editing *
Unprecedented_Control_Of_Every_Finger_of_...


Trending Topics this week ========================================================================== SPACE_&_TIME Galaxies Astrophysics NASA MATTER_&_ENERGY Technology Quantum_Physics Spintronics COMPUTERS_&_MATH Information_Technology Artificial_Intelligence Spintronics_Research


==========================================================================

Strange & Offbeat ========================================================================== SPACE_&_TIME James_Webb_Telescope_Catches_Glimpse_of_Possible_First-Ever_'Dark_Stars' Rare,_Double-Lobe_Nebula_Resembles_Overflowing_Cosmic_'Jug' When_the_Stars_Align:_Astronomers_Find_Answers_to_Mysterious_Action_of_Ghost Stars_in_Our_Galaxy MATTER_&_ENERGY New_Superconductors_Can_Be_Built_Atom_by_Atom Search_for_Dark_Matter Fungi_Blaze_a_Trail_to_Fireproof_Cladding COMPUTERS_&_MATH Generative_AI_'Fools'_Scientists_With_Artificial_Data,_Bringing_Automated_Data Analysis_Closer Pump_Powers_Soft_Robots,_Makes_Cocktails Training_Robots_How_to_Learn,_Make_Decisions_on_the_Fly Story Source:
Materials provided by Ruhr-University_Bochum. Note: Content may be edited
for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Julian Keil, Marco Weissmann, Annika Korte, Dennis Edler, Frank
Dickmann.

Measuring Physiological Responses to Visualizations of Urban
Planning Scenarios in Immersive Virtual Reality. KN - Journal of
Cartography and Geographic Information, 2023; 73 (2): 117 DOI:
10.1007/s42489-023-00137-7 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/07/230714114743.htm

--- up 1 year, 19 weeks, 4 days, 10 hours, 50 minutes
* Origin: -=> Castle Rock BBS <=- Now Husky HPT Powered! (1337:3/111)