Landscape Visualization by Integrating Augmented Reality and Drones with Occlusion Handling to Link Real and Virtual Worlds: Towards city digital twin realization

Abstract

In the field of urban architecture and design, augmented reality (AR)-based landscape visualization is useful for building consensus among stakeholders at the design stage. An integrated AR and drone method can visualize future and past landscapes from an aerial perspective but has to address the problem of occlusion, where a 3D virtual model is displayed in front of the real-world objects. In this study, we propose an AR and drone integrated landscape visualization method to handle occlusion by linking the drone's location information in the real world and the camera in the virtual world. The method uses a 3D model of an existing building, which is part of the city model, to represent the 3D model of the design target as if the target were behind the existing building in the real world. Users can use the perspective of the drone, which flies along a set route, to examine the future landscape with high accuracy, as visualized using AR with occlusion handling.