UrbanVR: An immersive analytics system for context-aware urban design
This addresses the need for more intuitive tools for architects in urban design, though it is incremental as it builds on existing VR and visualization techniques.
The paper tackles the problem of limited visualization in urban design by introducing UrbanVR, an immersive analytics system that enables architects to assess designs in a virtual reality environment, validated through user studies and expert feedback.
Urban design is a highly visual discipline that requires visualization for informed decision making. However, traditional urban design tools are mostly limited to representations on 2D displays that lack intuitive awareness. The popularity of head-mounted displays (HMDs) promotes a promising alternative with consumer-grade 3D displays. We introduce UrbanVR, an immersive analytics system with effective visualization and interaction techniques, to enable architects to assess designs in a virtual reality (VR) environment. Specifically, UrbanVR incorporates 1) a customized parallel coordinates plot (PCP) design to facilitate quantitative assessment of high-dimensional design metrics, 2) a series of egocentric interactions, including gesture interactions and handle-bar metaphors, to facilitate user interactions, and 3) a viewpoint optimization algorithm to help users explore both the PCP for quantitative analysis, and objects of interest for context awareness. Effectiveness and feasibility of the system are validated through quantitative user studies and qualitative expert feedbacks.