Within the context of the Iliad project, the authors present technical challenges and the first results of having valid 3D scenes of (non-)existing offshore wind farms procedurally and automatically generated within either the Unreal or Unity game engine. The Iliad – Digital Twins of the Ocean project (EU Horizon 2020) aims to develop a ‘system of systems’ for creating cutting-edge digital twins of specific sea and ocean areas for diverse purposes related to their sustainable use and protection. One of the Iliad pilots addresses the topic of offshore floating wind farm construction or maintenance scenario testing and validation using the Unity 3D game engine. This work will speed up the development of these scenarios by procedurally and automatically creating the Unity 3D scene rather than manually (which is done at present). The main technical challenges concern the data-driven approach, in which a JSON configuration file drives the scene creation. The first results show a base wind farm running in Unreal 5.1. The final product will be able to handle environmental conditions, biological conditions, and specific human activities as input parameters.
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Vertical urbanisation is perceived as necessary to accommodate a growing population but is associated with severe risks for human well-being. It requires a profound understanding of how archi-tectural designs can ensure visually readable and liveable environments before it has been built. How-ever, current digital representation techniques fail to address the diverse interests of non-experts. Emerging biometric technologies may deliver the missing user information to involve (future) inhabit-ants at different stages of the planning process. The study aims to gain insight into how non-experts (visually) experience 3D city visualizations of designed urban areas. In two laboratory studies, univer-sity students were randomly assigned to view a set of the same level of detail images from one of two planned urban area developments in the Netherlands. Using eye-tracking technology, the visual behav-iour metrics of fixation count and duration and general eye-movement patterns were recorded for each image, followed by a short survey. The results show how visual behaviour and perception are remark-ably similar across different detail levels, implying that 3D visualizations of planned urban develop-ments can be examined by non-experts much earlier in the design process than previously thought.
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Lectorale rede waarin wordt ingegaan op de manier waarop de mens nu binnen zijn natuurlijke omgeving functioneert. Dit wordt getypeerd als een ‘mismatch’. Tegelijkertijd is de lector er ook van overtuigd dat de technologie uiteindelijk zorgt voor een beter leven.
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