Augmented Reality for City Planning (original) (raw)
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Journal of Aging Research, 2020
Sedentary behavior is prevalent in older adults. Older adults often underutilize public parks for exercising because the parks do not support their needs and preferences. Engaging older adults on the redesign of parks may help promote active lifestyles. e objectives of this pilot study were to evaluate (1) the effects of wearing augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) glasses on balance; (2) the effects of different virtual walls separating the walking trail from the roadway on older adults' gait, and (3) the preferences of the participants regarding wall design and other features. e participants were ten older adults (68 ± 5 years) who lived within two miles from the park. Balance and gait were assessed using a force plate and an instrumented mat. It was feasible to use AR with older adults in the park to evaluate features for redesign. Motion sickness was not an issue when using AR glasses, but balance was affected when wearing VR goggles. e area of postural sway increased approximately 25% when wearing AR glasses, and it increased by close to 70% when wearing VR goggles compared to no glasses. is difference is clinically relevant; however, we did not have enough power to identify the differences as statistically significant because of the small sample size and large variability. Different walls did not significantly affect the participants' gait either because they did not alter the way they walked or because the holograms were insufficiently realistic to cause changes. e participants preferred a transparent wall rather than tall or short solid walls to separate the park from the roadway.
Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2021
Most participation processes in urban planning offer poor incentives, especially for young citizens, hence important citizen's needs are excluded. Our work aims at identifying the degree to which Augmented Reality (AR) might motivate young people. We developed an AR-app with Unity3D to create new interaction concepts for use cases in urban planning. Building projects and environment changes are visualized, so citizens can contribute design ideas to the process. Using a human-centered design approach, we invited different stakeholders to participate. We conducted 40 interviews and a survey, then interaction concepts were evolved by citizens in four participatory design workshops. Our findings show that AR can motivate increased participation in urban planning. We also demonstrate a new approach to engaging low-tech users in designing high-tech solutions such as AR systems by using haptic 3D-tools like Lego or clay. Furthermore, we propose ways in which AR could be used collaboratively and embedded in existing participation processes.
This paper is published in the Journal of Urban and Landscape Planning of the School of Urban Planning at the "Ion Mincu" University of Architecture and Urbanism. The paper is available online at: http://www.julpreview.ro/files/Stadler.pdf The development of virtual reality over the last century supported a slow shift of activities from the public space towards the private one. However, virtual reality offers incomplete sensations and less face to face social interactions, which reinforces the need for public spaces. Augmented reality is an emerging technology able to better connect the two realms: the virtual and physical reality. This article aims to briefly explain the shift from virtual reality towards augmented reality and the effects of this process on the public space. The focus will be on the ways that augmented reality can improve the attractiveness of contemporary public spaces by strengthening its essential features, such as: access to information, playfulness and adaptability. In order to be competitive and attractive public spaces have to evolve and adapt to the new trends, of which ICT is one of the most significant.
Augmented and Virtual Reality Applied for Innovative, Inclusive and Efficient Participatory Planning
2018
The research project VR-Planning aims to investigate improvements in participatory planning processes through the use of Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) to allow stakeholders to experience designs of buildings and public spaces before they are built. The biggest challenge for participatory planning is to include stakeholders from various backgrounds and with diverse knowledge. Thus VR-Planning examines how AR and VR can be used to optimally support participation in different application areas at different planning phases to facilitate a swift and effective decision-making process. This paper summarizes results from three user experience workshops with citizens and a workshop with an interdisciplinary group of professional planners and academics. Finally, an outlook with usage scenarios in future planning and design projects is provided.
Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 2023
Augmented reality (AR) allows objects to be digitally simulated in the real world through smartphones, tablets, and headsets. While there are interesting AR technology case studies in participatory urban planning, this type of research has yet to be conducted within a real-life municipal planning scenario. Following the UN Habitat recommendation that further studies in AR as a participatory tool seek to integrate planning with real citizens, we studied the use of AR for the Oslo Trees plan in Norway. The case study consists of field work with AR between 2020 and 2021 over five weeks, with five different groups of youth participants from eight different districts of Oslo, who were tasked with planning a portion of Oslo's 100,000 new trees. We document how these youths used AR in films, images, drawings, interviews, screen recordings, and recorded presentations. We find that AR is a highly intuitive tool for these youth user groups in design and planning and how the AR schemes impacted the final design of the plan. The use of AR aided users' ability to generate their own planning proposals on site at scale; nearly all participants increased their understanding of participation, urban planning, architecture, and design in the workshops. In addition, the youths experienced an increased sense of confidence in displaying their design intentions and appreciated being given control of the planning process. However, we also found that location tracking and positioning in AR is imprecise and often "buggy" in the current state of the technology, causing irritation among users. Furthermore, despite the high degree of control afforded to users through AR, experts were still needed to verify which tree proposals were viable, offering important insights into how AR could be designed in the future. We conclude with a discussion on opportunities and barriers for the implementation of AR in participatory urban planning, pointing to the need for a more coordinated and holistic approach to both AR technology development and planning policy if the technology is to be developed further for participatory urban planning.
