Virtual Reality (VR) and Open Source Software: A Workflow for Constructing an Interactive Cartographic VR Environment to Explore Urban Landscapes

• DOI: 10.1007/bf03545339
• Publication Date: 2020-03-24T17:03:25Z
• Authors: Dennis Edler; Adalbert Husar; Julian Keil; Mark Vetter; Frank Dickmann
• Keywords: 11. Sustainability; 05 social sciences; 0507 social and economic geography

In recent years, hardware and software innovations in the computer and video game industries have established affordable Virtual Reality (VR) systems as mass media products. Modern VR headsets, such as HTCVive and Oculus Rift, are used to play games at home, while being part of VR landscapes controlled via natural body movements transported from the real world. Moreover, users can download open source game engines and create their own virtual landscapes. These game engines are compatible with established cartographic 3-D modelling software. Cartographers can now build their own spatially precise and cartographic VR environments based on open data, open source modelling software and open source game engines. The project presented in this paper suggests a workflow of constructing an urban VR landscape without any costs for data and software. The final product is a VR application representing the campus of Ruhr-University Bochum (RUB), which is planned to be offered as a virtual orientation system for campus visitors, such as new geography/geomatics students trying to locate their cartography lecturers.