Construction and Optimization of Three-Dimensional Disaster Scenes within Mobile Virtual Reality

Because mobile virtual reality (VR) is both mobile and immersive, three-dimensional (3D) visualizations of disaster scenes based in mobile VR enable users to perceive and recognize disaster environments faster and better than is possible with other methods. To achieve immersion and prevent users fro...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Ya Hu, Jun Zhu, Weilian Li, Yunhao Zhang, Qing Zhu, Hua Qi, Huixin Zhang, Zhenyu Cao, Weijun Yang, Pengcheng Zhang
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2018-06-01
Series:ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.mdpi.com/2220-9964/7/6/215
Description
Summary:Because mobile virtual reality (VR) is both mobile and immersive, three-dimensional (3D) visualizations of disaster scenes based in mobile VR enable users to perceive and recognize disaster environments faster and better than is possible with other methods. To achieve immersion and prevent users from feeling dizzy, such visualizations require a high scene-rendering frame rate. However, the existing related visualization work cannot provide a sufficient solution for this purpose. This study focuses on the construction and optimization of a 3D disaster scene in order to satisfy the high frame-rate requirements for the rendering of 3D disaster scenes in mobile VR. First, the design of a plugin-free browser/server (B/S) architecture for 3D disaster scene construction and visualization based in mobile VR is presented. Second, certain key technologies for scene optimization are discussed, including diverse modes of scene data representation, representation optimization of mobile scenes, and adaptive scheduling of mobile scenes. By means of these technologies, smartphones with various performance levels can achieve higher scene-rendering frame rates and improved visual quality. Finally, using a flood disaster as an example, a plugin-free prototype system was developed, and experiments were conducted. The experimental results demonstrate that a 3D disaster scene constructed via the methods addressed in this study has a sufficiently high scene-rendering frame rate to satisfy the requirements for rendering a 3D disaster scene in mobile VR.
ISSN:2220-9964