Prototyping an in-field collaborative environment for landscape decision support by linking GIS with a game engine

摘要

With public environmental awareness increasing, there are growing prospects for access to real-time data anytime and everywhere for decision support involving multiple users not only office-based but also remotely. This paper describes the development of a prototype system implementing an in-field collaborative visualisation environment in order to facilitate decision support in landscape planning and environmental management. Our initial development is based on live linking GIS with a fully immersive collaborative virtual decision environment which uses the commercial low-cost Torque Game Engine (TGE, www.garagegames. com). Game engines provide efficient image rendering, a built-in editor for interactive processing of terrain surface features and, in particular, sophisticated and robust client/server networked functionality for multi-user access. Anticipated research activities include the development of an interfacing Augmented Reality (AR) extension to the system, terrain feature library establishment and the deployment of a pilot project including in field mobile observation.