Journal of Urban Design, 2018
Urban planners and designers have spent the last 50 years trying to activate unused public spaces, create walkable cities, and encourage sociability through urban design. Pokémon Go has succeeded, almost overnight, to entice people of all demographics in to the streets of cities around the world. In fact, many previously underutilised public spaces have suddenly become hot spots for all demographics, playing Pokémon Go and other similar augmented reality games (ARGs). While anecdotally, it seems, ARGs activate public spaces, increase community interactions, and facilitate exploration of urban spaces, little study has been done on the influence of ARGs on sense of place, or the way in which these games are influencing player engagement with the public spaces they are playing within. This paper reports the findings of a survey of 994 Australian players. The paper explores whether ARGs affect user needs being met in public spaces, and the implications of these findings for urban practitioners.
Emerging technologies in urban design pedagogy: augmented reality applications
Architectural Intelligence, 2024
In the contemporary era of urban design, the advent of big data and digital technologies has ushered in innovative approaches to exploring urban spaces. This study focuses on the application of Augmented Reality (AR) and Extended Reality (XR) technologies in the metropolitan areas of Houston and Amsterdam. These technologies create immersive 'Phygital Installations' that blend physical and digital elements, effectively capturing people's perceptions and enhancing urban design proposals. By fostering human-centered planning, AR and XR technologies make urban design more interactive and accessible to the public. Houston, with its rapid industrial growth and diverse socio-economic landscape, provides a unique setting to examine the impacts of these technologies on urban form and socio-environmental dynamics. In contrast, Amsterdam, with its rich historical layers and socio-cultural diversity, offers insights into the integration of AR/XR technologies in urban planning, particularly in the realm of historical preservation and contemporary urban development. This research contributes to the emerging field of AR/XR in urban design by highlighting the transformative potential of these technologies in enhancing the understanding and engagement in urban design and spatial planning.
International Journal of Geoheritage and Parks, 2024
Parks design relies on understanding user preferences, which are determined through interviews, surveys, and observations. However, previous methods are limited in their capacity to explore user preferences, which necessitates the development of new approaches. Virtual reality (VR) is an effective tool for modeling perceptions and simulating the real world, yet its impact on overcoming previous limitations remains unexplored. This study aims to assess VR's role in addressing challenges and limitations related to people's uses and preferences regarding neighborhood parks. Using an experimental approach, we test factors that influence park visits, using both traditional methods and VR to analyze the extent to which VR can mitigate these challenges. The study reveals that, among individuals in various age groups, perception significantly influences responses. In addition, VR helps overcome issues with traditional research methods, ensuring result validity and interpretation of differences. Ultimately, compared to traditional methods, using VR improves the sense of certainty among individuals regarding their preferences.
Augmented Reality as a tool for Urban Design
2020
Augmented reality is a technological breakthrough that stimulate reality perception. Augmented reality is a new technology that merges the virtual and real worlds and offers support for the urban design process. Technologies are important tool to design smart heritage zones by making concrete contribution to trigger dynamic process of place based development. Several digital interfaces had been developed over the years that utilize virtual and the augmented reality technologies for visualizing the heritage zones digitally in an interactive manner through the use of several different input devices. An integration of those technologies provides a novel multi modal mixed reality interface that facilitates the implementation of more interesting digital heritage exhibition. This paper presents the actual simulation possibilities and challenges of augmented reality in the field of experiencing cultural heritage. It also describes a study of pedestrian navigation in a cultural heritage nei...
2013
This paper describes possibilities and examples in which augmented reality solutions can be implemented in planning and participation processes, based on an analysis of the results of the project "ways2gether-Target-group-specific use of augmented reality and web 2.0 in participative traffic planning processes". An augmented-reality-demonstrator based on the free metaio Mobile SDK was developed as part of the project ways2gether. This new communication and information tool was practically evaluated in three test cases to show the benefit in planning and participation processes in transport planning. The actual possibilities and challenges in implementing augmented reality in planning processes are discussed, the technical background and a possible workflow for the integration of augmented reality solutions in planning processes are described and finally the benefits and difficulties in using augmented reality in participation processes are explained based on the results of the test cases. 2 AUGMENTED REALITY AND PLANNING Augmented reality (AR), a term that has been increasingly used since the 1990s, refers to one's own perceptionmostly visualbeing enhanced through computer-generated information. This can be achieved in a variety of ways, though common to all systems is that virtual reality and reality are combined and overlaid. Another shared characteristic is also that these systems operate interactively in real time and threedimensional information is provided (Azuma 1997). The planning sector is becoming increasingly more interested in these instruments, with the opportunity for many planning fields to provide on-site geo-referenced information proving to be an especially interesting expansion of their repertoire of methods. The field of mobile augmented reality is particularly interesting for planning and participation processes thus an additional requirement is that the AR environment has to work on mobile devices. Due to the increasing number of mobile devices that have a camera, data connection, GPS sensors on board and sufficient computing power, mobile augmented reality applications are becoming more and more interesting for a broader public. The dissemination of (powerful) smartphones and tablets as well as the possibility to use third party applications on mobile devices has caused a visible trend in augmentation in recent years. Augmented reality is seen as an important tool in planning processes, especially in participation processes, to improve communication with "non-planners". Planning information can be shown location based, three-dimensional, and in the context of the "real world" on mobile devices (c.f.