Stuttgart City Walk: A Case Study on Visualizing Textured DSM Meshes for the General Public Using Virtual Reality

Within this paper, we present the implementation of a walkable virtual city model, created from aerial images of downtown Stuttgart. For this purpose, textured 3D meshes were automatically generated using commercial off-the-shelf multi-view stereo image matching software. This data provided the content for a VR framework based on the Unity game engine. Thus, an interactive data presentation using the HTC Vive virtual reality system was feasible. In addition to navigation, further user interactions such as simple tools for measurements inside the virtual model using handheld controller were implemented. According to our experience, this Stuttgart city walk is not only very attractive for presenting photogrammetric data to the general public at public relations activities, but could also be used as a low-cost and efficient 3D tool for interactive data editing in complex urban environments.