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Paper presented at the Innovation Expo Amsterdam April 14th 2016

Henk Scholten, Steven Fruijtier, Steven Bos, Eduardo Dias Mark Opmeer, Heidy van Kaam, Sanne Hettinga, Willemijn Simon van Leeuwen, Marianne Linde, Niels van Manen, Rubio Vaughan and Ceciel Fruijtier

Geodan BV, President Kennedylaan 1 1079 MB Amsterdam, The Netherlands +31 (0)20 - 5711 311, info@geodan.nl www.geodan.com

VU University Amsterdam Faculty of Economics and Business Administration SPINlab, Spatial Information Laboratory De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands +31 20 59 86099, spinlab.feweb@vu.nl http://spinlab.vu.nl

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ABSTRACT

Various disciplines and all kinds of professionals put forward opinions

how to create smart cities and how to answer future demands. What we

need is a synergetic multidisciplinary approach, exchanging data and

insights across the limits of disciplines. Moreover, we need all

stakeholders to get involved, including the people of the place.

Geocraft provides an excellent interactive virtual 3D environment at a

well chosen level of abstraction to design, visualize and explore future

scenarios, raising spatial insight and mutual understanding. Geocraft is

connected to spatial data infrastructures (SDIs). Smart conversions

enable us to import data from existing databases into the virtual

environment of the popular Minecraft game.

The virtual world of Geocraft is a georeferenced representation of the

real world. It is a smart environment wherein real-time impact models

can be run to virtually simulate ánd visualize future developments and

their implications, providing the user with relevant information during

design processes. Data generated or added in Geocraft can upgrade

existing databases and data infrastructures (SDI’s).

Similar to LEGO bricks, everybody intuitively understands how to use

Geocraft blocks to adequately simulate reality ánd to easily design

future scenarios. Via advanced internet technology, Geocraft enables us

to get all stakeholders on spatial issues involved, including the people of

the place. Worldwide 70 million children, among which 80% of all kids in

The Netherlands build, design and play in Minecraft. We expect adults to

follow their example.

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Content ABSTRACT .................................................................................................. 1

Outline of this paper ............................................................................. 4

Introduction .............................................................................................. 5 Smart governance ............................................................................. 5

Designing the path towards optimal solutions ................................. 6

PART 1: Geocraft, a SDI connected tool for visualization, communication, design, impact analyses and serious gaming ................ 8

1.1 SDI connected.................................................................................. 8

1.2 Visualization .................................................................................. 10

The building blocks of Geocraft ...................................................... 10

A wide range of SDI data can be imported into Geocraft ............... 11

1.3 Communication ............................................................................. 17

1.4 Design ............................................................................................ 18

1.5 Impact analyses ............................................................................. 19

1.6 Serious gaming .............................................................................. 20

Games addressing real-life problems ............................................. 20

Immersive experience with optimized learning transfer ................ 21

PART 2: Use cases showing the added value of Geocraft ...................... 22

2.1 High school research & design project on water management and land use Markermeer .......................................................................... 22

An innovative approach .................................................................. 23

Advanced learning and design processes ....................................... 24

Ameliorated communication and collaboration ............................. 25

2.2 Spatial planning in IJburg .............................................................. 26

2.3 Towards more renewable energy and energy saving in Zaandam 28

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2.4 High school students contribute to the Buiksloterham ................ 29

2.5 The Netherlands in Minecraft ....................................................... 31

The dawning of a virtual society ..................................................... 33

The call for regulations and enforcement....................................... 33

Crowd sourced in-game management ............................................ 34

An ongoing challenge ...................................................................... 35

PART 3: The basic logistics of creating, using and maintaining a Geocraft world ........................................................................................ 36

3.1 The creation of a Geocraft World.................................................. 36

3.2 Hosting .......................................................................................... 38

Smart plug-ins ................................................................................. 38

Geocraft servers .............................................................................. 39

3.3 Maintaining and controlling a Geocraftworld ............................... 39

PART 4: Possible future applications ...................................................... 41

4.1 Trends in spatial planning and citizen science .............................. 41

4.2 Technologic advances ................................................................... 43

4.2.1 Augmented Reality and 3D sensors as a collaborative tool ....... 44

Unfolding spatial plans.................................................................... 45

