Urban design is a cooperative work encompassing aspects of social, economic, physical, and spatial significance by (urban) architect, local authorities, and the public. During the decision-making process, various ideas on the city exterior is examined and communicated by visualization material. Thus, the use of visual material is very important in cooperative urban design. Especially, virtual reality (VR) technology, using 3-dimensional model, enables to reach higher and better realism and is interactively used as visual material by real time manipulation of the urban model. An important issue for facilitating this urban design system of virtual city is to promote complex interaction method of 3-dimensional virtual world. In this thesis, we propose an intuitive and simple interaction design of virtual urban model for cooperative urban design system.
The proposed system consist of two parts: A reflection space showing 3-dimensional virtual city landscape; An interaction space where augmented reality (AR) image is showing and actual manipulation of the urban model is made. The system use tangible interfaces that is intuitive. Markers on tangible interfaces are recognized by the camera installed above interaction space, and handling of interfaces affects the 3-dimensional virtual city landscape and the AR image in real-time. AR image contains the top view of the virtual city and the feedback information on interactions.
In this thesis, we propose a 2-dimensional interaction design using tangible interfaces and augmented reality. Also, a hybrid method of AR image and 2-dimensional interaction is studied for easy manipulation of complex 3-dimensional urban design data. Based on the interaction design, the proposed system can easily manipulate objects in the virtual city by adding, moving, deleting, or scaling, viewing the city from certain position, and touring around the city. Through experiment, the proposed system was effectively used in presenting ideas on urban design with simple and intuitive interaction.
