Monday, May 28, 2007
Virtual Sculpture Within our Virtual Cities
Historical Walks Worth Visualizing
Although various ethnic churches were torn down as the populace changed texture and economics and changing values meant the spiritual neighborhood centers were no longer sustainable, the historical society was able to preserve representative homes of each major architectural era. The Rhode Island Historical Preservation Commission captured the imagination of the historical significance in its History of Smith Hill series of on-line publications.
The significance is another example of man's interrelationship to nature. Many such neighborhood grew up along the flow of waterways that powered the mills that brought jobs to those who decided to settle there. Virtual cities are not just about the physical structures man has created. The ability of man to manipulate his environment, for better or worse, is also demonstrated through interactive visualization.
Example of Virtual City Values
Next for Providence comes the I-195 interstate relocation and update project which will open up 40 acres of downtown property for creative and beneficial reuse. What are Providence's options for use? How do decision-makers and residents decide which options to support? Maps are OK, fixed-perspective
movies are even better, but why not let an interactive 3-D virtual city provide unencumbered exploration?
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Virtual City Content Continues Falling Off the Web
Perhaps they'll comment to my blog here, please? Or, if anyone who has taken off virtual content could let me know the reasons for it, I'd appreciate it. Were you afraid someone would quickly convert your models to contribute them to an open source virtual city project? I would not have done that without permission. Isn't it worth you doing it yourself to get the credit you deserve? Is Google denying your participation? That's not how they are pitching their community contribution model.
I'll keep contending that we need to teach school kids how to build virtual city content and have our schools and governments support the effort with publicly available back-end databases. Everyone who enjoys the process should get credit and see the fruits of their labors be associated with a master virtual city plan. The process can mimic the Wikipedia community participation model, with tagged versioning and an intelligent review process.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Community in Virtual Building
Digital content lets us version to our hearts content without ever having to take things apart. We don't have to call our friends over to share our results. We can post to the Web and send a link reference. And then we realize we might as well build together since we don't have to travel to do so. We can work side by side if we want to. In fact, let's set up a room at our community center or town hall to do so.
If you are disappointed by the idea that you won't be able to touch and smell and pick up your models of your city, consider the potential of the 3-D printers that are quickly becoming competent and cost-effective. We can iterate on our virtual designs for now knowing some day they will be printable. Our lives, in regards to building models, will come full circle when they do.
Sunday, May 6, 2007
A Powerful Example
Google Earth has not gotten around to including these structures at Stanford yet. Why wait? Let the community do it. How do you get Parallel Graphics to play in the community spirit with Google? Will it happen sooner, later, or never?
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Why Support Your Virtual City?
- Let's face it, the most visited urban centers know how to milk perception to attract masses to come and drop some bills. But what about community pride in sharing the unique history associated with a place where thousands gave their lives to participating (whether they cared about it or not). Virtual Tourism is a concept we all can take advantage of to tell our favorite stories about the place we live.
- A 3-D representative model of place with links, stories, and freedom to explore online is a natural way to help others do their Travel Planning and have it carry over to when they actually make it to visit in person.
- We shouldn't fool ourselves. Our town and city planners could use our opinions regarding the future use of our shared geography. What easier way to provide feedback than in the forum of a virtual city demonstrating potential changes we can respond to? Land Planning, Usage, and Urban Structures can all be facilitated through a well-publicized virtual city.
- It is not just the open spaces, commercial structures and residential structures that can benefit from shared visualization and exploration. Civil engineering projects, telecommunications, utilities, and other infrastructure takes up physical space, disrupts our daily activities, and makes itself visible for the long-run.
- Visualization of Weather and other environmental attributes help a community understand their relationship to nature as well as plan for spending time outdoors (something we are doing less and less to the degradation of our sense of community).
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
The Best Cure for Gravity
Our virtual earth visualizations systems free us from gravity whenever we want to take advantage. Yesterday, I was going back and forth between a site in Boston and a site in Washington, DC and some pattern recognition component of my perceptive process came alive to tell me 'you've flown that route before'. Yes, indeed, it looked so familiar to flights I made often in 1985, looking for that first job opportunity. The only difference is I was flying at a higher altitude than where commercial airlines find stable air and a manageable oxygen supply. There are an enormous number of possible navigation strategies for us to enable in exploring our virtual cities. We can choose our perspective on gravity and lighten up our emotional stance towards a rather intense phenomenon that seems to give the birds their self-esteem. Gravity as the weakest force indeed.
consider a paper on 3-d navigation
GPS Enables Us All
We get older and supposedly we get wiser. And, the devices keep getting cheaper and more reliable. Better yet, the devices enable this whole virtual earth, bottom up contribution process that is behind half the reasons we should build our community-managed virtual cities now. I haven't thought this through enough yet to eloquently convince you of my position, but as Bonnie DeVarco states in her article Earth as A Lens: Global Collaboration, GeoCommunication, and The Birth of EcoSentience:
Looking closer at current trends around the globe, it is becoming clear that the changing face of cell phones and the E-911 mandate will converge with this new experience of location-awareness, something that is already infusing our youth with a zeal for the experience of continuous geolocation. Due to the popularity of portable GPS units for travelers, bike riders, backpackers, and adventurers to chart their planetary journeys, new organizations and tools are arising. GPS devices are converging with software and game technology to create a new genre of GPS-enabled communication.
Thanks Bonnie - that's a good place to start. Let's make virtual cities the focus of some of these new emergent organizations.