Virtual Reality in Geography*

The ideas and techniques of virtual reality are now being made available for the creation of artificial or virtual geographies (a virtual geography refers to the creation of artificial geographies for use in research and teaching, using ideas and techniques from the field of virtual reality (VR)). Such virtual geographies are currently being constructed and used at a number of sites and include virtual cities, landscape visualization, visualizing past and future geographies, visualizing abstract concepts and taking people on virtual field courses. 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 book will be of great interest to geographers, computer scientists and all those interested in multimedia and computer graphics. There is an accompanying CD-ROM containing a rich selection of images and pieces of virtual reality software. This is a totally unique book covering an area of geography that is rapidly becoming used in all aspects of the field. It covers all the major uses and methods of virtual reality used by geographers and the lack of anything else written about the subject to date should ensure a wide readership. The authors have produced a CDROM that comes with the book of virtual reality images that will be a fascinating companion to the text.