PLUS at GEOSummit & GEOSchool Day 2016 in Berne
From 7. - 9. June 2016 the PLUS gave a live demo of the visual-acoustic simulation of wind turbines (VisAsim) at the GEOSummit 2016 in Berne. A special event was the GEOSchoolDay, where pupils could explore the wind park landscape with the Virtual Reality headset Oculus Rift.
The external pageGEOSchool Day aimed at introducing the topic of geoinformation to young people by playful and interactive means. During two days pupils of the lower and upper secondary-school level participated in the GEOSchool Day. At the PLUS exhibition stand David Waltisberg demonstrated the results of his master thesis, in which he developed a virtual reality (VR) simulation of a wind park in a hilly area.
The simulation should support citizens to assess the impact of the wind park on their enjoyment of the landscape. The VR was generated with external pageCrytek’s CryEngine, a game engine that supports the presentation with VR headsets. Further information on David Waltisberg's study of creating the VR and its potential for planning purposes are provided in the paper entitled external pageExploring Issues of Immersive Virtual Landscapes for Participatory Spatial Planning Support (http://doi.org/10.14627/537612012).
Exploring the VR landscape
David Waltisberg explaining the virtual reality simulation