USING CAMPUS INFRASTRUCTURE IN INSTRUCTIONAL APPLICATIONS
| Main Technologies Orthophoto Panoramas VRML Credits |
Abstract:
The intent of this project is to use the campus Geographic Information Systems (GIS) data
and aerial photographs as a basis for on-line educational tools, applicable to a wide
range of educational venues. Students use a variety of new learning technologies such as
3-D, VRML, thematic mapping, GPS, and digital photograph navigation to build virtual
environments or recreated "scenes" of parts of the U/A campus. Participants in
this project are the Art Department, College of Agriculture and Campus and Facilities
Planning. For a detailed description of this project with
flowcharts and pictures, click here
TECHNOLOGIES USED IN THIS PROJECT An orthophoto is an photograph that has been orthogonally corrected to remove distortions based upon viewing angle. The objects in an orthophoto appear as if they are in your direct line of vision. Orthophotos are very useful because they are really a model and a map, beyond being just a picture. They can be used in measuring distance, scaling objects, designing routes, etc. They can also be used to create 3D visualizations of locations and buildings, as in this project. The virtual campus was generated by ArcView's 3D Analyst and exported to VRML 2.0. The buildings are represented by polygons and were extruded by the height associated with each polygon. Other data that went into the virtual campus included sidewalk and road layout. These make up the base plane. After being exported to VRML 2.0, field work was done to capture digital images of building faces. These jpegs were then pasted onto the corresponding faces of each building in Cosmo Worlds from SGI. If you have a VRML browser installed, take a walk through U of A's Virtual Campus. If not, it is strongly recommended that you download the Cosmo Player VRML browser, which can be found at our FTP site at ftp://Ag.Arizona.Edu/pub/win95/internet/webview/plugins/CosmoPlayerInstall.exe (3.15MB). Otherwise, click here for a simulated walkthrough of 30 images mirrored by 30 images taken in the field from the corresponding locations. These panoramas were created using LivePicture's PhotoVista from 10-12 adjacent digital images. A plugin is required from http://www.livepicture.com. We went to each of these locations and took enough pictures to complete a full circle, which we were able to paste onto the inside of a cylinder using PhotoVista. Since our camera holds approximately 25 images each, we were able to get two panoramas on each 1.4" floppy before returning to the lab to process the images. These other panoramas are not of the area involved in this project, but do not require a plugin to view. After the artists created their models and photographed them, we used Macromedia's XRes 3 to blend the pieces into the scene. Since these models are by no means flat-faced, their inclusion in the virtual rendition of campus may be somewhat awkward, but it is our intention to demonstrate this technology to the best of our abilities with the tools and the time available to us. |