Virtual City Maker And Virtual Navigator: A Modelling And Visualisation Solution For Mobile 3D Virtual Cities

This paper presents a complete procedural 3D modelling solution for mobile devices, called Virtual City Maker, based on scripting algorithms allowing for both the automatic and also semi-automatic creation of photorealistic quality virtual urban content. The input data used include the combination of aerial images, GIS data, 2D ground maps and terrestrial photographs grouped with a user-friendly customized interface which permits for the automatic and interactive generation of large-scale, accurate, georeferenced and fullytextured 3D virtual city content. This content can be specially optimized for use with mobile devices but also with navigational tasks in mind. Moreover, a user-centred mobile virtual reality (VR) visualisation and interaction tool operating on PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) for pedestrian navigation is also discussed. This engine supports the import and display of various navigational file formats (2D and 3D) and also includes a comprehensive front-end user-friendly graphical user interface providing immersive virtual 3D navigation to a wide range of users.