Virtual Tourism

Websites

• Switzerland - for some reason, there are numerous 3D projects there
  • Flying Over Switzerland (Viewtec) - apparently discontinued around 2006
  • Lucerne / Switzerland in 3-D
    • tourism-oriented website with a few city walkthroughs
    • uses the Java-based Shout3D engine as a plugin
    • the 3D parts didn't work for me when i tried it on 04.08.28, after "loading models" and "parsing scene", only a empty black window
• DORIS - interMAP
  • Austrian digital space imagery organization offering a 3D visualization of the Traunsee region of Austria (again, using the Geonova / G-Vista software)
• In volo sull'Isola d'Elba (fly over the island of Elba, Italy)
  • has nice high-res pan-sharpened orthophotos
  • uses the 3DIMap viewer (Shockwave-based web viewer)

Standalone Applications

• Vizerra
  • Vizerra produces detailed 3D models of touristic areas - Taj Mahal, Machu Picchu, Angkor Wat etc.
  • The models are viewed with a free, Windows-only application, built on the Gamebryo game engine.
  • It is a somewhat heavy download (50MB, plus ~200MB per scene)
  • The company is based in Russia, launched 2008, apparently owned or in partnership with NVidia.
  • While indeed detailed and impressive, the models do exhibit some odd aesthetic choices, e.g. the hills and terraces of Machu Picchu look like vivid green styrofoam.

Installations

• Virtual Florida Everglades (1998)
  • an educational simulation of the Everglades, with vegetation and animals
  • built on the Unreal game engine by Victor J. DeLeon, H. Robert Berry
  • the goal: "a richly detailed 3D virtual environment, which could be used to educate the public and promote ecological awareness"
  • designed for a location-based installation with a large screen and multiple viewers
• Virtual Garden Walkthrough
  • allows you to take a virtual walk through Japan's famous Motsuji Temple Paradise garden which was destroyed 770 years ago
  • bundled with a jogging exercise machine, so that you get a workout while navigating around the garden!
• UST Projects - Jerusalem's Temple Mount
  • modelled in MultiGen and running only on high-end SGI machines, the Urban Simulation Team at UCLA recreated how excavators believe the Temple Mount site appeared prior to its destruction by Roman troops in the year 70 CE
  • opened to the public in 2001, apparently still open as of 2007
    

Services

• Austrian company 3D BASE produces animated walkthrough visualizations of tourism development projects
  • the 'product' is called TourisVis, "a visualisation system for tourist regions, which are engaged to provide something special for their guests"

Academic Papers

• Patrick Aschwanden, Thomas Ohler, Renato Pajarola, Peter Stucki, Kornel Szabo, Peter Widmayer. A Virtual Reality based System Environment for Intuitive Walk-Throughs and Exploration of Large-Scale Tourist Information. Proc. of the Enter95 Conference, pp. 10-15, 1995
  • related to their ViRGIS project which was a tourism prototype with navigation over the Swiss Alps

CDROM Titles

• Eingana - Review (2002):
  • was around $60 from PlanetObserver (France)
  • a remarkable, seamless interactive navigation over the entire Earth, from space down to ground level, at any time of day
  • elevation is 200m over the USA and Europe, 1 km elsewhere
  • all of the high-resolution detail around the viewpoint (both elevation and imagery) is provided by fractal-type random generation, which is occasionally quite effective and dramatic
  • there are a lot of special details, distributed both procedurally and manually: land and sea animals, vegetation, buildings in a few cities, place names, satellite image insets, more
  • there are some truly unique and stunning effects, such as glowing city lights at night
  • framerate is high when you stand in one place and look around, or move up and down; zooms in or out from space to ground are exhilarating
  • unfortunately, framerate drops to painfully slow (< 1 fps even on a fast machine) when the viewpoint moves horizontally
• Explore Kilauea Volcano
  • $30, see the Hawai`i page
• Virtual Holy Land (1999)
  • CDROM-based interactive 3D viewer with large, hand-modeled content, of several real places mentioned in the Bible, from developer "Virtual Excursions".  Impressive for its time. No information on what became of the title or its models.

Older / Historical

• 3D Flight Over Switzerland (2005)
  • from Geonova AG, using the G-Graphix tools and G-Vista runtime plugin (now apparently gone)
  • absolute beautiful 25m satellite with 1m/0.5m aerial inset imagery
  • great data, good interaction speed and reasonable texture paging performance - an exciting combination
  
• LiveDolomiti - 3D Flight over Dolomites
  • the Dolomites are mountains, situated in north-east Italy to the south of the Alps
  • the website had a number of pre-rendered panoramic images, and a VRML-based flyover with satellite image and paging
  • apparently it evolved into or otherwise merged with Italy eXplorer
• 'Virtual Seattle' and 'Virtual San Francisco'
  • $20 each from Cityscreens Software, a small team in Seattle [defunct as of 2004]
  • they created 3D models of small parts of the cities, and used a "cartoon map" style for most of the screens, with only 2D interaction and a couple rendered movies
• Virtual Messiah (no longer online?)
  • was $30 from Virtual  Excursions
  • included a fly-in from space to Israel (non-realtime) and a walk around the buildings of ancient Jerusalem (realtime, actually branched pre-rendered QuickTime segments)
  • made with 3D Studio and WorldBuilder
• Axion 3D World Atlas
  • was a nice-looking program, with "3D displays of any place in the world, real-time fly-bys over any portion of the Earth"
  • apparently discontinued
• 3dvillage.com (no longer online?)
  • "enables visitors to Walk the World by providing an active 3D environment that is engaging, entertaining and informative"
  • used the NxView plugin (no longer online?)
• Athens from Space: a 3D Guide for Tourists (no longer online?)
  • "don't be to surprised when you find yourself using Athens from space just because you enjoy it."
  • planned to use VRML (requiring IE5 and Blaxxun Contact)
• Virtual Stonehenge
  • realtime 3D, using the Superscape viewer, but a very crude model
  • quote: "the public is no longer permitted to walk among the stones, so the virtual model is now the only way to experience the space"
• many QuickTimeVR sites, such as Pleasant's Virtual Hawaiian Holiday
  • could be considered virtual tourism, but are really minimal
  • has hype phrases like "Visit great places without leaving your room"