VarCity - semantic and dynamic city modelling
Computer Vision Laboratory, ETH Zurich
Virtual city models are used in many game and movie designs, like the industry leading spin-off Procedural (now part of ESRI) for creating stunning 3D urban environments from 2D data. Currently the production of real 3D city models comes at a high cost. Given that the modeling effort needs to be repeated regularly for updating, rendering city model production more efficient is an absolute necessity. Our work creates inverse procedural models, which are built for existing cities. The modeling is done by analyzing images of real cities and constructing parametrized and semantic models, where we know the number of storeys, shadows cast by new buildings, the position of traffic signs, vegetation, etc.
Our research further creates dynamic living 3D city models, which allows for deeper immersion than in current city representations. We extract special events and traffic flows to generate a city-scale motion and activity model. One can virtually visit Times Square and see what was on the electronic newsreel recently or check out traffic densities along a journey or the kids' way to school.