Interactive scenario visualisation in immersive virtual environments for decision making support

Abstract

This paper describes the design and implementation of Sensorland, an immersive environment developed to support an existing policy making framework. In particular, our aim was to visualise future application scenarios for sensor systems in two different contexts: (1) A highly automated mining environment, and (2) A natural disaster response situation. For this purpose, two virtual reality (VR) environments for HTC Vive were created using Unity 3D game engine. Finally, the opportunities and pitfalls of the VR medium for presenting information to support policy making are discussed. We make several recommendations for the future development of the content creation process, and consider its applicability in other contexts.