Linking GIS with real-time visualisation for exploration of landscape changes in rural community workshops

Abstract

To allow rural communities to evaluate possible future landscape scenarios, we have created a portable environment for landscape simulation (envisioning system). The goal of this system is to give communities the opportunity to plan their desired futures. Our system is designed for workshop environments and allows workshop attendees to explore and to interact with representations of virtual landscapes. We are using virtual reality technology to visualise the landscape representations, a geographic information system to allow participants to change the current landscape configuration, and mobile computing devices to allow the attendees to navigate in the virtual landscape, and give feedback a..