Dynamic interaction ........................................................................ 45

Enhanced collaboration .................................................................. 46

Gaming gets really serious .............................................................. 47

4.2.2 Virtual Reality as a simulation and education tool ..................... 48

Augmented virtual reality ............................................................... 50

A new Artificial Intelligence framework: Bots and Geocraft........... 51

Bridging the gap between the virtual and the real world ............... 52

Conclusion ............................................................................................... 54

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Outline of this paper

After an introduction reflecting on the reasons that urged us to start this

Geocraft journey, this paper comprises four parts. At first we explain

what Geocraft exactly is and discuss its possibilities. Secondly, we

illustrate its utility by a few use cases. In the third part, we outline the

basic organization needed to use Geocraft. We answer in short the

question how to create and maintain a Geocraft world and consider the

choices that can be made. At last we sketch possible future

developments in using Geocraft to address geospatial issues.

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Introduction

Worldwide we envision the need to develop smart cities to answer

future demands. As explained in the UN publication ‘The City We Need’1,

cities can be considered as spatial entities wherein complex systems

interlock: engineering arrangements, social and cultural organizations,

economic structures and environmental components. In any of these

systems, multiple stakeholders are operating with different interests

from varying points of view.

The city governance tries to facilitate the optimal development of this

complex world. Smart ICT technology offers notable support to achieve

this objective, by getting the people of the place engaged in a most

accessible way. They dispose of highly valuable expertise and unique

insights into local situations and possibilities. Their daily urban activities

contribute to sustainable development and new urban economic

activities.

Amsterdam is a good example of a city which embraces a bottom-up

approach and accomodates local initiatives, startups and digital social

innovation. On April 8th

2016, the European Commission awarded the

title of European Capital of Innovation ("iCapital") 2016 to Amsterdam

for its holistic vision of innovation related to four areas of urban life:

governance, economics, social inclusion, and quality of life.

Smart governance

Recent developments in geospatial data services facilitate smart

governance by creating advanced insight in complex processes and by

supporting complex decision making. Geospatial models enable us to

simulate future developments. Top of the range visualization and

discussion tools support the exchange of insights across the limits of

disciplines and raise mutual understanding between different

stakeholders. Modern ict technology offers local initiatives and urban 1 See http://www.worldurbancampaign.org/city-we-need, published by UN-Habitat, the United Nations programme working towards a better urban future.

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policies many opportunities to cooperate and to take decisions

collaboratively.

Figure 1: A Geodesign process integrates information and incorporates insights

from different sources.

Geodan is specialised in multi-stakeholder multi-criteria decision making

and embraces the Geodesign concept to support decision processes. A

Geodesign process invites all stakeholders involved to provide input and

enables dawning insights to be incorporated during the process. Smart

modelling enables testing whether intended goals will be achieved and

how negative effects can be mitigated.

Designing the path towards optimal solutions

Geodesign is based on and shaped by a set of questions and methods

necessary to solve complicated design problems, which are related to

challenges at different geographic scales.2 Roughly speaking, a

Geodesign process incorporates input from four different fields: design

2 See Steinitz, C. (2012) A Framework for Geodesign, published by Esri Press, Redlands.

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professions, information technologies, geographic sciences en most

important: the people of the place. The same emphasis on the decisive

role of the people of the place is put forward in the UN publication

mentioned above: they know the place the best and their engagement

and participation is crucial for any successful plan. Geodesign offers a

strong framework to cooperatively design the path to an optimal

solution.

During a Geodesign process, we attune the way we offer data to specific

audiences for specific purposes. Geocraft enables us to get the people of

the place involved, including the youth. The full potential of the

collected experience, knowledge, talents and ideas of urban dwellers

can be inventoried and utilized. This opens the way for innovative higher

level solutions, firmly grounded on public support. Policy principles can

be translated in practicable plans tailored to local conditions. A wealth

of talent and ideas can be explored and shared, contributing to the

creation of smart cities.

Figure 2: High school students used Geocraft to design the urban environment of their own school; they discuss realistic options with an urban designer (see use case IJburg Amsterdam, The Netherlands, paragraph 2.2).

