Background
Cities are the largest and most complex human artifacts and set the physical frames for an increasingly large majority of the world’s population. To better understand and direct urban growth, it is important to create the conditions for informed stewardship of social, economic and ecological processes in cities. Interestingly, the current rapid global growth of cities is paralleled with a similarly rapid digitalization, generating huge amounts of data, which for the first time may offer the possibility to digitally model, simulate and visualize cities in their many-faceted complexity.
A central challenge identified by both academia and practitioners is the creation of a virtual city platform, that can enhance our ability to better understand, analyze and plan the resilience and sustainability of a city. We expect that such a platform would have exceptionally broad relevance for research, teaching, communication and practical application of a long series of urban systems and processes. Through the strong cross-disciplinary visualization and simulation research at Chalmers and our close relation to an extensive number of public and industrial stakeholders, we deem Chalmers to be well equipped to take the lead in the development of a virtual city platform in Sweden.
Motivation
Visualization tools are becoming increasingly popular in urban and participatory planning processes, yet the full potential is far from being achieved. Related disciplines remain fragmented, the integration of qualitative and quantitative data, as well as the representation of data are insufficient. Virtual tools can only reach their full potential when integrated into open and user-friendly platforms which allow researchers, urban planners and citizens to develop, test and experience ideas, applications and systems. Moreover, the lack of organizational clarity, including ownership, allocation of resources for maintenance, competence and access to tools and technology, hinders an optimal use of virtuality in the urban planning and management processes.
Although there are many examples of 3D models of cities offering various functionality for both simulation and visualization, the full concept of a true virtual city has not yet been realized. “True” refers to digital twins of existing cities that are:
- Realistic – The virtual city is a realistic 4-dimensional (space+time) visual and acoustic virtual experience of the physical twin.
- Interactive – The virtual city is intuitive, accessible, and supports multi-user interaction.
- Simulated – The virtual city is a simulation, based on a mathematical model of the physical twin.
- Integrated – The virtual city is continuously synchronized with real-time sensor data from the physical twin.
- Scalable – The virtual city is open-ended, scalable from the building to the district to the city level.
- Open – The virtual city is driven by open data and models.
Vision
Together with the City of Gothenburg and Fraunhofer-Chalmers Centre Research Centre for Industrial Mathematics, Chalmers has decided to take on the challenge of building a virtual city platform. The project Virtual City@Chalmers aims to compile expertise in modelling, simulation, urban planning, computer science and other research fields to build a dynamic and interactive virtual city platform. Central to the project is the development of a 3D-platform that allows the integration of different models and data into a single platform. In the first project phase (2018), virtual twins of the two Chalmers campus sites (Lindholmen and Johanneberg) will be modeled directly as an immersive 3D world (open-ended city). The 3D-platform will serve as a multipurpose arena for researchers featuring First Person and Real Time Strategy user perspectives as well as real-time coupling of simulations and data. In addition, Mixed Reality (MR) and Virtual Reality (VR) capabilities will enhance the user experience. The process will be accompanied by Chalmers Division of Interaction Design to ensure usability and accessibility. The long-term goal is to extend the project to a larger scale. After the successful implementation of the two campus sites, the project will be scaled to the city level, starting with Virtual Gothenburg. With the help of a variety of stakeholders (academic, private, public) and the involvement of both professionals and citizens, we believe that “true” virtual cities can be built.