Arabic

Professor  Mustafa Alshawi

Associate Dean for Research & Innovation,

University of Salford, UK

The Impact of Virtual City Models  on Real World Simulation 

This paper is concerned with the development of City Virtual Models to support the regeneration and other related activities. Recent discussions with various academic groups have shown that such models have the potential for generating several interdisciplinary research projects.  One of the key challenges that has been identified is the ability to link real-world activities onto the model using sensors and sensor networks. This is in line with the current research trend towards exploring the concept of “Internet of Things” for creating intelligent services for businesses and communities.

Work is already in progress with Salford City Council to gain access to the geospatial and demographic data for creating a multi-dimensional representation of Salford.   The Think Lab team, at the University of Salford, has also linked up with the other Centres such as the Centre for Virtual Environments, the Centre for Applied Archaeology, and the Centre for Acoustics to extend the City Model to create a “time dimension”, a “sound dimension” and “sustainability dimensions” for the model. 

This main focus of this paper is to link the Virtual Salford model with external sensors to bring real-world activities on to the model to explore:

·         How do University students interface with Salford City and the University campus?

·         How can we monitor environmental concerns using sensors?

·         How can we extend this model to emergency response by offering the command and control rooms to track events on the ground and their personnel on the ground?