Southampton launches City Vision model for urban planning

Southampton is the first city outside London to launch a City Vision Centre. Based at the Southampton’s City Art Gallery, the City Vision Centre was launched on May 21 by City Vision Networks. The exhibition includes the largest machined model in the UK (5.5 x 4m) and a virtual model of Southampton. Both models are easy to change and update. They will be used as a design and planning tool, allowing the public to see development proposals and help shape the future of the city.

The two models together provide:
- A new resource enabling people to view architect and developer proposals for visionary new master plans and buildings
- A tool and venue for consultation on how the city can develop

Tiles of the scaled physical city model can be continually updated to present building proposals for Southampton. City Vision Southampton is the first permanent exhibition space for architecture outside London to include a computer-generated machined model that can be continuously updated to physically present proposed new developments in the city. The large scale model of Southampton is built using a modular system that makes it relatively easy and cheap to update.

The City Vision Centre can incorporate all future large scale developments proposed for the city. The model opens debate about the Southampton’s future from day one by allowing the public to see, in context, 11 new developments proposed by some of the country’s leading architects. The stunning 5.5m x 4m model is supported by a suite of 14 exhibition panels giving details of the proposed new developments. A sophisticated 3D virtual model of Southampton has been built with the pioneering use of photogrammatical technology to give a geographically accurate, detailed interactive CAD (Computer Aided Design) model.

It can be updated with any new proposed building or development. Data from the 3D virtual model was used to produce the large physical model of Southampton. The model is built from a total of 88 large tiles each measuring 0.5msq. The tiles are machine-carved from a high-density polyurethane and resin material using a CNC flatbed milling machine. As new building proposals are put forward, developers will be able to commission a new tile to be made and inserted into the model of Southampton, to show the size and form of the proposed building in its context. The scale model provides a stunning, changing centrepiece to the new City Vision Southampton exhibition.

The virtual model is on show as an animated flythrough in the gallery and also via http://www.cityvisionsouthampton.org.uk/.

Gamebryo version 2.5 released

Emergent has upgraded its Gamebryo game engine, one of the most commonly used computer games middleware applications, to version 2.5 adding new geometry and terrain systems. Included in this release is the first phase of the Emergent Terrain System, integrating with the Gamebryo Scene Designer to offer WYSIWYG sculpting of landscapes and in-built support for IDV's SpeedTree. Both are very efficient ways to providing procedural landscaping and foliage in a 3D environment.

The core engine has also been sped up due to the integration of Emergent's Floodgate multi-processor management system throughout the Gamebryo codebase, giving better performance on multi-processor architectures. Floodgate itself has also been optimised to minimise DMA transfers on PS3 and maximise data-prefetching on Xbox 360. Finally, the geometry system has also been redesigned, enabling more geometry sharing, GPU instancing, multiple geometry streams and reduced runtime data conversions.

Gamebryo is also available for academic licensing, more details can be found here http://www.emergent.net/

Google Cities in 3D

Google Cities in 3D is an initiative which invites local governments to share their 3D data with the public by adding a model of their city to Google Earth. This is a very interesting programme initially launched in March. Now the initiative is being launched in Europe, closer to home. Google has launched localised websites to encourage governments in the Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands to share their data with the search giant.

Some potential benefits of this scheme can be seen on the vid above. Curiously, all have local sites so far except for the UK, which has been beaten to the punch by Westport, Ireland, where they produced a 3D city model to promote their town as a tourist and business destination.

Using augmented reality for urban design

Something interesting to augmented reality people that also conduct research in the urban modelling/design field, the movie below provides an interesting example of using augmented reality for landscaping. Developed at The Human Interface Technology Laboratory, New Zealand it enables you to create and design an urban area with roads, buildings, trees etc.

The Human Interface Technology Lab (HITLab) is a multi-disciplinary research and development lab whose work centers around human interface technology.

Lab researchers represent a wide range of departments from across the University of Washington campus, including engineering, medicine, education, social sciences, architecture and the design arts.

Check their site here for more of their AR work, extending into other principles.

Second Life on a mobile device

If you are a Second Life fan then you will be pleased to hear that you can now live out your second life on your mobile device. Vollee have now provided a free, open beta version of Second Life for 40 Wi-Fi-enabled and 3G devices (including the HTC TyTn 2 or AT&T Tilt). Second Life is quite a rich application so the Vollee client effectively provides a thin client to access the full game hosted on Vollee's servers.