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PART 1: Geocraft, a SDI connected tool for

visualization, communication, design, impact

analyses and serious gaming

Geocraft is a 3D interactive virtual world similar to the popular computer

game Minecraft, in which we can visualize any 3D geospatial data you

like. In Geocraft not only concrete structures can be depicted, but also

features like the amount of air pollution, noise disturbance, energy

labels, etc. Visualizing cities in Minecraft results in an innovative

representation of the city, displaying the specific aspects of the city you

want to analyse or display (see figure 2). But Geocraft offers far greater

possibilities.

1.1 SDI connected

Geocraft is connected to spatial data infrastructures (SDIs). Different

geospatial data can be visualized by choice, impact analyses can provide

results and relevant information during the design process. That is the

important difference between Geocraft and a random Minecraft world:

Geocraft is a truly interactive smart world, wherein your own data and

models can be integrated.

Lots of organisations and governments already have spatial data

infrastructures (SDIs). In the Netherlands we have a national spatial data

infrastructure3, which is maintained by the Dutch government. Many

local governments developed their own SDI on top of that. For example

Datalab Amsterdam maintains many open datasets and explore new

applications for data which is collected by different stakeholders in this

city. Geocraft can connect to these existing data and visualize them in

the virtual world of Minecraft. Potentially, all geospatial data of a

specific geographical area can be added, forming a 3D database of that

3 Grus, L.; Bregt, A.K.; Crompvoets, J.W.H.C.; Castelein, W.T.; Rajabifard, A. (2009)

Developing a goal-oriented SDI assessment approach using GIDEON - the Dutch SDI implementation strategy - as a case study, WUR, Wageningen.

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area capable of visualizing data from different sources superimposed on

each other.

Figure 3.1: The Dam Square in Geocraft, including the underlying stratigraphy. Amsterdam is build on Holocene and Pleistocene sediments, basically alternating layers of sand (yellow), clay (green) and peat (brown).

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Page 9, Figure 3.2: Detail of figure 3.1, revealing the piles whereon the buildings are build to be supported by the so-called first sand layer. In addition, the sewerage system, service pipes and the underground tubes van be seen. (Dam Square, Amsterdam, The Netherlands). The ‘grid lines’ in this view of the subsurface reveal the building blocks of Geocraft, who measure 1 to 1 meter.

Because Geocraft is SDI connected, data created in Geocraft are

available in the users own geospatial databases and can be used by any

other SDI connected application. The user can select data revealing to be

of significant relevance to specific processes and export these to other,

more specialized SDI based environments. For example to run

sophisticated models and impact analyses

1.2 Visualization

Specialized virtual environments or visualization tools usually ask for

professional experience to work with. Geocraft is very user friendly

enables ‘non-professionals’, for example citizens or highschool students,

to provide input and add their unique point of view and knowledge of

local data. So we can tap the full potential of the collected experience,

knowledge, preferences, talents and ideas of the people of the place.

The building blocks of Geocraft

Geocraft provides an interactive virtual 3D environment at a well

chosen level of abstraction. The real world is simplified to blocks from 1

to 1 meter: the Minecraft world is a voxel based 3D world made up of

blocks of 1 m3. This simplification turns out to be one of the powers of

this approach: no high level of expertise is needed to design and adjust

scenarios in Geocraft.

Every block represents a certain Minecraft material, e.g. wool,

brickstone and water. Some of these materials can be detailed more e.g.

to define colour or type of bricks. A group of 16x16x16 of these blocks is

called a chunk. The chunks of a 2D area of 512x512 blocks are stored in a

region file. A Minecraft world consists of one or more of these region

files depending on the size of the world. In Geocraft, we can create

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worlds ranging in size from your neighborhood to the complete

Netherlands (comprising over 1000 milliard blocks).

A wide range of SDI data can be imported into Geocraft

Not only data representing real 3D objects like (urban) landscapes can

be visualized, but any geospatial data. For example data on energy use

and supply, traffic capacity, air pollution, flood risk, noise disturbance,

etc. Basically, all geospatial data can be imported in Geocraft, see table

1. The results of impact models can be superimposed on topographical

data, 2D data can be combined with 3D data, etc. What data to visualize

depends on the issue the user wants to address.

