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The magical essence of natural landscapes since the dawn of man have been a source of intrigue, wonder and inspiration in art, philosophy and literature. With each new era in civilisation, new methods of creative expression have been used by artists, designers and writers to capture the rich natural landscapes, and with the 21st century and the emergence of new interactive technologies, this innate desire is being expressed through the digital domain. From the giant mushroom forests of Morrowind, the Archipelago islands of Zelda: Wind Waker, to the tropical underground caves of Phantasy Star Online, Virtual landscapes have enthralled, captured and engaged player imaginations for over 30 years. Virtual Landscapes is a three part series attempting to, for the first time, visually illustrate, share and critically reflect upon the unique, virtual natural landscapes within Computer & Video Games. Virtual Landscapes: The Modern Era visually illustrates the revolution in complexity and richness of virtual natural landscapes that occurred in computer & video games from 2000 to modern day. From the tranquil landscapes of Morrowind, the rolling forested autumn hills of Oblivion, the eerie landscapes of The Witcher, through to the beautiful deep crimson Maple forests of Phantasy Star Universe, the vast epic landscapes of Skyrim, and finally to the lonely landscapes of Dear Esther, Virtual Landscapes presents these virtual spaces for the first time, in stunning unseen digitally enhanced. high resolution and panoramic forms.
The explosion of interactive multimedia cartography products, on online, has generated an immense interest in developing methodologies that best exploit both the technology and the distribution capabilities of multimedia mapping. From a discussion of theoretical elements of multimedia cartography, to chapters on specific products and production tools, to an analysis of future technologies and applications, this is a comprehensive and absorbing exploration of a fast-moving field.
The volume deals with the effects of digitization on spatial and especially landscape construction processes and their visualization. A focus lies on the generation mechanisms of 'landscapes' with digital tools of cartography and geomatics, including possibilities to model and visualize non-visual stimuli, but also spatial-temporal changes of physical space. Another focus is on how virtual spaces have already become part of the social and individual construction of landscape. Potentials of combining modern media of spatial visualization and (constructivist) landscape research are discussed.
Virtual Reality in Geography covers "through the window" VR systems, "fully immersive" VR systems, and hybrids of the two types. The authors examine the Virtual Reality Modeling Language approach and explore its deficiencies when applied to real geographic environments. This is a totally unique book covers all the major uses and methods of virtual reality used by geographers. The authors have produced a CDROM that comes with the book of virtual reality images that will be a fascinating companion to the text. This book will be of great interest to geographers, computer scientists and all those interested in multimedia and computer graphics.
This book introduces the Internet through a systematic geographical interpretation, thus shedding light on the Internet as a spatial entity. The book’s approach is to extend basic concepts developed for terrestrial geography to cyberspace, most notably those relating to space, structure, place, distance, mobility, and presence. It further considers the Internet by its constitution of information space, communications space, and screen space. By using well-known concepts from traditional human geography, this book proposes a combination of terrestrial and virtual geographies, which may in turn help in coping with Internet structures and contents. The book appeals to human and economic geographers, especially those interested in information and Internet geographies. It may also be of special interest and importance to sociologists and media scholars and students dealing with communication technology and the Internet.
Is virtual reality the latest grand narrative that humanity has produced? Our civilization is determined by a shift from an “original event” to a virtual “narrative”. This concerns not only virtual reality but also psychoanalysis, gene-technology, and globalization. Psychoanalysis transforms the dream into a narrative and is able to spell out the dream’s symbols. Gene-technology narrates dynamic, self-evolving evolution as a “gene code”. Discourses on “globalization” let the globe appear as once more globalized because reproduced through narrative. Finally, reality itself has come to be narrated in the form of a second reality that is called “virtual”. This book attempts to disentangle the characteristics of human reality and posthuman virtual reality and asks whether it is possible to reconcile both.
It offers clues for visual landscape assessment of spaces in cities, parks and rural areas.
Climb a mountain and experience the landscape. Try to grasp its holistic nature. Do not climb alone, but with others and share your experience. Be sure the ways of seeing the landscape will be very different. We experience the landscape with all senses as a complex, dynamic and hierarchically structured whole. The landscape is tangible out there and simultaneously a mental reality. Several perspectives are obvious because of language, culture and background. Many disciplines developed to study the landscape focussing on specific interest groups and applications. Gradually the holistic way of seeing became lost. This book explores the different perspectives on the landscape in relation to its holistic nature. We start from its multiple linguistic meanings and a comprehensive overview of the development of landscape research from its geographical origins to the wide variety of today’s specialised disciplines and interest groups. Understanding the different perspectives on the landscapes and bringing them together is essential in transdisciplinary approaches where the landscape is the integrating concept.
Michael Batty Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London Landscapes, like cities, cut across disciplines and professions. This makes it especially difficult to provide an overall sense of how landscapes should be studied and researched. Ecology, aesthetics, economy and sociology combine with physiognomy and deep physical structure to confuse our - derstanding and the way we should react to the problems and potentials of landscapes. Nowhere are these dilemmas and paradoxes so clearly highlighted as in Australia — where landscapes dominate and their relationship to cities is so fragile, yet so important to the sustainability of an entire nation, if not planet. This book presents a unique collection and synthesis of many of these perspectives — perhaps it could only be produced in a land urb- ised in the tiniest of pockets, and yet so daunting with respect to the way non-populated landscapes dwarf its cities. Many travel to Australia to its cities and never see the landscapes — but it is these that give the country its power and imagery. It is the landscapes that so impress on us the need to consider how our intervention, through activities ranging from resource exploitation and settled agriculture to climate change, poses one of the greatest crises facing the modern world. In this sense, Australia and its landscape provide a mirror through which we can glimpse the extent to which our intervention in the world threatens its very existence.