Dr David Blackwood and Dr Ruth Falconer, University of Abertay
Dr David Blackwood and Dr Ruth Falconer, University of Abertay will deliver a seminar 'Stakeholder engagement through immersive visualisation technologies'.
This seminar presents a unique visualisation and simulation platform which can import spatial data and model outputs in a range of forms and allows the user to move objects or features, change their associated properties and visualise the effect on the physical landscape linked to underlying computational models. In addition, due to seamless integration of computational modelling and 3D visualisation the indicator values derived from computational models fro example, social, environmental and economic indicators can be superimposed on the 3D physical landscape in real-time (no re-rendering is required).
Examples will be given of the application of the platform to enable the effective engagement of stakeholders such as policymakers, planning officials, scientists and engineers, community groups and land owners. The principles of seamless simulations (computational model) with interactive 3D visualisations providing a sustainability assessment are common in both applications. The platform has been used for both urban landscapes and larger rural catchment areas. A rural catchment model will be demonstrated that explores a set number of water treatment management options to reduce levels of pollution to inform water companies together with an urban visual simulation (S-City-VT) where there are no set scenarios and the users can investigate a large number of user defined scenarios.
This type of scenario comparison cannot be done using other software in real time i.e. results of computational models transformed into textures and rendered as soon as they are computed. Games engines have also been used previously for rendering the physical landscape but these are generally incompatible with simulations.
Dr David Blackwood is currently the Director of Operations for the School of Contemporary Sciences. His research and teaching interests are in the fields of Sustainable Development, Sustainability Assessment and Decision Support Systems, and Project and Asset Management.
Dr Ruth Falconer is a Lecturer in Modelling and Visualisation in SIMBIOS Centre at the University of Abertay with expertise in simulation and visualisation of complex systems.
This seminar will take place at The James Hutton Institute Aberdeen and will be broadcast live to the Dundee site.