Since Geocraft is SDI connected, data added in Geocraft is available for

other SDI based applications and visa versa. The intuitive user interface

of Minecraft enables non-experienced designers to design solutions that

can be exported to more specialized 3D virtual environments. For

example, landscape elements can be easily inserted in Geocraft.

Subsequently in other 3D environments, such as Geodans 3D interactive

viewer Falcon, a more realistic view of the resulting landscape can be

generated.

Different datasets of the same location can in Geocraft be superimposed

on each other, resulting in a more and more enriched view. This is

illustrated by subsequent views on Bourtange, a fortified city at the

north-eastern border of The Netherlands.

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Table 1: examples of geospatial data that can be imported in Geocraft

Ground level data Nation-wide point clouds (like AHN2 in The

Netherlands)

DEM

2D topographic data Distribution of land versus water,

infrastructural elements like roads, rivers,

etc, and buildings like houses, offices, etc.

Landscape elements like trees or houses (like

BAG data for buildings in The Netherlands)

3D data 3D data models like Collada, BIM

Elements built by children, citizens or

professional designers.

3D subsurface

data

A voxel representation of

subsurface data (like

Geotop in The Netherlands)

Underground infrastructure;

e.g. tunnel tubes, piles,

pipelines, wires, etc.

2D or 3D results from

impact models

For example the area suffering noise

disturbance after placing a windmill, or the

amount of energy saved after furnishing

houses with double-glass.

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Figure 4.1: Surface Height transformed to Geocraft (Bourtange, The Netherlands)

Figure 4.2: Topographic data transformed to Geocraft

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Figure 4.3: Surface height and topographical data combined

Figure 4.4: Topographical data and 2D building data combined. The building height is averaged. (Bourtange, The Netherlands)

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Figure 4.5: 2D data (tree location, building footprints, topographical data) combined with 3D data (for surface height and buildings). Bourtange, The Netherlands.

Figure 4.6: Aerial photograph of Bourtange, The Netherlands.

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Figure 5.1: Example of a KMZ/Collada file converted to Geocraft (football stadium Bernabeu of Real Madrid)

Figure 5.2: Example of a KMZ/Collada model (the Plaza Mayor, Madrid) loaded into a Geocraft world.This Geocraft world is generated using Spanish Cadastral data, containing minimal and maximum floor levels. An average of 3 meter is taken as floor height.

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1.3 Communication

Similar to LEGO bricks, everybody intuitively understands how to use the

blocks of the popular Minecraft game, to adequately simulate reality ánd

to easily design future scenarios. Geocraft enables citizens to virtually

concretize their ideas on for example urban planning or future land use.

So Geocraft offers citizens the opportunity to communicate their ideas

on geospatial issues towards authorities in an effective way and visa

versa: governments can offer citizens the opportunity to virtually visit

and examine future scenarios. Geocraft can be used as a strong

communication tool to display and share ideas and plans.

Various disciplines and all kinds of professionals put forward opinions

and advises how to create smart cities. What we need is a synergetic

multidisciplinary approach, exchanging data and insights across the

limits of disciplines. As an easy to use visualization tool, Geocraft helps

creating mutual understanding between different disciplines.

Figure 6.1: The Dutch deep subsurface in Geocraft (vertical scale = 5 km), looking at the northwestern coastline of The Netherland. You can spot the island of Texel in the upper left corner of the above image. The subsurface clearly reveals a major angular unconformity covered by Tertiary sediments.

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1.4 Design

In answer to future developments, we need to address a number of

processes with a geospatial component. Think about mobility, water

governance, landscape development, land use, the supply of energy,

food, materials, etc. We have to deal with the interaction between these

geospatial issues. Visualizing geospatial scenarios proposed by different

disciplines in the same virtual environment, instantly reveals where

different plans and processes affect each other.

All relevant geospatial data can be visualised in Geocraft. In Geocraft we

visualized not only The Netherlands above ground, but also the Dutch

subsurface (see the deep subsurface in figures 5.1 and 5.2). The relation

between the underlying geology and land use is clear at a glance. See for

example figure 2.2 with the top 50 meter of the subsurface: the subway

tubes are put in the stable sand layer. Visualizing the subsurface in

combination with land use can be of great help to establish the so called

“Omgevingsvisies”4 the Dutch government aims for.

