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VIU students play in sandbox to help visualize real-world topography

Students learn to visualize land topography and hydrology in 3-D with augmented reality sandbox
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Gerri McEwen, VIU earth science technician, and Devin Ayotte, engineering technician, demonstrate the university's augmented reality sandbox, which helps gives students envision topographical and geologic concepts in three dimensions. (Chris Bush/News Bulletin)

Students at Vancouver Island University are taking in what they’re being taught with a grain of sand, so to speak. 

An interactive learning tool, built by Devin Ayotte, a VIU engineering technician, and Gerri McEwen, VIU earth science technician, with help from the university’s women in trades training group through VIU’s carpentry department, is helping students visualize the effects that changes to topography have on water flow and weather erosion. 

The system, called an augmented reality sandbox – a literal sandbox combined with a 3-D camera, simulation and visualization software and a data projector – was created to allow users to create topographic models in three dimensions. Students shape sand in the box into rises and depressions, simulating hills, valleys and watercourses. The system’s camera detects those 'topographic features' and sends the data to be processed by software which creates and projects a colour elevation map showing land, water, topographic contour lines and water flow onto the surface of the sand. The system responds in real time as the user moves sand around and, with finger gestures, causes 'precipitation' to fall to model water flow from high to low elevations. 

 

 

 

The augmented reality sandbox was developed as part of a joint project by researchers at the University of California (Davis) W.M. Keck Centre for Active Visualization in the Earth Sciences, the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Centre, Lawrence Hall of Science and ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Centre to help students learn how to read topography map features an  teach geographic, geologic, and hydrologic concepts, according to UC Davis' web site, which credited inspiration for the project to a video about an earlier prototype system developed by a group of Czech researchers. 

McEwen said VIU’s unit was built from an open-source program created by UC Davis. 

“You can get a basic topographic map … with, basically, just the lines around it and the student’s supposed to visualize what that looks like in three dimensions,” McEwen said. “Where are the creeks? Where are the streams? Where are the mountain tops? So, by being able to create a lot of these in a sand environment they can now see it in three dimensions. They see what the topography looks like. They see what steep slope looks like on the contour lines … We can have it rain on a mountain peak and we can see where it’s going to flow down the slope and where it’s going to collect in the different basins.” 

Ayotte explained hand detection algorithms – specific to the Microsoft Kinect camera the system uses to detect hand positions, motion and depth – see where the user’s hand is and, upon detecting the finger motions that command the system to generate precipitation, projects water, in shimmering blue light, onto the sand. 

"Object recognition is fairly simple to implement – difficult to explain – but it’s pretty straightforward to detect a hand and then tell where that hand is and then react accordingly,” he said. 

Rain is the only form of precipitation the system can reproduce, so the user can't make it snow, but snow can be represented by white light at the highest elevations.

“The only ‘snow’ that we have is basically the elevation,” McEwen said. “The colour will become white at a certain elevation that we’ve programmed into the computer.”

The system is being used as an aid to VIU students, but it has also proven to be a handy interactive outreach tool at science fairs and public events. The augmented reality sandbox will be displayed at the upcoming Science Sunday Expo, an event hosted annually by Nanaimo Science, at Country Club Centre on Feb. 23 from 9-11 a.m.

“It’s a great outreach tool. We bring it to the mall and the kids can’t get enough of it,” Ayotte said. 

“There was a huge mess all over the floor with sand all over it, but it was a hit last year,” McEwen said. 
 



Chris Bush

About the Author: Chris Bush

As a photographer/reporter with the Nanaimo News Bulletin since 1998.
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