Geoscience Reference
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(c)
(d)
FIGURE 4.7 (continued)
Creating buildings in Google SketchUp and viewing them in OpenSim. (c) Adding
photorealistic skin to the building, (d) view within.
(
continued
)
Figure 4.9 shows such an example in Second Life, where agents take the form of pedestrians
and are evacuating the building as the fire alarm has been activated. Given that human movement
behaviour has deep implications on the design of effective pedestrian pathways (Willis et al.,
2004), combining digital and simulation models within a virtual world could therefore improve
the design process through embedding pedestrian dynamics in the related architectural structures
(Vizzari et al., 2006).
Creating detailed 3D city models based on real-world data within virtual worlds does not only
provide us with a sense of place. The visualisation of people moving allows us to better convey
situations such as pedestrian movement and allows urban planners to improve the structure of the
street network and communicate the idea of space to the public (Burkhard et al., 2008). Additionally
