Search

This study explores how combining virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) with geographic information systems (GIS) revolutionizes data visualization. It traces the historical development of these technologies and highlights key milestones that paved the way for this study's objectives. While existing platforms like Esri's software and Google Earth VR show promise, they lack complete integration for immersive GIS visualization. This gap has led to the need for a dedicated workflow to integrate selected GIS data into a game engine for visualization purposes. This study primarily utilizes QGIS for data preparation and Unreal Engine for immersive visualization. QGIS handles data management, while Unreal Engine offers advanced rendering and interactivity for immersive experiences. To tackle the challenge of handling extensive GIS datasets, this study proposes a workflow involving tiling, digital elevation model generation, and transforming GeoTIFF data into 3D objects. Leveraging QGIS and Three.js streamlines the conversion process for integration into Unreal Engine. The resultant virtual reality application features distinct stations, enabling users to navigate, visualize, compare, and animate GIS data effectively. Each station caters to specific functionalities, ensuring a seamless and informative experience within the VR environment. This study also delves into augmented reality applications, adapting methodologies to address hardware limitations for smoother user experiences. By optimizing textures and implementing augmented reality functionalities through modules Swift, RealityKit, and ARKit, this study extends the immersive GIS experience to iOS devices. In conclusion, this research demonstrates the potential of integrating virtual reality, augmented reality, and GIS, pushing data visualization into new realms. The innovative workflows and applications developed serve as a testament to the evolving landscape of spatial data interpretation and engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning to use geographic information system (GIS) software effectively may be intimidating due to the extensive range of features it offers. The GRASS GIS software, in particular, presents additional challenges for first-time users in terms of its complex startup procedure and unique terminology associated with its data structure. On the other hand, a substantial part of the GRASS user community including us as developers recognized and embraced the advantages of the current approach. Given the controversial nature of the whole issue, we decided to actively involve regular users by conducting several formal surveys and by performing usability testing. Throughout this process, we discovered that resolving specific software issues through pure user-centered design is not always feasible, particularly in the context of open-source scientific software where the boundary between users and developers is very fuzzy. To address this challenge, we adopted the user-centered methodology tailored to the requirements of open-source scientific software development, which we refer to as community-driven design. This paper describes the community-driven redesigning process on the GRASS GIS case study and sets a foundation for applying community-driven design in other open-source scientific projects by providing insights into effective software development practices driven by the needs and input of the project's community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The accuracy of artificial intelligence techniques in estimating air quality is contingent upon a multitude of influencing factors. Unlike our previous study that examined PM2.5 over whole Europe using unbalanced spatial-temporal data, the focus of this study was on estimating PM2.5 specifically over the Czech Republic using more balanced dataset to train and evaluate the model. Moreover, the spatial autocorrelation between PM2.5 measurements was taken into consideration while building the model. The feature importance while developing the Extra Trees model revealed that spatial autocorrelation had greater significance in comparison to commonly used inputs such as elevation and NDVI. We found that R2 of the 10-CV for the new model was 16% higher than the previous one. Where R2 reached 0.85 with RMSE=5.42 µg/m3, MAE=3.41 µg/m3, and bias=-0.03 µg/m3. The developed spatiotemporal model was employed to generate comprehensive daily maps covering the entire study area throughout the period 2018-2020. The temporal analysis showed that the levels of PM2.5 exceeded recommended limits during the year 2018 in many regions. The eastern part of the country suffered from the highest concentrations especially over Zlín and Moravian-Silesian Regions. Air quality improved during the next two years in all regions reaching promising levels in 2020. The generated dataset will be available for other future air quality studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vernacular architecture is an integral part of the national cultural heritage. Today, however, many of these buildings exist only on old plans or photographs and the average citizen has no opportunity to get acquainted with this part of the national identity. Therefore, in our work, we present the development of two web applications with the aim of creating a virtual open-air museum for presenting vernacular architecture in the Czech Republic. The applications were created using opensource technologies, and are implemented with methods that allow easy transfer from one operating system to another. The presented content is a carefully selected sub-sample of more than 10,000 available records representing all regional types of vernacular architecture. The result is one application designed for editors to manage the presented content and one application allowing interactive viewing of the available geo-located records designed for the general public. Individual records can be searched either directly using the map window or by querying the attribute table. These records contain descriptive information about the object, as well as historical photographs and plans and, for some objects, additional information in the form of 3D models, PDF documents and other files. The applications are designed in such a way that their content can be freely expanded in the future and thus contribute to the popularization of vernacular architecture among the general public, which was the main reason for their creation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Air pollution is currently considered one of the most serious problems facing humans. Fine particulate matter with a diameter smaller than 2.5 micrometres (PM2.5) is a very harmful air pollutant that is linked with many diseases. In this study, we created a machine learning-based scheme to estimate PM2.5 using various open data such as satellite remote sensing, meteorological data, and land variables to increase the limited spatial coverage provided by ground-monitors. A space-time extremely randomised trees model was used to estimate PM2.5 concentrations over Europe, this model achieved good results with an out-of-sample cross-validated R2 of 0.69, RMSE of 5 μg/m3, and MAE of 3.3 μg/m3. The outcome of this study is a daily full coverage PM2.5 dataset with 1 km spatial resolution for the three-year period of 2018–2020. We found that air quality improved throughout the study period over all countries in Europe. In addition, we compared PM2.5 levels during the COVID-19 lockdown during the months March–June with the average of the previous 4 months and the following 4 months. We found that this lockdown had a positive effect on air quality in most parts of the study area except for the United Kingdom, Ireland, north of France, and south of Italy. This is the first study that depends only on open data and covers the whole of Europe with high spatial and temporal resolutions. The reconstructed dataset will be published under free and open license and can be used in future air quality studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hydrological modelling of the runoff response to the causal rainfall on the small catchment or individual plot scale is an important part of designing the water management measures in the landscape. Classic methods based on CN and unit hydrograph are implemented in number of models (HEC-HMS, WMS, etc.). This approach is also being implemented in the Atlas environment. Expanding the use of physically-based approach still faces number of ambiguities. Obtaining parameters of hydrological models may be a difficult task. Measurement of physically based parameters is often time consuming and costly. On the other side, obtaining parameters by calibration require long term time series of data which are often not available in appropriate quality. In contrast to other soil properties, soil texture is relatively easy to obtain. In this contribution we present an attempt to link soil texture to surface runoff model parameters. Serie of artificial rainfall experiments on 4 m2 plot with disturbed soil of various texture was undertaken. Besides soil texture the experiments differ in terms of rainfall intensity and slope. Episodic rainfall-runoff model smoderp2d was used to model those experiments. Parameters of Philip's infiltration, required by the model, were calculated directly for each single experiment. Manning-Strickler formula is used in simplified solution of the kinematic wave equation to express the momentum. Manning-Strickler (MS) formula, which is usually used to 1D channel flow calculations, is used to model the surface sheet flow. Roughness coefficient, which express the effect of current state of soil aggregates, texture and vegetation, is important parameter of MS formula. Roughness coefficient and other two parameters, related to surface slope and water level height were optimised. Response sensitivity of the runoff on these parameters is presented. The set of parameters were further used in infer uncertainty in runoff for a given soil texture class. In addition, we would like to present the new development of the model smoderp2d which were recently integrated in the GRASS GIS and QGIS open source software packages.The research has been supported by the research grants SGS17/173/OHK1, TJ01000270 and QK1910029. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]