You can see a demo vid above, for more information and the free download check the Vollee website here.

City University UK Summer 2008 Masterclass Series

Seeing that I attended the first one of these on Wednesday (and very informative it was too, with unique insights in Google Earth and similar tools) I thought I'd post a reminder on City University giCentre announcing their programme of summer Masterclasses delivered by their internationally known group of academics, programmers, writers and entrepreneurs. City Masterclasses are delivered from an informed and neutral third-perspective by those with deep knowledge of their subjects and proven teaching skills. Attending City Masterclasses can be a valuable 'heads up' on the explosive development of these various fields or a piece of continuing professional development.

All the Masterclasses have high instructor/ participant ratios and include hands on sessions with the technology and are held in a variety of locations (see details) including City University's accessible and brand new accommodation between Angel and Farringdon in central London. They will also provide an opportunity to meet other professionals in the same area and a chance to see the innovative research being conducted in these areas at the University.

The schedule for these events is as follows: Wednesday June 4th Geospatial mashups [City University], Thursday June 26th Mobile navigation [City University], Wednesday July 9th State of the Art in Location Based Services 2008 [National Physical Lab, Teddington] and Tuesday July 22nd Mobile search [City University] (http://www.soi.city.ac.uk/~dmm/masterclasses/).

Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, embedded automatic city generation tools in games

Sandbox games such as RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 provide a powerful set of tools to create 3D environments, in the case of RollerCoaster Tycoon normally a theme park, although as it is obvious from the vid below 3D virtual cities can also be developed.

An enthusiast known simply as 'Steven' (uploading to YouTube as alloria) has used the game engine tools to create a city with the end product easily rivalling visualisation companies output and demonstrating how powerful in-game editors have become when it comes to urban modelling.

Steven states tha this started out as a sandbox game, to experiment with different building types. "I created one building, then another, then another, then another, and before I knew it, I had nearly filled the entire map with buildings! I did of course leave a small area in the middle to build a small theme park, which contains two roller coasters, a mini-golf and an Enterprise ride. The main coaster is a "Giga-Coaster" and is known as "Thrasher". This is the only ride that I have filmed, as the other ride "Swift" can be viewed in my "Off-Shore Theme Park" video."

The city contains several buildings, including some tower blocks, a multi-storey car-park, several ground-level car parks, a church with graveyard, several houses with gardens, several small blocks of flats, some shops, a large warehouse-type shop, a bus depot, a rest home, a small park with a fountain, some office buildings and others...

Mirror's Edge game, realistic 3D urban navigation in a game environment

I was intrigued to see the first few pics of a new game called Mirror's Edge (developed by DICE), a stylistic first-person game reminiscent of the Bourne movies, where information is heavily monitored and agile couriers called Runners transport sensitive data away from prying eyes. In this seemingly utopian paradise, a crime has been committed and now you are being hunted. You are a Runner called Faith and this innovative first-person action-adventure is your story. In the game, DICE went for a more realistic perspective by slightly tilting the camera back and forth depending on how fast you move.

The level seen so far has the character jumping over fences, sliding under pipes and traversing through and over buildings like a crack-addicted monkey looking for its next fix. Items and platforms turn red while you run to provide context clues for what you can use to keep your momentum going and move forward (e.g. a swinging rope you can grab jumping off of the side of a building).

As for combat, it seems the point of the game is rather non-violent. When the hero did steal a gun from an opponent, she quickly disassembled it and kept running. The game looks very interesting for everyone involved in 3D landscape production and immersive navigation, as you can see from the two vids above (the second being a developer interview) the innovative and extremely realistic urban navigation looks very very impressive...

New Prince Of Persia game, non-photorealistic rendering in a next-gen games title

While computer games with non-photorealistic rendering have been evident in the past (I am still trying to finish XIII on my old XBox!) I was very intrigued to hear that the new Prince Of Persia title will feature cel-shaded graphics, making it thus the first next-generation XBox 360 and PS3 title with exclusively NPR-rendered displays.

