Real-Time Virtual Landscapes in Landscape and Urban Planning

In landscape and urban planning, public participation and interactivity become more and more an issue. Real-time virtual 3D landscapes represent communication tools that allow experts as well as non-experts to use, explore, analyze, and understand landscape information. In our contribution, we describe the architecture and functionality of an interactive, participatory system, Lenné3D, which facilitates creation, management, and distribution of real-time virtual landscapes. Systems supporting virtual landscapes must handle the inherent complexity of their components, in particular building and vegetation objects. In our approach, real-time virtual landscapes are based on 3D maps as underlying concept for composing and managing virtual landscape models. They are complemented by 3D vegetation models, which use botanical-based 3D plant models. To cope with the massive geometric complexity of virtual landscapes, multiresolution schemes need to be applied to buildings as well as to vegetation objects. The concepts have been successfully implemented within the Lenné3D system as demonstrated by a case study.