Figure 6.2: Detail of the Dutch deep subsurface in Geocraft; a volcano beneath

the Wadden Sea. In the above view, you are at 5 kilometer depth, looking

upwards through the former volcanic vent towards Tertiary sediments covering

the volcano. This volcano was active over 175 My ago (late Jurassic).

4 Spatial development strategies to be defined by each municipality of The Netherlands

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1.5 Impact analyses

Decades ago, we started to accumulate data from different sources and

disciplines and assembled them in digital geographical information

systems, providing data to people who needed them for a variety of

purposes. The mutual significance of the examined data became clear in

a way unimaginable before, generating insights very difficult to glimpse

when dealing with separate datasets. The standardisation of data from

different sources and disciplines made them complementary and

exchangeable.

Nowadays, we are pretty sophisticated in mathematically describe and

model all kinds of geospatial processes and display them in 3D virtual

geographical environments. The power of geospatial analytics has an

impact far beyond the traditional usage of geo-data. We can virtually

simulate and visualize future developments ánd their implications,

enabling us to envision the superimposed effects of different processes.

This smart interactive 3D virtual environment provides a platform to test

various ideas on a wide range of issues. Impact analyses can interactively

provide information during the design process. Adding elements you get

real-time information on its effects.

Think for example about placing a specific windmill. In Geocraft, we can

provide instantly visualized information about the area suffering of noise

disturbance, indicated in different noise levels depending on the

distance to the windmill and the surroundings. You see exactly which

locations in the area are affected in what extend. At the same time, you

can get information on other relevant aspects. For example the costs of

this specific kind of windmill, whether this windmill is suited for this

specific location (e.g. current legislation), how much energy this windmill

is expected to generate, as well as the energy demand of the region.

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Figure 7:The area suffering of noise disturbance after placing a specific kind of windmill. The purple area is most affected. Via pink and yellow zones the nuisance decreases towards the green area.

1.6 Serious gaming

Via the internet, children play all sorts of games in Minecraft. For

example ‘conquer the flag’: two teams of children each build the best

defense structure they can imagine, in only 5 minutes time. Then the

battle begins. The team with the best defense structure, the best battle

strategy and the best cooperation wins.

Games addressing real-life problems

We can apply the gaming environment of Minecraft to address real-life

problems by serious gaming in Geocraft. For example the battle against

sea level rise or noise disturbance. Geocraft is a smart environment.

Teams can get a budget and an aim to strive for, and chose from

different options to achieve that aim. Impact models will instantly supply

information on the results of the used interventions. The team solving

the problem with the best result against the lowest costs wins.

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Why bother to use Geocraft for serious gaming? Firstly, because the

interface is very user friendly and can be intuitively used. Secondly,

because it evokes synergetic cooperation between participants who can

have a totally different background and even do not have to know each

other, as we see with the kids conquering the flag. Thirdly, because

Geocraft is a smart environment in which we can simulate the real world

and raise real strategies and solutions for real problems.

Immersive experience with optimized learning transfer

It is known that workshops in problem solving strategies might exhibit a

poor learning transfer. The reason for this is that these practices often

are carried out in more or less decontextualised training environments,

insufficient related to ‘every-day life at the office’ of the trainee.5 To

improve learning transfer, Herrington and Oliver (2000) have proposed

so-called authentic learning environments (ALEs). ALEs are designed to

enable learning experiences with real-world relevance.

In Geocraft, we can adequately simulate real world problems and real

world strategies. Using Geocraft to address real life problems, showed to

raise insights, and as such Geocraft proved to be a strong educational

tool, as we shall illustrate in part 2 of this paper. Moreover, serious

gaming in Geocraft might turn out to be a very efficient way to raise a

synergetic multidisciplinary approach, exchanging data and insights

across the limits of disciplines. We imagine serious gaming in Geocraft

can facilitate governments to tap and utilize the full potential of the

collected experience, knowledge, talents and ideas of all stakeholders

involved. We envision serious gaming in Geocraft can help to reach

optimal solutions for tomorrows problems.