The game will be coming to PC, PS3 and 360 this year and is being developed by the original Prince of Persia: Sands of Time team at Ubisoft Montreal. As I mention above it features cel-shaded graphics and scraps the Sands of Time rewind powers. The gameplay centres on healing a corrupted world in the style of Okami, Shadow of the Colossus or The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

Creative director Jean-Christophe Guyot told Joypad that the aim was to create a more fantastical game and "more poetic vision" than the Sands of Time trilogy, with which it shares no connection. "The previous trilogy mixed the Arabian Nights in with historical Persia," he said. "We decided we'd prefer to return to the tales of the Thousand and One Nights for something more colourful."

The switch to cel-shading caused some consternation with Ubisoft management, he explained, although they never opposed it. "They knew we weren't going to make a second Assassin's Creed," he said. "However, they did raise their eyebrows a bit at the new, stylised artistic direction. They were worried the Americans wouldn't like it. There were many discussions, but they never said no to us."

For all its worth I find this an extremely interesting move and another tentative attempt in moving away from photorealism in entertainment with many potential benefits.

More news on this as it develops, meanwhile check the pics above, I will try and post a demo vid of the game too as soon as that becomes available, till then check out Joystiq for more up-to-date Prince Of Persia news.

IADIS Gaming 2008, article accepted

I've just received confirmation that I will be presenting a full paper I authored at the IADIS Gaming 2008 conference. This will be taking place in July between the 25th and the 27th at Renaissance Hotel, Amsterdam, Holland.

The title of the publication I am presenting is "A Review Of First-Person Shooter Game Engines And Their Use In Researching Scientific Disciplines" and is quite fitting with the overall theme of the conference, which focuses mostly design for engaging experience and social interaction via the use of computer games.

As gaming becomes more pervasive we are challenged in our job, learning and personal life by the growing access to virtual spaces and communities that offer opportunities for everyday needs and aesthetic experiences. ‘Creative Industries’ have a need for design measures that reveal new interaction methods, scenario metaphors and in-depth co-creation. This conference bring together research and best practices in creative media design for this new challenging field.

For more information check the link below, I will of course post a full report on the conference when I return from it, so check this space for an upcoming post on this!

Check the conference at http://www.gaming-conf.org/

Invited talk at the the Annual International Conference of the Royal Geographical Society 2008

I have been invited to give a talk at the Annual International Conference of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), taking place between the 27th and the 29th of August at the RGS-IGB headquarters in London. My talk, titled "Mobile 3D Urban Modelling and Visualisation", part of the Geospatial Analysis: GIS & Agent-Based Models session is on Friday the 29th.

The theme of the conference itself is outlined as "Geographies That Matter"; geography has always declared itself as a 'worldly' subject in some way, shape or form. In their attempts to describe, explain, evaluate, map, measure, monitor, model, theorise and reconstruct the world, geographers routinely make decisions about what matters - to themselves and others in the wider society.

The conference theme is an invitation to place geography in its current context and to consider its medium-term future. Like all research and teaching subjects, geography evolves through the combined, relatively ungoverned acts of its many practitioners. But, periodically, it is worth standing back and looking critically, as well as appreciatively, at the 'drift' of the field. What geographies matter to geographers and why? Which ought to be the focus of our energies? How do answers relate to the geographies valued (or not) by social actors in the wider world, communities, states, corporations, publics and many others besides?

The discipline of geography is much smaller than the discourse of geography, a discourse comprising all those geographical knowledges and representations of the world produced and disseminated by myriad actors who are not in any formal sense 'geographers'. The geographies that matters to geographers and others sometimes coincide, sometimes not, raising the perennial question of the subject's wider role in socio-environmental change, conservation and transformation.

What are the geographies that matter, to who and why? And what is the role of geographical research, teaching and advocacy in respect of them? These questions oblige us not to be overly introspective but, rather, to look outwards to a world bursting with possibility, challenge, interest and danger.

Check the conference out at http://www.rgs.org/AC2008

Research in game violence

An interesting piece of news in gaming research; Tiga, the national trade association representing game developers in the UK and in Europe, has come out in support of fresh research from the University of Essex claiming the link between video game violence and real-world aggression to be weak, calling it an "important contribution to the debate".

The research, published in the International Journal of Liability and Scientific Enquiry and written by Patrick Kierkegaard, suggests that there is very little evidence to link the two, and that previous research on the subject has suffered from a bias to the opposite conclusion. "Kierkegaard’s argument that there is no obvious link between real-world violence statistics and video games is an important contribution to the debate on video games and violence", said Tiga CEO Richard Wilson.

