Interactive multi-perspective views of virtual 3D landscape and city models

Abstract

Based on principles of panorama maps we present an interactive visualization technique that generates multi-perspective views of complex spatial environments such as virtual 3D landscape and city models. Panorama maps seamlessly combine easily readable maps in the foreground with 3D views in the background - both within a single image. Such nonlinear, non-standard 3D projections enable novel focus & context views of complex virtual spatial environments. The presented technique relies on global space deformation to model multi-perspective views while using a standard linear projection for rendering which enables single-pass processing by graphics hardware. It automatically configures the deformation in a view-dependent way to maintain the multi-perspective view in an interactive environment. The technique supports different distortion schemata beyond classical panorama maps and can seamlessly combine different visualization styles of focus and context areas. We exemplify our approach in an interactive 3D tourist information system.