Research Group Geospatial Visualization, Semantic Modelling and Aquisition

Geospatial Visualization, Semantic Modelling, and Acquisition Group

References
Competences
Research Topics
Projects
Publications

The group focuses on methods for the virtual exploration and visual analysis of geospatial data. Application areas range from infrastructure projects over digital planning to planetary science.

You can see a loose rock formation from a reconstruction of the Martian surface in brown colors as well as the shadow of the Mars rover Perseverance, which took the pictures.

Martian surface reconstructed from Mastcam-Z images of the Perseverance rover from Sol 211. The high-resolution surface batch is superimposed onto a lower resolution reconstruction of Jezero crater based on orbiter imagery (shown as wireframe). The shadow of the Perseverance rover is visible on the surface. © NASA/JPL/ASU/MSSS/JOANNEUM RESEARCH/VRVis/ICL

Visualization of a planned large photovoltaic array in Lower Austria complementing an existing wind park area.

A GEARViewer visualization shows a planned large photovoltaic array in Lower Austria complementing an existing wind park area.

Visualization of a tunnel, different lines and points indicate tunnel wall deformations.

The Geotunnel viewer provides an embedded storytelling mechanism to explain various tunnel wall deformation measurements. This supports collaboration of tunnel monitoring teams and the training of apprentices.

Visualization of the Martian surface with geological annotations.

Martian surface reconstructed from Mastcam-Z images of the Perseverance rover from Sol 256 (Martian mission day). The high-resolution surface batch is superimposed onto a lower resolution reconstruction of Jezero crater based on orbiter imagery (shown as wireframe). We are looking towards an ancient river delta lying in the gap between the hills on the horizon, the left one if which is called Kodiak. (© NASA/JPL/ASU/MSSS/JOANNEUM RESEARCH/VRVis/ICL)

Visualization of a building cross-section in which a room is colorfully highlighted.

EnVis analyses BIM data to retrieve neighbouring surfaces between rooms to perform thermal calculations.

Visualization of a basic room network of a house, lines indicate the heat flow within the rooms.

EnVis uses a room network to calculate the heat flow within a building.

Visualization of a reinforcement cage, individual bars are colored.

Geometric reconstruction of single rebars in a rebar cage. The point cloud is reconstructed from images with NeRFs.

Visualization of a rebar cage in an office space.

Visualization of a trained NeRF in Nerfstudio.

Photorealistic visualization of a modern office space with various lighting elements.

A workspace design concept created in HILITE, a fully interactive lighting design tool that we have developed together with Zumtobel Lighting GmbH. Photometric luminaires, self-emitting materials and view-dependent reflections rendered in real-time provide an intuitive and uninterrupted design process.

False-color visualization of Stuttgart's Mercedez-Benz Arena, lines indicate illumination angles.

A new lighting solution from Zumtobel Lighting GmbH planned with HILITE with over 200 luminaires for the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Stuttgart. The false color rendering and target lines show the complexity required to achieve a uniform illumination and to avoid shadows and glare for player comfort and high-quality TV broadcasts.

Visualization showing a point cloud and the reconstruction lines modeling out the building of a church.

High-precision building model obtained from a photogrammetric point cloud using Aardvark’s smart modelling tools.

Image composed of three different displays: 1. the point cloud of a railroad track system, 2. this system from above, 3. a map of Austria.

Screenshot of the Rail4Future prototype showing an interactive point cloud rendering (left) and linked map views (right). Navigation in any view immediately affects all others. This means that the viewing position in the 3D view can be changed by moving the marker on one of the maps. And when flying through 3D space, the markers on the maps are updated accordingly.

You can see a cross-section of rock layers on which geological annotations were made in colored lines.

Creation of a geologic log by selecting points on the stratigraphic boundaries of an outcrop.

Research Priorities

The GeoSMAQ research group focuses on methods for the creation, visualization, and interactive analysis of 3D geospatial data. Our use cases range from terrestrial surveying over digital planning and simulation to planetary science. With our work, we address three research directions:

First, we want to make it easy to represent, visualize, and understand vast amounts of acquisition data, which are generated in increasingly high detail and increasing frequency with today's emerging technologies, such as high-resolution laser scanners or mobile mapping.

Second, we research methods to computationally understand these high-resolution data by deriving semantics giving us the opportunity to reduce the size of the data while simultaneously making it more meaningful. The simplified data we can enrich with simulations or senor measurements. Examples are thermal comfort simulation for energy planning, physically accurate light simulation for architectural design or digital twins for tunnel monitoring that also consider sensors.

Third, we want to build interactive systems integrating all relevant spatial and non-spatial information to support experts in planning, analysing, and making informed decisions.

References

Company partner: Clone:it, Dibit Messtechnik, EOX, ESA - European Space Agency, Geoconsult ZT, Geodata ZT, InPlan Ingenieure, NASA - Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), ÖBB Infrastruktur, rmDATA, SLR Engineering, Zumtobel
scientific partner: Arizona State University, Austria Academy of Sciences (ÖAW), Imperial College London, Joanneum Research, University College London, Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien)

Documenting construction sites effectively via 3D laser scans with mobile devices

Construction sites are highly dynamic places, which makes complete and convenient documentation all the more important. As part of the "AI5production" program, VRVis and rmDATA are investigating whether mobile devices with LiDAR and high-resolution cameras are suitable for automatically recording construction processes in 3D.

In the PROVEX project, JOANNEUM Research and VRVis are developing a provenance-aware workflow management tool for heterogeneous data for use in ESA's HERA mission.

InPlan and VRVis develop a visualization and simulation package for energy planning of buildings, which enables intuitive optimization in terms of energy efficiency and comfort.

Rail4Future: Railways for Future - Resilient Digital Railway Systems to Enhance Performance

The Rail4Future project is focusing on the design of a digital rail system for the future. To this end, a novel and fully virtual validation platform for large-scale simulations of entire rail lines is being developed to increase the efficiency of existing rail infrastructure.

With the help of 3D printing (additive manufacturing), spare parts for defective trains can be produced more easily and in a sustainable way as well as faster and cheaper - a great potential for the climate-friendly future of train transport companies.

AMASE

The research goal of AMASE is to create a suite of tools and methods to ingest, process, visualize, and manipulate heterogeneous, large-scale geospatial data. This data is the constantly updated representation of the real world in the form of an evolving digital twin.

Mars-DL - Simulating Training Data for Deep Learning

The "Mars-DL" project is investigating how a deep learning system can support the research work of planetary scientists through object and pattern recognition. For this project VRVis has extended the functionality of PRo3D to automatically render shatter cone training images.

GEARViewer

The GEARViewer is the result of many years of research on the visualization of complex infrastructure projects. GEARViewer is a tool that allows to interactively explore extensive geographical areas and to investigate the effects of large-scale infrastructure buildings on urban and rural environments.