The First 3D Geospatial Geneva Showcase Event

On June 11 it was a warm afternoon when we all boarded taxis in front of the WMO lobby and promptly got stuck in a huge traffic jam in the center city. 

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After nearly 45 minutes during which some groups abandoned their taxis and walked along the shore of Lake Geneva to La Tour de Molard, everyone arrived safely at the meeting point.

At the Tour de Molard we were joined by several others who had come from other parts of the city. We reorganized into teams and the 8 tablets (6 TegraNote 7 + 2 Google Nexus 7) connected to the Huawei mobile Internet access point provided by Scott Simmons (Laramie Range and CACI).

We then skipped the planned first demonstration and rushed up the stairs and pedestrian streets to the Hotel de Ville.IMG_2423

We needed to reach the Hotel de Ville as soon as possible in order to conduct the demonstration of Inglobe Technology 3D Tracker on the interior staircase before the doors to the courtyard were to close to the public at 7 PM.

 

 

 

 

After a brief introduction to the project prepared for us to experience horses in the interior staircase, everyone was able to see the project on the iPad which did not need to be Internet connected. Unfortunately, this project (unlike all the others) is not available on the Showcase tablets but everyone had a quick look. IMG_2428IMG_2432If you missed the demonstration, you can see the screenshots here.IMG_4520 IMG_4522

We then walked through the tables of the guests dinning peacefully at the Hotel des Armures on our way to the balcony overlooking the place in front of the Cathedrale St. Pierre. Here we were undisturbed, cool and our target was brightly lit. In the shadow of the building, it was dark so that we could see the tablet screens clearly. IMG_4607 IMG_4609 IMG_4611

Under these conditions, we conducted the demonstrations of six showcase projects: 

 – the smartMap Geneva project and Geneva 3D SDI using the 3D models of the buidlings as well as other data sets
 – the CitiesAR Geneva project which shows the 3D models of Geneva attached to the map of the showcase event
 – the i-SCOPE project using the 3D buildings in CityGML 
 – the DiscovAR game using Points of Interest in the city center and
 – the visualization of Geneva city mobile antennas using Swiss OpenData sets in the Chrome browser.

In addition and despite some difficulty with connectivity, we tested the 3D AR visualization capabilities of Augment (available on both Android and iOS) using the 3D model of the cathedral (it is the only model which is labelled "cathedrale").   

  IMG_2440    IMG_2443Our next stop was the terrace overlooking the Parc des Bastions.

At this location the sun's angle was low and the light directly on us so we backed into the shade of trees where we were shown the demonstration of Envitia's MapLink project using city building models, water supply, and tree data sets with GeoPackage and GeoContext files to control the data layers in view.

We concluded with a toast with fine Swiss wines to the success of the developers and projects in the Parc des Bastions.IMG_2450

 

 

 

 

 

 

Although some people had already taken leave of the event, we captured a group photo of the participants in front of the Reformation Wall.IMG_2454

 

 

Thank you to all the sponsors for their support, the developers for their projects and the participants for the enthusiasm for the event.

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Individual Project Web Pages

Over the past week, as we have been working with developers who developed projects, we have learned of the great accomplishments with such talented people and their tools. 

Today we completed the first draft of the project Web pages. They are easily accessible from this project directory page. 

In the coming week we will update the pages in order to capture all the achievements.

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Project Testing Completed

On June 5th, we loaded all the projects submitted on deadline on the TegraNote 7 tablets and started them up. As you can expect, there were a few surprises, but after contacting the developers we sorted out most of the issues. We also installed the ARMedia ToolSet on the iPhone.

Then we took the tablets and iPhone into the old city of Geneva for a test drive of the preliminary projects. We discovered some anomolies and we revised our route (new route map coming on the site soon). 

After our testing we provided feedback to the developers and they are rapidly finalizing their projects for the showcase event on June 11

Join us at 18h00 in front of the WMO buildng lobby to see the live applications in Geneva! 

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ARmedia Promotes the Showcase

Inglobe Technologies, provider of ARmedia tools, has published a blog post about the 3D Geospatial Geneva Showcase and their participation. 

The project submitted by Inglobe Technologies will focus on adding digital "living" elements to the Hotel de Ville of Geneve, a historical monument in the heart of the old city.  This will demonstrate the latest ARMedia 3D SDK.

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Metaio Promotes 3DGVA on its Augmented Blog

We've worked with providers of AR authoring platforms to get the word out about the 3D Geospatial Geneva Showcase. This week we are featured on Metaio's Augmented Blog

We are only 10 days away from our deadline for project submissions. If you have a community of people you think should know about this showcase, please don't hesitate to share!

