Thesis subject

MSc thesis topic: Immersive virtual environments based on open geospatial data: Generation, improvement, evaluation, and application

The proliferation of remote sensing and GIS technologies has tremendously increased the volume and variety of geospatial data available on the Internet. This forms a basis for creating digital representations of physical environments. However, meaningful 3D visualization of large-scale geographic data has challenged cartographers throughout the history of map-making.

In this respect, we have developed a pipeline that automatizes the integration of open geospatial data derived from multiple online sources, including terrains as well as natural and built features, into the Unity game engine. Leveraging its rich set of libraries and assets, we can create realistic and interactive virtual scenes and immersive applications that replicate real-world space at different scales, from the WUR campus to Wageningen to the whole Netherlands. This offers an ecologically valid testbed to simulate and assess how humans perceive, understand, and interact with their environment.

This project provides multiple specific research directions for students to choose from, depending on their interests. Possible topics range from the technical assessment and improvement of visualization pipelines, to the development of immersive environmental applications, to the empirical investigation of spatial decision-making. More details can be found in the Objectives section.

Immersive technologies such as augmented and virtual reality are entering a new era. Thanks to substantial investments by leading companies (e.g., Meta(™), Microsoft(™), and Google(™)) catapulting immersive media into the mainstream, devices have become affordable and seldom cause cybersickness anymore. At the same time, the creation and design of immersive experiences are getting easier and easier and more accessible to many more people. Tools such as Unity(™) or Unreal(™), that is, game engines, are sophisticated and well-supported development environments. Together with the continuously increasing amount of open geospatial data, we are now in a position to generate realistic 3D models of existing environments fully automatically and use them in a wide variety of immersive or non-immersive applications.

In this project, several methods have been developed that automate the generation of immersive virtual environments from open geospatial data sources. These developments open opportunities for research touching on the core question of geospatial information science: How can we transform GIS data into information that can form the basis for geographic and spatial knowledge and useful insights?

Relevance to research/projects at GRS or other groups

One of the strategic initiatives of WUR is the creation and exploration of Digital Twins. GRS is leading efforts to create digital twins for environmental applications. The project is additionally supported by a university-wide research effort (WANDER) seeking to establish immersive technologies firmly in the portfolio of research and education tools for environmental and societal challenges.

Objectives (select one from below or bring your own ideas)

  1. Build on the existing pipeline to enrich the visualization elements and improve the output quality.
  2. Compare the effectiveness and efficiency of different generation or visualization methods
  3. Investigate how users perceive, understand, and interact with environmental entities at different scales.
  4. Examine the effect of real-world exploration vs. map reading vs. immersive experience on spatial learning and wayfinding.
  5. Explore the potential use of space syntax methodology such as visibility analysis for evaluating users’ design choices in simulated real-world scenarios.
  6. Create and assess applications that use automatically created environmental models to visualize or contextualize other data, for instance 360° imagery to produce virtual field tours, or geographic/remote sensed data and analysis results to create analytical tools.

Literature

Requirements

  • Interest in 3D & immersive technologies
  • Interest in technical development or empirical evaluations

Theme(s): Modelling & visualisation; Human–space interaction