Authors:
Frank Steinicke
1
;
Jörg Mensmann
1
;
Klaus Hinrichs
1
;
Kai Rothaus
1
;
Jan de Buhr
2
and
Antonio Krüger
2
Affiliations:
1
Institute of Computer Science, University of Münster, Germany
;
2
Institute for Geoinformatics, University of Münster, Germany
Keyword(s):
Interactive environments, augmented reality, weather visualization.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Animation and Simulation
;
Animation and Simulation of Natural Environments
;
Augmented, Mixed and Virtual Environments
;
Computer Vision, Visualization and Computer Graphics
;
Interactive Environments
;
Real-Time Graphics
Abstract:
General interest in visualizations of digital 3D city models is growing rapidly, and several applications are already available that display such models very realistically. Many authors have emphasized the importance of the effects of realistic illumination for computer generated images, and this applies especially to the context of 3D city visualization. However, current 3D city visualization applications rarely implement techniques for achieving realistic illumination, in particular the effects caused by current weather-related phenomena. At most, some geospatial visualization systems render artificial skies — sometimes with a georeferenced determination of the sun position — to give the user the impression of a real sky. However, such artificial renderings are not sufficient for real simulation purposes. In this paper we present techniques to augment visualizations of digital 3D city models with real-time display of georeferenced meteorological phenomena. For this purpose we retrieve
weather information from different sources, i. e., real-time images from cameras and radar data from web-based weather services, and we use this information in the rendering process for realistic visualization of different weather-related issues, such as clouds, rain, fog, etc. Our approach is not limited to a specific setup, and we have evaluated the results in a user study presented in this paper.
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