The knowledge and art of cartography is visualized in an immersive way in 3D

British Geological Survey, Virtalis and Christie are helping scientists see the world differently, specifically in three dimensions, when they visualize the complex structures, details and geological formations that make up our planet when drawing and interpreting a map and thus better understanding its functioning, existing resources and threats due to population growth and climate change.

How to show a three-dimensional world in two dimensions? This is one of the challenges that technicians and experts always face when mapping the complex structures and formations that make up the planet..

Geological maps are used to calculate possible seismic hazards, predict floods or inform about how man can defend himself against them, although its use has also made it possible to find valuable minerals, to prospect or accumulate a complete history of fossils to improve knowledge.

In this sense, los científicos del British Geological Survey (BGS) They are authors of the first complete map of Africa's water reserves. Despite these cartographic achievements, geologists, surveyors, etc. They have to convert the two-dimensional image of the paper into another three-dimensional one in their minds., something that is not easy to do and even less to reproduce.

To respond to this challenge, Those responsible for the BGS have set out to find the ideal solution to convert current 2D cartography into three-dimensional images in the next decade. An evolution that has had a clear impact on these professionals when they learned about the StereoWorks visualization system from Virtalis, a reference in virtual reality.

This is how Dr. Martin Smith explains it., BGS Edinburgh station chief: “Virtual reality eliminates the need to go from 3D to 2D and back to 3D. Now, Project team members can build a three-dimensional model together, interact with the data and interpret it as a group”.

For this, Virtalis has incorporated the Mirage S+4K projector from Christie, that they have been using for a long time, at BGS HQ in Nottingham; an installation that they have replicated in the Edinburgh regional delegation, and whose success in both cases has encouraged this company to upgrade to a complete 3D modeling environment, which required a software package from this manufacturer and the assurance that the Mirage S+4K system could project high-grade active stereo on a 3.1 inch screen.×2,3 metros.

Collaborative experience

As Andrew Connell explains, Virtalis technical director, For this 3D environment, the Christie Mirage projector had many advantages in its favor, since “this tool allows geologists to present their discoveries in an attractive and participatory way.”; “It responds effectively to head and hand movements, thereby providing a truly immersive stereo display.”.

Besides, the bandwidth of 220 MHz of the Mirage allows the image to instantly react to the position of the user's head, thus causing a holographic effect and an immersion of the geologists in the landscape. Able to read data from the model (strata, epicenter and magnitude of an earthquake, geospecific images or conventional data), the various images can merge with the base topography, and satellite images with political maps, then switching to chromatically encoded geological data.

Although this immersive and collaborative experience can be presented in a room with twenty seats, for Dr. Stuart Clarke, BGS surveying geologist and responsible for the development of many of the 3D models, works much better when teams of five or six members work close to the high-resolution images and “thanks to the total immersion, “make the most of the stereo 3D effect”.

Before finding this solution “we rotated models on the screen,” Clarke points out.; But on the other hand, 3D images often lead to confusion due to the possibility that the brain misinterprets them as a result of common visualization traps.. “Stereo offers the possibility of viewing models with the correct perspective.”.