Urban Simulation - An Innovative Tool for Interactive Planning and Consensus Building

The 9th International Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work in Design Proceedings A VR-Centred Workspace for Supporting Collaborative Urban Planning Jialiang Yao', Terrence Fernando', Hissam Tawfik', Richard Armtiage3and Iona Billing' Centre for Virtual Environments, University o Salford f Information Management & Communication, Liverpool Hope University College School of Environment and Life Science, University o Sarfrd f J. Yao@pgr.salford.ac,uk,T.Femando@salford.ac.uS Tawfi,kh@hope.ac.uk, R P.Armitage@salford ac.uk and N M Pemberton-biIling@saIfoPdac.uk Abstract Collaboration between urban planners, government oflcers and other stake-holders is a key task in the urban planning procedure. This paper presents a VRcentred workspace prototype for supporting collaborative urban planning. This worhpace comprises a variety o techndogies such as semif immersive stereo d i s p l q , table-top display, mobile devices and an optical trucking system. A system framework f o r VR-centred workspace integrates a user interaction layer along with service and data management capabilities. This open-structured framework can support various visualisation and simulation modules and facilitates collaboration. We have impkmenied this protowpe and some test scenarios have been examined with user groups. Keywords: Collaborative Urban Planning, VR. 1. Introduction The nature of the urban planning process is complex and can be highly disorganised [I]. Parties such as government officers, urban planners, developers community groups and environmental groups are involved in the urban planning process 12-41, with each stakeholder representing their own interest or the interest of an organisation or a community group. A number of economical, sociological, transportational and environmental objectives need to be considered during the urban planning decision-making process and conflict resolution presents a major challenge in the planning process. Therefore, collaboration between urban planners, government officers and other stakeholders is a key task in urban planning procedure. The traditional urban planning process is further complicated by the fact that the form of communication between the participants requires a large amount of translation of ideas (51. They usually exchange visual forms of information by a verbal form means. TypicaIly, urban designers present their ideas, obtain feedback from other participants, and evolve the design accordingly. This procedure has a number of avenues for the original design concept to be distorted as each time a design idea is translated from a visual form to a verbal form, information can be lost 161. The use of ICT is seen as central to facilitating discussion, collaboration, decision-making and conflict resolution between stakeholders in planning process [ ] This is 7. making the urban ptanning processes more effective and sustainable. The aim of our Collaborative Urban Planning Support System is to provide a VR-centred urban planning workspace on which key issues in the design of cities can be represented properly, and where the implications of urban design concepts can be analysed and simulated effectively. This enables urban planners and stakeholders to visualise, manipulate and discuss urban planning issues in real time and achieve a shared understanding about the development proposals. The system environment can help stakeholders in the decision making process by helping to keep track of complex events, capture essential ideas during collaborative discussions and cany out simulation on proposed plans to answer %hat if' questions. This paper focuses on how to explore a wide variety of technologies to provide an environment to support and design assessment, decision-making communication between key stakeholders that facilitate the development of more efficient planning solutions. The key technical challenges that related to this research area are centred around the issues of system integration [6, 81, advanced user interaction techniques [9] and collaborative environment [IO, 111. An openarchitecture framework is proposed to facilitate the simulation and evaluation of large and complex urban data types to support coltaborative urban planning. The use of emerging technology such as shared workspace, virtual reality, 3D interaction and simulation can provide the user with an environment capable of supporting more natural interaction with datasets in colocated environments. 2. Related work Coors et al. [12] developed a collaborative urban planning system using a virtual table and tangible 564 The 9th International Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work in Design Proceedings interface. The virtual table is a horizontally arranged Responsive Workbench [131-like display system. 3DGIS was used to ~upp0t-t urban models. They used a set of pieces as tools to act as tangible user interface. A set of different pieces with different actions attached to them can be tracked simultaneously, facilitating group inter-action with the planning and decision support system. Ishii et al. [ 141 used physical models and a luminous table with two projectors to display digital models on it a an augmented urban planning workbench. 2D s drawings, 3D physical models and digital simulation were overlaid into a single information space to support the urban design process. This collaborative environment allows communication to take place between the stakeholders and the resulting design ideas to be visualized. However, it could be argued that inputting the design result into a computer presents a problem due to the presence of physical models thus limiting the ability of the computer to analyse the full set of results. Hopkins et al. [15] used a SMART board as a collabo-rative urban planning tool. The main advantage of this platform was the use of a touch-sensitive screen; this provides the user with the ability to draw a sketchplan into computers. However this environment is limited to one user-view of the design result which does not give the user a comprehensive view of the scenario generated. The Distributed Interactive Virtual Environment (DIVE) [16, 171 is a distributed collaborative platform for the development of virtual environments, user interfaces and applications based on shared 3D synthetic environments in which several users may interact over a network. DIVE provides a general environment for shared virtual spaces, and usually supports cooperation with distributed 3D visualisation. NPSNET [18] is based on the earlier system SMINET and is an internetbased collaborative virtual reality system developed for the US Navy. Both DIVE and NPSNET-may allow several hundred peopte to engage in a collaborative simulation over the internet. However, they only support 3D visualisation and do not offer display alternatives which can be more vital for multiperspective urban design visualisation and analysis. environment to provide an ideal display environment for our collaborative decision-making workspace. Effective user interface: The system enables effective interaction with the virtual environment to allow users to perform urban planning analysis, such as information query, object creation and removal in order to explore various scenarios. The interface is aimed to be intuitive, simple to use and informative, in order to allow users to focus on the design concept. Urban models and urban planning scenario generation: The system has the ability to quickly generate an accurate, detailed and realistic 3D layout of an urban environment where stakeholders can address reIevant urban planning issues. Simulation services: A series of modules such as GIS functions, traffic and simulation, pollution, and space analysis are necessary in this environment to provide multi-perspective analyticaI functionalities for users. 