"Too often video games are blamed for all manner of society’s ills. Kierkegaard’s research helps to redress the balance. No single piece of research will settle the issue concerning the influence of video games conclusively. The crucial points are that children and young people should be protected from viewing inappropriate content, while adult gamers should typically be free to play mature games".

New issue of IEEE CG&A journal out, special issue on urban modelling

The latest issue of the very respected IEEE Computer Graphics And Applications journal is dedicated to urban modelling issues. As computer graphics simulations of our natural world continue to improve, effectively depicting our human environment is becoming increasingly important. Our everyday world consists not simply of basic materials and objects, but also of the things we make from them. Our cities are simultaneously the most complex and the most common of these things. To automate city modeling, researchers are beginning to revive research on procedural modeling, simulating not only natural processes but the human processes that shape our urban environment. This special issue captures a good snapshot of work in this emerging area.

Articles in the issue, a must IMO for anyone remotely interested in the urban modelling area, include a tutorial by Watson and colleagues which surveys prior work and studies in using procedural urban modeling. Chang and colleagues present methods for controlling the complexity in urban environments while Aliaga and colleagues describe a new system for editing urban layouts.

Mendez and colleagues describe a system for visualizing the underground infrastructure that all urban residents rely on, but most know so little about. Finkenzeller describes a method for modeling building facades, floor plans, and roofs that segments modeling into a manual sketch of a rough shape and a procedural elaboration of that shape using a certain style. Finally, Weber’s work describes how to animate procedurally generated trees in real time.

You can check out this issue of the journal at the following link: http://www.computer.org/portal/site/cga/index.jsp

Out with the old (Dell Axim X51v) and in with the new (ASUS R2HV)...

On a more personal note, after a number of years of trusty service (bought in early December 2005) I am retiring my Dell Axim X51v, which to this day I think was a revolutionary device as far as PDAs are concerned (to date I have not found a commercially available PDA with a dedicated graphics card!) and replacing it with the ASUS R2HV, both for research application development and also for everyday-task use.

Here's a short breakdown of the technical specs the almost tablet-like ASUS has:

- Processor & Cache Memory
Intel® Pentium® M 723, 1GHz, 2MB L2 Cache
- Operating System
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium
- Chipset
Intel® 915GM
- Main Memory
On board 256MB DDR 533MHz, 1 x SODIMM socket for expansion up to 1280 MB DDRII-667 DRAM support
- Display
7" active matrix TFT(800x480)
- Video Graphics & Memory
Embedded Intel® 915 GM internal GFX
- Hard Drive
1.8" 30/40/60/80 GB
- Optical Drive
DVD-DUAL External (Optional)
- Card Reader
SD card slot push / push type
- Fax/Modem/LAN/WLAN
On board 10/100 LAN (optional)Integrated 802.11b/gBuilt-in Bluetooth™ V2.0+EDR (optional)
- LED Status Indicator
Power on/SuspendLED off (Battery Full) /LED on (Charging)/Low(LED sparkle)H DDWLAN enablingBluetooth
- Interface
1 x R2H Port Bar connector for external hub(S/PDIF, VGA, DC-in, 3 USB, LAN) / VGA function support via VGA Cable2x USB 2.0A ports1 x mini-USB2.0A port1 x Microphone1 x Headphone1 x AV (Audio + Video) out1 x RJ45 (Lan port)

Read a review of the device here. As for the old, long-deleted from Dell, Axim I will of course keep it as a backup but also in the hope that it may well fetch a great price on eBay one day!

Quake 3 Arena ported on iPhone

Advertisements have shown us that the iPhone is a tool with a wide array of functions, YouTube perusing, calamari ordering and even astronaut deafening, to name but a few. But no commercials have warned of the iPhone's (and the iPod Touch's) sinister, newly implemented abilities such as fragging, railgunning and gibbing.

This regarding of course the handheld's recently developed Quake 3 Arena application, which uses the device's touch screen and accelerometer to crudely recreate that warm, familiar mouse-and-keyboard feeling. What is even more impressive, and can be seen on the YouTube vid above are the multiplayer capabilities. It is very intriguing to see the iPhone expanded in the mobile gaming direction and this recent development has been one of the more interesting ones I've seen. Hopefully more titles, including new original games, are to follow.

