3D geovisualization for visual analysis of urban climate

• Published in: Cybergeo
• Main Authors: Christophe, Sidonie, Gautier, Jacques, Chapron, Paul, Riley, Luke, Masson, Valéry
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: UMR 8504 Géographie-cités 01-01-2022; Unité Mixte de Recherche 8504 Géographie-cités
• Subjects: 3D environment; climate; climate visualization; Climatology; Computer Science; Earth Sciences; Geography; geovisualization/geovisualisation; Human-Computer Interaction; Humanities and Social Sciences; Sciences of the Universe; urban heat island; urban morphology; islas de calor; urban heat island; visualisation climatique; environnement 3D; urban morphology; morphologie urbaine; geovisualización; ilôt de chaleur urbain; climate; clima; ambiente 3D; climat; 3D environment; geovisualization/geovisualisation; climate visualization; visualización climática; géovisualisation; morfología urbana; 3D; Urbanvis; Map design; Geovisualization; Urban climate
• ISSN: 1278-3366; 1278-3366
• DOI: 10.4000/cybergeo.38518

This paper is about the relevance of proposing geovisualization methods to visually integrate, co-visualize and interact with urban and meteorological data into a 3D environment, in order to support the visual analysis of the urban climate. Meteorological experts and researchers already face meteorological data and climate models analysis issues, at larger scales into the city: yet even if they have existing practices and tools to address these issues, they could take benefit from the knowledge and the methods from the Geovisualization domain, to complement these analyses by a visuospatial reasoning approach.In this paper, based on the knowledge of the expectations of the meteorological experts we are working with, we brought climate analysis into the city and visuospatial reasoning closer, on both heterogeneous urban and air temperature data(1). We reviewed the existing works regarding geovisualization of spatio-temporal phenomena and visualization of meteorological data (2). We then presented the different approaches we fulfilled to provide a 3D geovisualization environment and graphic representations, visually integrating both meteorological and spatial data. One provides style and interaction capacities on those data, enabling the interactive 3D exploration of their spatial and value distributions, throughout the city. Another geovisualization-design experiment is presented as a co-visualization of meteorological data and morphological indicators on 2.5D maps (3). These complementary approaches are presented and discussed with the meteorological experts, based on their relevance to tackle climate analysis at a larger scale and on the refinements required to extend their exploration capacities (4).