3.2. Design of VR-centred workspace At the core of this research is a collaborative urban planning environment that supports group discussions and navigation within this collaborative workspace. The proposed environment integrates a wide variety of technologies such as stereoscopic display, tabletop display, a set of hand-held devices, and an optical tracking system to provide an intuitive cohborative urban planning environment (figure 1). The stereoscopic display provides a semi-immersive virtual environment for stakeholder collaboration. Realistic urban environments can be visualized in this environment. This display can also be used in monomode, to serve a a large vertical-placed screen for s various purposes such as video, statistical and text information. With the vertical setting, collaborators can view the display €room similar perspectives. A table-top screen with touch-sensitive surface overlay is used to display 2D information such as master-plan for sharing of infomation and can support small team co-located collaboration. This display can be oriented in different ways such as horizontally, for tabletop display, or vertically, for presentations. Horizontal table-like workspace is similar to the traditional collaborative workspaces for planning, such as drafting boards, and aids explicit face-to-face nonverbal communications such as eye contact and gesture among collaborators. Direct manipulation is supported through its touch-sensitive surface, Hand-held devices such as tablet-PCs and PDAs (Personal Digital Assistant) are used by users as their private spaces. All tablet PCs and other computers are inter-connected through a wireless network. The workspace is supported through a distributed software 3. VR-centred workspace 3.1. Design requirement In order to achieve this aim, our proposed framework to support urban planning tasks integrates a variety of technologies and leads to an environment for collaborative urban planning. The environment is comprised of the following elements: VR-centred workspace: different visualisation platforms such as tablet PC, tabletop display and 3D semi-immeraive workbench are included in this 565 The 9th International Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work in Design Proceedings framework to support visualization, interaction and coordination issues The optical tracking technologies allow users to move around a workspace and have the system, monitor position, posture and gestures of body parts to support intuitive interaction with the workspace. With the support of wireless and optical tracking technologies, collaborators can move around within this workspace freely, and potentially enjoy a more user-friendly and ‘natural’ user interface. Figure 1 VR-Centred collaborative urban planning workspace 3.3 Framework of collaborative urban planning environment The system architecture of our VR-centred urban planning framework (Figure 3) comprises four layers: a workspace layer, a user interface layer, a simulation and data management layer and a distribution layer. The interactive devices layer provides the user with a collaborative and interactive hybrid workspace. The user interface layer facilitates user interaction through the user interface manager, coordination manager, and world managers. The simulation and database layer consists of a series of services and a data model manager. The distribution layer is a software framework for distributed, multi-user interactive visualisation and simulation applications. All other modules are interconnected and communicated through this layer. The workspace layer is a physical setting of this collaborative environment and has been discussed above. The user interface of the collaborative urban planning environment contains a variety of input modules; a group of user input processing modules, an interface manager, coordination manager and visualisation manager. The user input comes from two resources: the 3D virtual environment and the 2D displays such as table-top display and tablet-PC environment. In the virtual environment, the user input comes from optical trackers which track the user’s head and hand positions. A group of marked tools (figure 4) such as PDA and GamePad are used for interacting with virtual world. Gestures made by hand are captured and analysed through the 3D gesture manager and converted to meaningful commands, which are then sent to the Interface Manager. 3D GUI interfaces are also used in the VR environment and managed through a 3D GUI manager. A speech manager recognises the user’s speech and sends it to the Interface Manager. In the 2D environment, the touch sensitive screen is used as a main input soutce. The interface design i s based on direct manipulation and GUi methods. A 2D Gesture Manager is used to recognise the user’s drawings from the touch sensitive screen, such as an arrow, dot or rectangle and sends them to the Interface Manager. The GUI Manager provides the user with a traditional interface with a menu and toolbar for command input and information query. During the interaction procedure, all actions are recorded through an Interaction Recorder, providing the ability to capture stakeholders’ key design ideas and replay them for later analysis. Coordination manager is used to coordinate the contents of different visualisation platforms. When a modification occurs in one platform, for example if a building is added from a tabletop display, a corresponding change to the data model will be updated through the Distribution layer and all views on other platforms will be changed. Visualisation modules comprise a VR world manager and a 2D world manager (figure 3) used to visualise the urban scene in the Virtual Environment and the 2D display environment respectively. Urban planners and stakeholders can visualise and navigate in this virtual urban environment where it is possible to carry out information query and manipulation. The table-top display and tablet PC displays are used to visualise 2D information such as a master plan. Sketch plans are also drawn onto them through the user interface, and converted to 3D models through a coordination manager and visualised in the virtual environment. Simulation and Database Management are used to fast generate urban models from various data sources such as Ordnance Survey MasterMap, LiDAR dataset and 3D CAD models (191, and to support various space simulation and analysis procedures such as map data querying and spatial analysis hnctionalities through GIS services. The services and data process are designed as an open framework which allows integration with extemal applications. 