London Games Festival returns in October 2008

Following two successful previous outings, the London Games Festival is back, with this year's event promising to be the biggest yet and scheduled to take place the week commencing October 25. "Last year's London Games Festival was a huge success," said Chairman of the London Games Festival Keith Ramsdale. "We've got plenty in store for 2008 and a whole host of major partners lined up with full support from the industry. We're really looking forward to bringing the gaming industry to life in the capital again."

Expect the return of large-scale events in both Leicester and Trafalgar Square, as well as the return of the Careers Fair for those keen to find their way into the industry.

For more details on this one check the official site of the festival found at http://www.londongamesfestival.com/.

Geographic Visualization: Concepts, Tools and Applications Book

Brought to my attention by the Digital Urban blog, Geographic Visualization: Concepts, Tools and Applications is a book available in all good book stores, edited by Martin Doge, Mary McDerby and Martin Turner. It includes a chapter by the people on Digital Urban on the 'Visual City' and is genuinely a must read for those interested in the field.The text covers the impact of three-dimensional displays on user interaction along with the potentialities in animation and clearly explains how to create temporally sensitive visualizations. It also explores the potential for handling mobile data and representing uncertainty; as well as the role of participatory visualization systems and exploratory methods.

It's hallmark features include: an introduction to the diverse forms of geographic visualization which draws upon a number of theoretical perspectives and disciplines to provide an insightful commentary on new methods, techniques and tools; richly illustrated in full colour throughout, including numerous relevant case studies and accessible discussions of important visualization concepts to enable clearer understanding for non-technical audiences; and, chapters that are written by leading scholars and researchers in a range of cognate fields, including, cartography, GIScience, architecture, art, urban planning and computer graphics with case studies drawn from Europe, North America and Australia.

This book looks like an invaluable resource for all graduate students, researchers and professionals working in the geographic information sector, computer graphics and cartography. It can be bought here.

Virtual Magic, exploring Disneyland in 3D

A very interesting blog I ran across recently is Joe Cardello's Virtual Magic. It's been running for almost a year now and details the 3D reconstruction of the Disneyland theme park as a large scale CG model using the free program Blender. The work kicked off with a few backstage show buildings lacking much detail or accuracy but has evolved over the last twelve months with the ultimate goal to model as much of the park as possible, with as much attention to detail and accuracy as is reasonably and enjoyably possible.

This is a very interesting project, as the vid above testifies and a great reminder of how effective manual modelling can be, even with the use of modest tools such as Blender. Check the link of the blog above for further vids (Joe has even posted some Blender tutorial videos, very useful for those uninitiated in the package) and still images. Well worth checking out!

Animation Expose 2008, University Of Hertfordshire

The Digital Animation Exposé (Film Day) is an annual event hosted at the University of Hertfordshire’s Weston Auditorium, 25 minutes from Kings Cross north London. Showcasing the best student films from the current academic year, the event also includes free presentations from leading professionals in the animation, film and games industries. The student animated films are in heated competition for top prizes in 6 categories, one of which is awarded by audience voting.

This year promises, according to the organisers, to be their best yet, with the event hosted on Thursday the 22nd of May. Confirmed Speakers include Framestore (on the Oscar winning VFX of Golden Compass), Rare ( on next-generation games), Graham Ralph (on direction of 2D / CGI films), Redvision (on character animation headcases), KUJU (on next-generation animation) and finally SCEE (Sony Computer Entertainment Europe).

For more information and also for registering check the event's site at http://h3da.co.uk/?page_id=37

Nokia SNAP 2.0 released

More intuitive tools are now available in a new SDK of Java multiplayer gaming technology since a new SDK for Nokia's SNAP mutliplayer gaming platform has been released. Version 2.0 of the development kit boasts a simpler API and faster emulation and testing tools. It is free to obtain through Forum Nokia - which boasts it is the largest 'mobile development community worldwide with 3.4 million registered members'. A number of developers have already been using the SDK, said Nokia - with positive results. "The SNAP Mobile SDK 2.0 makes it easier for developers to write and debug a connected mobile Java game, and brings fun to development," said Randolf Wu, business development director, PocketNet.

"I had the SDK up and running on my desktop within minutes of downloading. It's invaluable as it provides a realistic game play environment for a cellular network. For example, it can simulate error conditions so that we can check that our games will respond appropriately when an error occurs. The SNAP Mobile SDK is a mature toolset to the point where bugs are not really an issue, and it just gets better and better with each release."