Many cities will already have corporate GIS systems available to planners. Extending these to a “mirror world” such as Google Earth will have some benefits. But with an immersive environment you free the citizen to not only wander around the space at will, but also (if permitted) to make changes, comments, or even build their own realisation.

More importantly they can talk to each other and experience the environment together – this is a social experience.

There are five different levels at which a local governance might realise a virtual presence:

• 1:1 modelling of the whole city
• Models of specific buildings or districts
• A large scale “model village”
• A small scale “sand-table”
• “New” builds to exploit the virtual space

All of these could represent the city as it is, as it was, or as it could be – or all three. The structures though are only part of the story, for us the two things that bring a virtual presence alive are people and real-time data.

Most immersive environments will support not only the import of data from the web, but its visualisation as well. For instance buses could be in their real-time locations, overlays could be deployed showing CO2 emissions or pedestrian densities. Whatever data you have can be used in novel, shared, visualisations within a virtual world.

Different uses will require different approaches, and even different worlds. A virtual world project will need to consider:

• The target use and audience
• Possible levels of fidelity and modelling
• What technologies are available
• What the benefits could be for the city

See Daden’s World Finder for more help on choosing the best immersive experience for your needs.

If you think that virtual worlds could help you deliver better services to your residents then we’d be more than happy to come and present to you to give you a better understanding of what this technology can offer now, and where it might be going in the future. Please give us a call.

Where Can Virtual Worlds Help?

• Governance & Public Meetings
• Planning & Consultation
• Promotion & Inward Investment
• Marketing & Tourism
• Community Development
• Infrastructure Management
• Public Order
• Service Delivery
• Cultural Development
• Heritage & Historical Interpretation
• Education
• Health and Care
• Commerce
• Social Exclusion, esp Disabilities
• Employment