566 The 9th htemationd Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work in Design Proceedings 4. Prototype Implementation 4.1. Workspace and user interface We have developed our workspace prototype based on the concepts and platform envisaged in figure 1. The main components of this system are illustrated in the workspace layer in Figure 2 which are a BARCO Trace display, a table-top display, optical tracking devices and interactive tools. These interactive devices are all physically interconnected with the except of PDA and wireless gamepad which use wireless technology. A Barco TRACE display is used as semi-immersive virtual environment in our prototype. The screen size is approximately 1.4 by 1.1 square metres, with 3000 ANSI lumens brightness. Hence, it can work under a normal office lighting environment making it considerably more convenient for collaborative work compared io most other projected-screen based virtual environments which can only work in a dark environment. A WACOM display is used as table-top screen. A VICON Motion System is used for optical tracking [20] and the tracking area covers the whole workspace. Every registered object, which is identified by optical markers, is traced constantly on the condition that it can be seen by more than three cameras Figure 2 Workspace prototype for collaborative urban planning environment simultaneously. At present stage, only a few tools are tracked within this environment, such as glasses, wireless game-pad and PDA (Figure 4). Markers on 5-d User Interaction Uhan Planning Senrice Slmulation SsrviCaa GIS ServiCa DovelopingPlan Manager Urban Modd Manager InteraClica Recorder Reds Simulation and Database Services Figure 3 Architecture of collaborative urban planning environment 567 The 9th International Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work in Design Proceedings glasses are used to track head position within the workspace while markers on alt other devices are used to track those devices’ positions which usually relate to users’ hand position. PDAs connect to the system using wireless technology such as BlueTooth while gesturebased interfaces are being developed in our research centre for future inclusion in our system. The absence of cables connecting to mobile devices offers users the opportunity to use this non-intrusive means of interaction for maximum freedom and a higher degree of collaboration. The PDA is used as a tool to manipulate objects in the virtual environment. The PDA is marked with markers and the user’s hand is tracked when it is held in the workspace such that the user c a n p e it directly to manipulate objects in the virtual environment. The PDA links with other computers over a network through BlueTooth. A context sensitive dialog box is displayed on the PDA’s display. The user can operate the virtual world through physical buttons on the FDA and buttons and menus displayed on the PDA’s screen. A group of marked interactive tools (figure 4) are used for interacting with the virtual worId. visualised on 3D stereo display. Urban planners can navigate within the virtual environment, visualise various kinds of models, such as stereo-image model, LiDAR models, the MasterMap and 3D CAD modelbased geometry model from different views such as ‘Distance’ view, ‘Realistic’ view and ‘Street’ view. Navigation can also be performed using the 2D interface. For example, one participant can define a route from a table-top map, other participants are able to experience the feefing of walking along the route in the 3D semi-immersive environment, Information query can be carried out throughout. Such as, street information can be queried from aerial photos, LIDAR dataset and DEM landscape dataset. Figure 5 gives a screen-shot of two . different views of urban information. Figure 5 Realistic view from LiDAR data (top) and street view from 3D CAD dataset (bottom) Figure 4 Examples of objects with markers for interaction in YE (lefl) and a glove for gesture-based interface (right) 4.2. Test scenario In order to demonstrate the concept, a unified data model is used for integrating various types of data for urban modelling[l9]. A sample dataset based on the Bristol area in the UK were gathered from the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain and used in this workspace to test its potential for data visualisation, manipulation and user interface issues. The tabletop display displays GIS dataset in the form of 2D MasterMap on the Bristol area of Britain. Simultaneously, 3D Bristol models are loaded and During the demonstration and evaluation of this VRcentred workspace by user groups, issues relating to the workspace setting and user interface were identified. The nature of the projected-stereo display constrains the number o f participants and the quality of the immersive experience. The potential ability of optical tracking is yet to be fully exploited. Currently, only one unit can be activated to control the navigation and manipulation at the moment which limits the degree of collaboration and naturalness of the user interface. Ultimately, a typical collaborative urban planning session using our proposed system would involve a number of participants equipped with the interaction devices that allow them to load, edit and visualise various urban scenes and plans in a synchronous 568 The 9th International Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work in Design Proceedings manner. Meanwhile they can also conduct their discussions with regard to evolving their urban plan from a variety of perspectives. 5. Concluding Remarks In this paper we have presented a VR-centred workspace prototype of collaborative workspace for computer supported urban planning. Our prototype is based on a VR-centred hybrid computer visualisation workspace which comprises a semi-immersive stereo display, table-top display, mobile devices, and an optical tracking system. This environment enables visual impact assessment, the visualisation of GIs based analysis, the support for different design views for participants. 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