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CityGML and the 3D Geospatial Geneva Showcase

Since we presented about the showcase to the CityGML Standard Working Group, we’ve divided the 2.4GB data archive provided to us by the SITG and prepared individual archives for each domain. These are now hosted on the Showcase portal. After agreeing to the terms of use, each developer must download and examine the files locally and separately. 

Determining which data set to use and how to merge (mash up) data sets is time consuming and requires analytical skills that most application developers do not have. The Showcase offers an opportunity to explore different strategies to overcome this obstacle. We have been discussing the options with CityGML SWG co-chairs Steve Smyth, Carsten Rönsdorf and others.

One question is why the data sets exist as separated files. In the city of Geneva, as in almost all city GIS departments, creation and maintenance of different data sets are the responsibilities of different agencies or departments with expertise in each domain. The data's maintenance is a cost center that needs to be attributable to specific budgets and uses drive the selection of formats in which the data are provided. That said, independent data sets have to be coerced into working happily and seamlessly together when developing a multi-disciplinary application.

Wouldn’t it be valuable for the datasets could be viewed/accessed right from a server in a continuous model and to see where and how they overlap? We had a discussion about the use of CityGML for this purpose. "Determining fitness for purpose and the type and amount of work needed to fit them together is really hard without using actual samples" notes Carsten Rosendorf.

Carsten suggests that if the data could be conflated into one CityGML model for everybody to use, it would be a great start. It might be possible that the developers would be able or would need to do this (conflate data, not necessarily into a CityGML model) prior to developing their applications.

The 3DGVA can help the developer and data publisher communities better understand these issues. Now all that is needed is the team to conflate these data sets into a CityGML model of Geneva. Is that your calling? If so, please raise your hand!

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Special Buildings in 3D

The SITG has provided a data set of buildings that have been scanned with LiDAR at LOD 3 to 50 cm accuracy. Click on this link to download the full list of buildings. 

We are particularly excited about the opportunities to scan and create special projects on and in the Hotel de Ville of Geneva. 

The Hotel de Ville has an inner courtyard and a spiral staircase made of stone wide and long enough for horse and carriage. You can explore this beautiful building and learn about its special features by taking a virtual tour.

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Quick Guide to Getting Started

There's getting to be a lot of information on this portal. I've been asked to provide some suggestions for how to begin. Here's the recommend steps: 

 
  – Get familiar with the Showcase zones 
 
  – Get SITG data set details by clicking on the link on the name of the data set or visiting the page where they are all compiled
 
  – If you would like to access the data sets of the SITG, read and accept the terms in the SITG license agreement 
 
  – If you would like to obtain the MeteoSuisse data set, complete this form 
 
  – If you would like to request some data that are not part of our curated offer, please complete this form 
 
  – Check out our guidelines page that has some suggestions of projects you could create
 
  – Get creative with the data sets and the technologies available to you. Concentrate on showing your talents with the data acquisition, data management and visualization. No need to worry about passing Apple's publishing guidelines. We won't be publishing your projects on any public platforms. 
 
  – Save/create your project to run on Android 4.4. Test it with an NVIDIA Tegrat Note 7 or send us a message with instructions on where to download it and we will test it in the Showcase event zones for you as soon as we receive it.
 
  – Describe your project in 300 words. What does it demonstrate? In a separate 300 words, explain why this is innovative and represents an important milestone in the development of 3D Geospatial data. 
 
  – Submit your project by completing this form and we will contact you to download and install the project on our tablets.
 
The Google Group page where you can join a mailing list is here.
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NVIDIA and the Tegra Note 7 Tablets

We are delighted to welcome NVIDIA as a partner of the 3D Geospatial Geneva Showcase. NVIDIA will provide the Tegra Note 7 tablets on which all the Showcase projects will be loaded between June 2 and June 5. 

NVIDIA's Tegra Note 7 is designed using NVIDIA's reference architecture by its OEM partners. Please consult its specifications when creating your project.

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Photos of the Event Zones

On Thursday May 8, we walked in the Showcase Event zone and took photos of buidlings and city features (staircases, murals) along the route we will take on June 11.

The photos were taken on the NVIDIA Tegra Note 7 that we will use for the showcase event. Click here to download zip file with all 38 un-retouched photos.

Unfortunately, the GPS tracking was not working while we were taking these photos so we will make an effort to manually add the position to those photos. 

 

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