VR4UrbanDev: An Immersive Virtual Reality Experience for Energy Data Visualization

TL;DR

VR4UrbanDev addresses how to visualize energy data for urban contexts through immersive VR, enabling both macro-scale exploration via world-in-miniature and real-world scale viewing in first-person mode. The approach pairs an interactive VR experience with qualitative stakeholder interviews to identify target groups and capture requirements for future implementations. The paper demonstrates a demonstration VR environment, discusses the design decisions for multi-scale visualization, and provides insights to guide developers in implementing energy-data VR tools for urban planning. The work highlights the potential of VR-based data visualization to support energy planning and decision making in cities and offers concrete guidelines from stakeholder feedback to shape future work.

Abstract

In this demonstration paper, we present our interactive virtual reality (VR) experience, which has been designed to facilitate interaction with energy-related information. This experience consists of two main modes: the world in miniature for large-scale and first-person for real-world scale visualizations. Additionally, we presented our approach to potential target groups in interviews. The results of these interviews can help developers for future implementation considering the requirements of each group.