5 See Rens Kortmann et al, 2016 in press: Veerkracht, A game for servant-leadership development

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PART 2: Use cases showing the added

value of Geocraft

In this paper, we present very recent technologic advances. After

creating Geocraft, the first thing we did was offering it to high schools: it

is an excellent educational tool to enhance spatial insight, to raise

awareness and insights in a number of geospatial issues, and to develop

typical 21th century skills: communicating, finding and evaluating

information, creating and innovating, collaborating, problem solving.6

During these high school projects, we tested how a tool like this can be

deployed for public participation processes. At the moment of writing,

we already started several projects to use Geocraft for civil participation.

We are for example designing a contest between different

neighbourhoods to develop steps towards durable energy. These

projects are in the preliminary stages. Therefore, in the below use cases

we limit ourselves to projects wherein high school students address

adult issues.

2.1 High school research & design project on

water management and land use Markermeer7

The Netherlands have a record of claiming land from water. For this

purpose, between 1963 and 1976 a dike was raised between Enkhuizen

and Lelystad, aimed at the creation of new land: the Markerwaard.

However, over the decades agricultural production methods improved

significantly, and in 2003 the Dutch government decided not to invest in

new farmland anymore. Meanwhile, the waters in the occluded

6 See Mark Opmeer et al, 2016 in progress: The added value of Geocraft for educational

purposes 7 All graphics in this paragraph are designs made in Geocraft by high school

students of the Technasium at Lelystad, displaying a possible future scenario of the Markermeer.

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Markermeer area stagnate, resulting in a severely decreased water

quality and heavily damaged ecosystem.

The government decided to convert the area into an extensive nature

reserve: a ‘future proof ecological system’. In addition, the area should

provide recreation space to accommodate the nearby densely populated

urban areas. Furthermore, the opportunities to gain renewable energy

and to raise freshwater food production should be explored. Potentially,

the area is suitable to cultivate the Chinese mitten or usable algae.

Durable energy might be generated by windmills, solar modules or by

growing biomass.

An innovative approach

Over a 3 month period, the students worked on this project for 5 hours a

week. They have to come up with a design to recover the damaged

ecosystem and to optimize the combination of the four objectives:

recreation, food production, energy and most important: nature. Instead

of ‘an empty bathtub with stagnant water’ the government aims for a

variform area, comprising 500 hectare island surfaces. After studying

literature and gathering information from the internet, the students

designed and eventually presented their solution in Geocraft.

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Hitherto, in similar projects the students used photo collages, hand-

made maps and scale models to present their solutions. The virtual

visualization of the designs improved them significantly: working in

Geocraft effected a much higher level of detail and accuracy. However,

this result was not the biggest gain: Geocraft ameliorated the learning

and design process remarkably.

Advanced learning and design processes

Geocraft provided an immersive experience. Instead of trying to

understand the spatial relationships from descriptions and 2D maps, the

students could walk around in the virtual simulation of the studied area.

Every spot can be approached and examined from every direction.

Geocraft generated direct insight in scale size, dimensions and

proportions. The students got an immediate look on the actual result

while making changes; the impact of the changes revealed themselves at

once. That made it a ‘real experience’ instead of a theoretical exercise.

In addition, Geocraft makes it very easy to modify the designs. This

enables a ‘sketching design process’: students can try, modify, en renew

their ideas without being confronted with considerable efforts coming

along with making changes. As a result, the students obtained a higher

creative freedom compared to ‘the old way’ of designing. Progressive

insights could be accommodated much more easily.

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Ameliorated communication and collaboration

Geocraft showed to advance communication and collaboration

processes within the design teams. Working simultaneously in the same

virtual environment necessitated tuning and adaption. Different subjects

had to be amalgamated into a coherent joint design. Working isolated

from one another was impossible, conflicting approaches revealed

themselves at once. This provoked the substantiation of actions and

decisions and coerced a more or less continuous exchange of

substantive arguments. The students became much more aware of the

impact of what they were planning to do. Problem solving thinking

arised spontaneously; it was simply the only possible way to proceed.

Geocraft turned out to be a great tool to induce typical 21th century

skills: communicating, finding and evaluating information, creating and

innovating, collaborating, problem solving. The learning content was

transmitted much more effectively. Moreover, this approach maximized

the engagement of the students. Not only because they became much

more aware of what they were doing, but also because they had great

fun ‘playing with Minecraft’.

