Development of a Smart City Concept in Virtual Reality Environment

Abstract

There is an increasing interest in smart city concept as a technology-based alternative to conventional urban planning approaches. The design and implementation of smart cities require multidisciplinary efforts. As one of the first examples, a smart city concept was developed in Turkey in the year 2018 in collaboration with researchers and experts from various disciplines, such as geomatics and civil engineers, architects, computer scientists and urban planners. The developed concept aimed at designing a city district that targets sustainability, human-centricity, smartness, and safety, along with a sense of place and reflects local expectations in an unconstructed sub-urban area. In the project, the collaborative design process and the usability issues of the presentation environments have been of importance for geomatics professionals. Within the study, the existing settlement areas were modelled by using aerial photogrammetric data and combined with elements designed in various Computer-Aided design (CAD) software. In this paper, the smart city design elements, which originate from the design principles such as ensuring nature conservation, green, cultural, safe and smart living spaces, and social responsibility, are explained briefly. The city was presented to the stakeholders via Unity game engine for a realistic experience prior to construction. The potential of Virtual Reality (VR) environments for the design, modelling, and visualization of very high detailed smart city concept is presented and various issues are discussed. The model experiment videos with VR, web-based model and project video can be accessed via the web page www.bizimsehir.org.