Virtual Dublin
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Maybe the following might be of interest to some Archiseek users:
@www.tcd.ie wrote:
TCD Researchers Awarded €2.5 million SFI Grant to Create Virtual Metropolis
Posted on: Feb 13, 2007
A team of Trinity College researchers have been awarded €2.5 million by Science Foundation Ireland to create a virtual Dublin on a scale and level of realism never seen before. Metropolis is a novel interdisciplinary project combining computer graphics, engineering and cognitive neuroscience research, in which researchers will create a simulated lifelike city, where real people will be able to move around and experience total immersion in a computer generated Dublin.
Trinity College researchers Professor Carol O’Sullivan and Dr. Steven Collins from the Department of Computer Science together with Dr. Fiona Newell from the TCD Institute of Neuroscience and Professor Henry Rice from the Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering will apply principles of human multisensory perception to create a lifelike depiction of a virtual urban environment with street scenes, crowds and traffic noise. It is envisaged that the project will be of practical benefit to urban planning projects, the development of assistive technology for people with disabilities as well as computer games.
Industrial collaborators in the project will include Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (Team Soho), IBM, Creative Labs, Havok, Demonware, OC3 Entertainment and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Commenting on the significance of the project, TCD’s Professor O’Sullivan said: “The aim of the research is to simulate large crowds consisting of millions of people and to introduce a high level of variety in animation, appearance and sound. Real meaning will be added to the simulations by endowing individual crowd members with appropriate, sentient behaviours that are based on cognitive and sociological models.
“New comprehensive studies into human perception of computer generated motion will be carried out, along with groundbreaking research into the perception of virtual environments with multi-sensory input. People and traffic noise will be simulated while the visual and auditory experience of central Dublin will be recreated through a comprehensive capturing of buildings,†concluded Professor O’Sullivan.
The effectiveness of this research will be demonstrated in the areas of games (thereby contributing to the growth of an emergent entertainment industry in Ireland), environmental simulations of scenarios like improved traffic management, pedestrianisation or evacuation situations, as well as outreach activities to create assistive technology through games for children in the Central Remedial Clinic (CRC). TCD’s Computer Science department has a history of success in research that has commercial value, with success stories such as Iona, Havok, Haptica and Demonware. The technology being developed in this project will contribute to the future of entertainment, as realistic depiction of virtual humans is critical for many applications.
Technological advances in the project include the development of a scalable simulation server capable of streaming the virtual environment to consumer devices (e.g. game console, mobile phone etc.). Central to this research will be the CELL Broadband Engine from IBM (the same CPU as in the Playstation®3).
Commenting on the award, Dr. Stephen Flinter of SFI said: “The Metropolis project represents the largest research grant awarded by Science Foundation Ireland to date in the area of computer graphics and simulation. In making this award, SFI was greatly impressed by the quality of the project team, their enthusiasm, ambition and the breadth of their vision.â€Certainly a step up from Sim City although in an Irish context the game was very easy to replicate the reality on the ground; through in a few motorways; a little dark blue beside the sea and zone the rest light green as it didn’t require any infrastructure.
The results of this project could be very interesting; a well invested €2.5m
Good, they can move Irelands national rugby stadium somewhere else in the Docks, make it 80,000 capacity, and see how it looks
Archeire – What a fantastic proposal. Does anybody have any links to the any web stuff on this? I am currently thinking of taking an MSc in Geographical Info Systems which would link to urban mapping and automated decision making systems – essentailly intelligent cities. Ideas been around for years but the technology is now catching up. If I do go head I’d love to link into Trinity’s work. Shane
At last! These models are already used in other European cities, and can be highly beneficial for planning authorities when altering the public domain in particular: when pedestrianising spaces, or assessing the impact of new traffic flows on an environmental level, rather than purely as lines and dots on a computer map as up till now. For example think how this could have been applied to the new Spire pedestrian crossing on O’Connell Street, or the future reinventing of College Green – it can save a lot of hassle.
A model I’ve seen used in another city was used for designing a floodlighting scheme for a civic square involving all property holders, and then adjusting public lighting accordingly. It was also used to monitor levels of traffic noise around the square, and even that of music from public performances etc.
A basic model has already been developed (for quite while now) by the Image Synthesis Group at Trinity. It seems it was this that was used by DCC for the O’Connell Street IAP:
http://isg.cs.tcd.ie/hamilljp/TCDModel/VDDistribution/VDindex.html
havn’t people already made this, in second life and as part of computer games, is the ISG going to redo all the works it already done?
edited to add: is it some of the same people doing it? they should release the full city model of the one they’ve already done to public/open source it
yes, so this is my question: it is clearly a good thing, the sort of thing that the city or someone should have paid to have done ages ago: which bit of it is cs research though?
lets get down to the main reason we’re all intrested in this though…will it be available in a grand theft auto format?
The seeds of something like this can be seen by anyone who owns a copy of Google Earth on their computer. Google Sketch Up allows users to load 3D models of buildings from the site onto the Google Earth System. The GPO, Liberty Hall, Spire, Eden Quay, Bachelor’s Walk, O’ Connoll St house and One Georges Quay Plaza are all rendered in 3D for all Google Earth users to see.
@Cathal Dunne wrote:
The seeds of something like this can be seen by anyone who owns a copy of Google Earth on their computer. Google Sketch Up allows users to load 3D models of buildings from the site onto the Google Earth System. The GPO, Liberty Hall, Spire, Eden Quay, Bachelor’s Walk, O’ Connoll St house and One Georges Quay Plaza are all rendered in 3D for all Google Earth users to see.
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/cldetails?clid=d3f2310cee31dcb2f203d485f224ccb
@archipimp wrote:
lets get down to the main reason we’re all intrested in this though…will it be available in a grand theft auto format?
That has been on my mind since first I heard of this..
what a fantastic proposal…good!!1:)
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