An official website of the United States government
It is increasingly acknowledged that urban and landscape planning processes need to incorporate stakeholder input and feedback. To this end, decision-makers have been implementing a range of decision support systems (DSSs), such as using geographic information systems (GIS) or 3D renderings of designs to help better explain the advantages and disadvantages of proposed designs. In addition, urban and landscape planning DSSs have also incorporated gamification (the use of game features and mechanics in non-game environments) to provide interactivity whilst providing an engaging experience. In these contexts, using 3D renderings of real-world environments can be a powerful tool for aiding in the democratisation of planning decisions. However, the creation of large-scale 3D models representing real cities or landscapes is limited by time-intensive manual methods. This is compounded by the fact that under our current rapidly changing environment, landscapes and urban areas are likely to alter in appearance within short periods of time. It is therefore imperative that 3D renderings of real-world environments can adapt to these changes. Here, we propose methods of using GIS datasets to automatically generate in-game worlds reflective of the real-world and how these 3D models can be used to engage citizens in planning decisions.
more »
« less
A Collaborative Augmented Reality Decision Support System for Crowdsourcing Urban Designs
Globally, cities and their infrastructures, people, and ecology systems are experiencing unprecedented changes due to environmental change and anthropogenic pressures. To create the most sustainable approaches for mitigating and adapting to environmental changes, urban designs require a radical rethink that accounts for the needs of local citizens and stakeholders. Decision support systems (DSS) can be utilized to engage with members of the public to elicit their opinions on proposed designs. To better engage citizens, DSSs have started to include the use of virtual reality and augmented reality to demonstrate designs, however, these systems are often only applied to smaller stakeholder engagement events. Here, we created a theory-informed augmented reality application for collaborative crowdsourcing of urban designs. The designed system allows users to manipulate a two-dimensional map with targets representing different objects (e. g., trees, lakes, infrastructure). The changes made to the 2D map are then visualized through a mobile application that displays a 3D AR visualization of the changes the user makes in real time. The resulting application can be used to engage a diversity of participants in a range of urban and environmental planning contexts.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 2033320
- PAR ID:
- 10482974
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wichmann Verlag
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of digital landscape architecture
- Volume:
- 8
- ISSN:
- 2367-4253
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 195-202
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- Augment reality decision support system crowdsourcing
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
The application of Augmented Reality (AR) in construction is transforming how non-expert users engage with complex assembly processes, with its potential to foster broader community involvement in urban space production remaining underexplored. This paper presents an integrated framework that incorporates AR-enabled phygital instructions with timber dowel structures, facilitating the active participation of non-experts in the design-to-production process of an urban community food podium. By leveraging AR and computational design, the system bridges the gap between expert and non-expert users, enabling wider participation in the construction process while maintaining precision through robotic fabrication and step-by-step digital guidance. Tested within a graduate-level course and showcased at a public event, the project aims to empower community members to engage in production and assembly, offering insights into participatory urban design and co-production. The results demonstrate the capacity of augmented fabrication to enhance human agency, making complex construction tasks accessible and collaborative, and paving the way for resource-driven, community-enabling urban developments.more » « less
-
A design-based project grounded in learning technology theories and systematically implemented can impact environmental education in many positive ways. This paper explores the systematic application of best practices from design-based projects that were used to combine and implement a drought education program. Embracing diffusion of innovation as its framework, augmented and virtual reality applications were used to design a virtual meeting space called the Virtual Citizen Science Expo. The results and findings show that users found Mozilla Hubs engaging as it gave them new ideas on the creative and inspirational use of virtual reality technology as an interactive and collaborative learning space. The discussions demonstrate that our VCSE can be used to promote and engage learners in science related to environmental monitoring.more » « less
-
Augmented Reality (AR) enables elements of a computer-generated digital world to be integrated with a user’s perception of the physical world. Smart glasses, like smart phones, have independent operating systems and they can support a variety of different applications and modes of communication to support augmented reality. This paper details the development of a novel new application that extends a widely-used mobile app for phenotyping and allows agronomists to interact with the app while keeping their hands free to perform field work. The smart glasses accept voice commands from the user and communicate with the mobile phone app via Bluetooth. In addition, changes detected by the mobile phone are displayed to the user on the smart glasses. This enables agronomists to efficiently collect phenotypic data.more » « less
-
null (Ed.)Augmented reality (AR) applications are growing in popularity in educational settings. While the effects of AR experiences on learning have been widely studied, there is relatively less research on understanding the impact of AR on the dynamics of co-located collaborative learning, specifically in the context of novices programming robots. Educational robotics are a powerful learning context because they engage students with problem solving, critical thinking, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) concepts, and collaboration skills. However, such collaborations can suffer due to students having unequal access to resources or dominant peers. In this research we investigate how augmented reality impacts learning and collaboration while peers engage in robot programming activities. We use a mixed methods approach to measure how participants are learning, manipulating resources, and engaging in problem solving activities with peers. We investigate how these behaviors are impacted by the presence of augmented reality visualizations, and by participants? proximity to resources. We find that augmented reality improved overall group learning and collaboration. Detailed analysis shows that AR strongly helps one participant more than the other, by improving their ability to learn and contribute while remaining engaged with the robot. Furthermore, augmented reality helps both participants maintain a common ground and balance contributions during problem solving activities. We discuss the implications of these results for designing AR and non-AR collaborative interfaces.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- The DOI is not currently available.
