INTRODUCTION

Click for full image… Figure 1: Downtown Los Angeles

Using its own unique computer simulation system and methodologies the UCLA Urban Simulation Team (the Team, or the UST) is creating a real-time virtual model of the entire Los Angeles Basin. This model, which is accurate to the level of the graffiti on the walls and signs in the windows (see Figure 1), is being constructed by combining aerial photographs with street level imagery and three dimensional geometry to create realistic 3D visual simulation models of the extremely dense Los Angeles urban environment.

The efficient methodologies developed by the Urban Simulation Team, (from both the standpoint of the amount of time and labor required to construct a model and the amount of computing time required to interactively render such large models), combined with a visual simulation system which has been specifically tailored for urban simulation, has resulted in an extremely efficient system devoted to high quality community and city visual simulation.

This system is being extended to support a client server capabilty which will allow the seamless interactive navigation of the entire Virtual Los Angeles Model, (a model which is projected to reach terabyte size over the next several years) while simultaneously supporting hundreds of remote interactive users.