1

Universcity: Towards a Holistic Approach to Educational Virtual

City Design

Mikhail Fominykh and Ekaterina Prasolova-Førland Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway

Mikhail Morozov and Alexey GerasimovMari State Technical University, Russia

Francesco Bellotti, Riccardo Berta, Saro Cardona and Alessandro De Gloria

University of Genova, Italy

International Conference on Virtual Systems and Multimedia (VSMM)Oct 20-23, 2010 COEX Seoul Korea

2

3D Virtual Cities

• Environments representing real or fictional cities and supporting:• cultural experiences• socializing• education and research• entertainment

3

Contribution

• Contextualization of educational activities in 2 Virtual City projects

• City of Trondheim: – Ancient capital of Norway– Today: Norway’s ”technology” capital– Every 6th inhabitant is a student

• Concept of ‘Universcity’: virtual city as a place for lifelong learning, with a broad spectrum of disciplines, activities and resources

4

Designing Virtual Cities for Culture and Education

Travel in Europe, Trondheim(TiE)

Virtual City of Yoshkar-Ola (VCYO)

5

Serious Games for a Contextualized Exploration of History and Culture

TiE:• Culturally correct

experience and interactive real-time exploration

• Points-of-Interest and Style Areas (automatically generated)

• Contextualized mini-games, quests, quizzes

6

Connecting Reality and Virtuality with Social Tools

VCYO:• Multi-user 3D virtual

world: city of Yoshkar-Ola including a building from Trondheim

• Social networks in a 3D virtual city: locals and visitors

• Comments, blogs, profiles, friend lists etc

7Virtual urbanHolistic

Educational

Holistic approach to an Educational Virtual City

Universcity

University

The Universe City

8

Multilayer structure

• Integrating different aspects of city life, such as culture, society, education and entertainment

• City of Trondheim as an example of a ‘Universcity’

• Cultural layer• Social layer• Entertainment layer• Educational and research layer

9

Multilayer structureCultural layer

• Supporting exploration of the cultural and historical aspects of the city

• Realistic environment and avatars for a sense of immersion

• Various places for learning and cultural development: museums, theatres etc

• Tourist facilities: virtual guides and tours

• Time layers

10

Multilayer structureEntertainment layer

• Stimulating atmosphere around work and leisure activities

• Realistic reconstructions of landmarks and signature areas

• Integrated quizzes, quests and contextual games

• Location and mobile multi-user games that connect the entertainment layer to other layers

11

Multilayer structureSocial layer

• Supporting the social fabric of the city • Communication support• Community support and awareness

mechanisms• Network of communities, organizations

and public offices with corresponding information and meeting places

• Possibilities for creating and sharing content, including 3D constructions

12

Multilayer structureEducational and research layer

• Supporting educational and research activities and networks

• Extending beyond campuses and labs, connecting to the society/general public

• Contextualized resources• Virtual Campus• Creative Virtual Workshop• Virtual Research Arena

13

Virtual CampusEducational and research layer

14

Virtual CampusEducational and research layer

15

Virtual CampusEducational and research layer

16

Creative Virtual WorkshopEducational and research layer

17

Creative Virtual WorkshopEducational and research layer

18

Virtual Research ArenaEducational and research layer

19

Virtual Research ArenaEducational and research layer

20

Norwegian Science Week

• Demonstrating Virtual Research Arena to Trondheim inhabitants

21

Conclusions and future work

• A holistic approach to educational virtual city design

• Concept of ‘Universcity’ – a general framework with hierarchical and multilayer structure

• Extending and refining the framework• Implementation of Trondheim as

’Universcity’ and subsequent evaluation

22

Thank you!

Ekaterina Prasolova-Førland and Mikhail Fominykh

NTNU, Norway

E-mails:

Slides: TiE:

VCYO:

ekaterip@idi.ntnu.nomikhail.fominykh@svt.ntnu.nohttp://slideshare.net/mfominykh/http://www.tieproject.eu/http://virtyola.ru/