Advances in Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality for Smart Cities

A special issue of ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information (ISSN 2220-9964).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 February 2022) | Viewed by 9501

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Geomatics Sciences, Université Laval, 1055 Avenue du Séminaire, Quebec City, QC G1V 0A6, Canada
Interests: images and LiDAR& bathymetric point cloud acquisition; image & point cloud processing; 3D modeling & representation; augmented reality; data fusion; artificial intelligence
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Augmented Urban Space Modeling Lab, GeoICT Group, Department of Earth and Space Science and Engineering, Lassonde School of Engineering, York University, Toronto, ON M3J 1P5, Canada
Interests: augmented urban space modeling; 3D city model reconstruction; spatial data analytics; photogrammetry; computer vision; machine learning
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Finnish Geospatial Research Institute FGI – Department of Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry, Geodeetinrinne 2, FI-02430 Masala, Finland
Interests: point cloud processing; 3D model reconstruction; virtual reality; augmented reality; photogrammetry; remote sensing; computer vision; machine learning
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The recent concept of smart cities and communities has fostered the design of new solutions, where modeling, simulation, and data analytics tools are indispensable in responding to the challenges of an ever-increasing urban population. Among them, augmented reality (AR) deployed in the city is already foreseen as a disruptive technology. Alternate virtual reality (VR) solutions exist as well, which allow one to experience the city in a simulated environment and help to take optimal actions and informed decisions. Virtual and augmented reality technologies will be empowered through the push for 5G deployments. In addition, the recent unveiling of Apple LiDAR on iPad and iPhone is leading to an AR revolution. With the ability to provide data in real-time, engage users, and interact with real-life infrastructures, AR and VR have massive potential to transform urban spaces and services. Examples of compelling potential uses are emergency management, asset management, and public works, education and training, and healthcare, to name a few. Furthermore, the need for AR/VR technology to alleviate challenges posed by the global pandemic is immediate.

Although the adoption of VR/AR technology outside gaming and entertainment is still in its infancy, immediate work needs to be done to establish the use cases and vision for VR/AR and develop solutions adapted to the smart cities and communities context.

This Special Issue aims to advance our understanding of how AR and VR can be leveraged to make cities and their citizens smarter and more connected. We welcome original work on innovative AR and VR solutions using smart city-enabled technologies (i.e., 3D city models; infrastructure digitalization; Internet of Things; location intelligence; etc.), on creating and understanding content and experience relevant to smart city initiatives, on addressing societal and ethical issues of AR and VR transforming cities and societies.

This Special Issue seeks to describe and discuss the following topics applied to the scope described above, but is not limited to them:

  • AR/VR and Internet of Things
  • AR/VR and 3D city model
  • AR/VR and 5G
  • AR/VR and artificial intelligence
  • AR/VR and autonomous vehicles
  • AR/VR and city sustainability
  • AR/VR in health care
  • AR/VR in education and training
  • AR/VR in urban transportation
  • Social AR and VR
  • Ethics, societal and privacy aspects of AR/VR
  • Creating and understanding AR/VR content and experiences

 

Prof. Sylvie Daniel,

Dr. Gunho Sohn

Dr. Lingli Zhu

Guest Editors

Keywords

  • Augmented and virtual reality
  • Smart city
  • 3D city model
  • IoT
  • Artificial intelligence
  • Ethics, privacy and societal impacts
  • Content creation

Published Papers (2 papers)

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27 pages, 13014 KiB  
Article
Towards a Sensitive Urban Wind Representation in Virtual Reality
by Gabriel Giraldo, Myriam Servières and Guillaume Moreau
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2022, 11(4), 239; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ijgi11040239 - 06 Apr 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3697
Abstract
Wind can influence people’s behavior and their way of inhabiting an architectural or urban space. Furthermore, virtual reality (VR) enables the simulation of different physical and sensitive phenomena such as the wind. We aim to analyze the effects of different wind representations in [...] Read more.
Wind can influence people’s behavior and their way of inhabiting an architectural or urban space. Furthermore, virtual reality (VR) enables the simulation of different physical and sensitive phenomena such as the wind. We aim to analyze the effects of different wind representations in terms of perception of its properties and sense of presence in VR. We carry out two within-subject studies aiming at evaluating different wind representation suggestions (including audiovisual and tactile stimuli) to identify their effects on wind properties’ perception and sense of presence in the VR scene. Our analysis showed significant effects of tactile restitution over the visual effects used in the study, both for understanding wind properties and for increasing the sense of presence in the VR scene. The tactile condition (T) reduced the estimation error of wind direction by 27% compared to the visual condition (V). The wind force error was reduced by 9.8% using (T) with (V). (T) increased the sense of presence by 12.2% compared to (V). Our second experiment showed an overestimation of the wind force perceived compared to the reference value of the Beaufort scale. For the maximum force value evaluated, the average result was 91% higher than the reference value, while for the lower, the average answer was 77% higher than the reference value. Previous studies have evaluated wind rendering in virtual reality, and others have studied the visualization of wind simulation results. To our knowledge, our study is the first to compare the perception of these two types of representations as well as the effects of wind on elements of the context. We also compared the wind perception to a reference-based method, the Beaufort scale. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality for Smart Cities)
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22 pages, 30142 KiB  
Article
Evaluation of Augmented Reality-Based Building Diagnostics Using Third Person Perspective
by Fei Liu, Torsten Jonsson and Stefan Seipel
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2020, 9(1), 53; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ijgi9010053 - 16 Jan 2020
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 3553
Abstract
Comprehensive user evaluations of outdoor augmented reality (AR) applications in the architecture, engineering, construction and facilities management (AEC/FM) industry are rarely reported in the literature. This paper presents an AR prototype system for infrared thermographic façade inspection and its evaluation. The system employs [...] Read more.
Comprehensive user evaluations of outdoor augmented reality (AR) applications in the architecture, engineering, construction and facilities management (AEC/FM) industry are rarely reported in the literature. This paper presents an AR prototype system for infrared thermographic façade inspection and its evaluation. The system employs markerless tracking based on image registration using natural features and a third person perspective (TPP) augmented view displayed on a hand-held smart device. We focus on evaluating the system in user experiments with the task of designating positions of heat spots on an actual façade as if acquired through thermographic inspection. User and system performance were both assessed with respect to target designation errors. The main findings of this study show that positioning accuracy using this system is adequate for objects of the size of one decimeter. After ruling out the system inherent errors, which mainly stem from our application-specific image registration procedure, we find that errors due to a human’s limited visual-motoric and cognitive performance, which have a more general implication for using TPP AR for target designation, are only a few centimeters. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality for Smart Cities)
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