Immersive Computing for Coastal Engineering

Abstract

Augmented reality (AR) is a technology that integrates 3D virtual objects into the physical world in real-time, while virtual reality (VR) is a technology that immerses users in an interactive 3D virtual environment. The fast development of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies has reshaped how people interact with the physical world. This dissertation will outline the deliverables from two unique AR and one Web-based VR coastal engineering projects and will motivate the next stage in the development of the augmented reality package for coastal students, engineers, and planners. Three projects demonstrate the completed aspects of this effort – 1) Project AR-tsunami for promulgating education about coastal hazards, 2) Project AR-sandbox for combining laboratory experiments and numerical simulations in coastal engineering 3) Project WebVR-tsunami for providing a convenient tool for 3D tsunami visualization and education. Project AR-tsunami and Project AR-sandbox produce two user-friendly and GPU-accelerated iOS/iPadOS apps – AR-tsunami and AR-sandbox.

Combining the features of plane detection and people occlusion in ARKit with the Boussinesq-type wave solver in Celeris, AR-tsunami can automatically render a tsunami on the ground and provide an immersive experience of the impact of tsunamis for users. The goal of this experience is to elicit an emotional response in users and influence future planning decisions, and ultimately push a more proactive approach to tsunami preparedness. AR-sandbox utilizes the LiDAR Scanner on Apple’s new generation of iPad Pro to gather a “point cloud” sampling of arbitrary surfaces and generate a high-resolution digital elevation model (DEM) as the bathymetric map for the hydrodynamic simulation. The wave simulation and visualization start instantly after the DEM is transferred to wave solvers, and the resulting simulation is projected on the sandbox through a projector. With AR-sandbox, coastal engineers can view the virtual waves interacting with real-world sand. AR-sandbox combines laboratory experiments and numerical simulations and provides better practicability and maneuverability. Project WebVR-tsunami produces an online web-based VR tool using the numerical simulation of the 2022 Hunga Tonga Tsunami by COULWAVE as a showcase (https://www.zilizhou.com/lynett). These are the first apps of their kind to bring an interactive, immersive, and convenient experience to coastal hazard stakeholders and coastal engineers.

The penultimate goal is to develop the software bundle ICCE (Immersive Computing for Coastal Engineering). In ICCE, 1) AR-sandbox gathers the depth data from user input in the small laboratory sandbox, 2) all the gathered data are stored in a cloud-based AWS file system, 3) AR-tsunami uses the depth data collected from AR-sandbox for tsunami simulations, and 4) rendering of simulation output via WebVR-tsunami provides an online entrance to an immersive experience of coastal hazards. The goal of this software package is to provide a user-accessible interactive and immersive AR and VR experience that can educate and inform stakeholders on coastal processes and hazards. Additionally, this software suite will provide a testbed for developing new coastal protection and disaster preparedness solutions that can be utilized by coastal engineers, scientists, and planners.