Development of virtual geographic environments and geography research

Abstract

Geographic environment is a combination of natural and cultural environments under which humans survive. Virtual Geographic Environment (VGE) is a new multi-disciplinary initiative that links geosciences, geographic information sciences and information technologies. A VGE is a virtual representation of the natural world that enables a person to explore and interact with vast amounts of natural and cultural information on the physical and cultural environment in cyberspace. Virtual Geography and Experimental Geography are the two closest fields that associate with the development of VGE from the perspective of geography. This paper discusses the background of VGE, introduces its research progress, and addresses key issues of VGE research and the significance for geography research from Experimental Geography and Virtual Geography. VGE can be an extended research object for the research of Virtual Geography and enrich the contents of future geography, while VGE can also be an extended research method for Experimental Geography that geographers can operate virtual geographic experiments based on VGE platforms.© Institute for Computer Sciences, Social-Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering 2010.