Exploring Virtual Geographic Environments

Virtual Environments Begin to Embrace Process-based Geographic Analysis

Virtual environments are computer-based digital spaces that we can observe, participate in, and experience in person. Virtual environments were initially viewed as “mirror worlds” (Gerlenter 2004), although they are being extended as this virtuality broadens to include scenarios that cannot be found in real life. Employing virtual environments as a tool to facilitate scientific exploration is n...

Generating Virtual Environments by Linking Spatial Data Processing with a Gaming Engine

As the general public gets increasingly involved in the development of policies that affect their environments, there is a need for systems that educate the public about important issues related to their environments and can support the making of complex decisions that impact their future. Well known software packages that build on geographical information systems (GIS) for this purpose are “Wh...

Chapter 2 Virtual Geographic Environments as Collective Constructions

Development of Virtual Geographic Environments and Geography Research

Geographic environment is a combination of natural and cultural environments under which humans survive. Virtual Geographic Environment (VGE) is a new multi-disciplinary initiative that links geosciences, geographic information sciences and information technologies. A VGE is a virtual representation of the natural world that enables a person to explore and interact with vast amounts of natural ...

Design and Development

A collaborative virtual geographic environment (CVGE) is a 3-D, distributed, and graphical world representing and simulating geographic phenomena and processes to enable geographically distributed users to explore geoproblems and theories and generate hypotheses, and to support geomodel building and validation and collaborative ecological planning. This chapter reports an approach to establishi...