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2.2 Spatial planning in IJburg

To accommodate the increased need for residential areas, adjacent to

the city of Amsterdam a new island is being claimed from the IJselmeer:

IJburg. At the newly build IJburg high school, a project started to engage

high school students in the design and urban planning of the

surroundings of their school.8

Two GIS specialists erected the neighbourhood in Geocraft and prepared

the software, a sociologist facilitated the educational and planning

processes and a urban planner created a final design. The students

already knew Minecraft or learned on the job, the teachers were present

to support the group dynamics. The students were divided into design

teams to redesign the space around their school. They worked 4 sessions

of 2 hours, one session per week. Each team got a simple instruction:

change the current world into one you like! 9

Based on the input from

the design teams, a professional urban planner amalgamated the

8 This project was initiated and

facilitated by consultancy agency ‘BuurtPerspectief’ and the SPINlab of the Free University of Amsterdam. 9 Minecraft as a planning tool - part 1 - The environment we dream of

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1yKWedHS20

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different ideas of the students into one, feasible design.10

Not all objects

created made it to the final design; explicit erotic street art and statues

were not incorporated in the final design, or when several overlapping

ideas were present (each group had a library) only one was picked.

This project collected and inventoried the students' needs and wishes as

users of the space. Using Geocraft, the students participated actively

and were enabled to express definite wishes within the actual available

space (such as the desired size of a football field, the preferred location

of a skate park, etc.). This way, they provided distinct input for the

professional urban planner. The final design met the students wishes,

including a playground for kids, pop-up stores, leisure and places to

meet, in- & outdoor activities. The students still recognized the planner's

design as their own design and would definitely support its realization.

Figuur 8: The final plan for the spatial design of the surroundings of IJburg College (Amsterdam, The Netherlands).

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Minecraft as a planning tool - part 2 - A more realistic design https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIsEfBAXl14

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2.3 Towards more renewable energy and energy

saving in Zaandam

Worldwide we strive for energy saving and a transition towards

renewable energy because the amount of fossil fuels is limited, climate

changes, and we want to be less dependent of foreign countries. In

Geocraft, a serious game is developed to challenge students of the

Zaanlands Lyceum to come up with the best solution for their

neighbourhood: realize the most energy saving and the most renewable

energy for the lowest price. Hereto, they can take three measures. For

each measure, smart models in Geocraft calculate costs and benefits:

1. Raise wind mills. The higher the wind mill, the more energy is

generated. However, higher wind mills are more expensive to

raise.

2. Implement solar panels. If the solar panels on a building

generate more energy than the building consumes,

overproduction is not rewarded (as in The Netherlands, you get

almost no compensation for the energy you pass to the grid).

3. Apply thermal insulation.

In Geocraft, the students own

neighbourhood is created. By removing

and adding specific blocks, each design

team can position solar panels, apply

thermal insulation, or build wind mills in

their own Minecraft environment. In

Excel, they have to administer the costs

and benefits of the different energy

measures. During two lessons, they get

the opportunity to try the game and to

establish a handy Excel spreadsheet for

their administration. Thereafter it’s for serious: they get 4 lessons to

conserve in their virtual neighbourhood as much energy as possible at

the lowest costs. After each lesson, the smart Geocraft programme

presents their inferred results with respect to costs and benefits.

Figure 9: A Geocraft windmill

29

This project will raise the students awareness of the potential energy

measures in their own neighbourhood and the energy consumption of

different buildings, as different types of buildings in Geocraft have

different energy labels, just like reality. Moreover, the students are

divided into design teams, each representing another stakeholder with

a different concern: the government,

the people of the place, the energy

supplier and the operator of the

electricity grid. Presenting their final

results, the students will learn that what

is regarded to be the best solution

totally depends on the chosen point of

view. During this project, the students

have to tend different complex tasks to

achieve a good result. They get a feeling

how to address complex issues as a team

and practise the required skills.

Figure 11: Thermal insulation of a residence; first the outer layer is removed, then

a white layer added.

2.4 High school students contribute to the ‘Living

Lab’ Buiksloterham

In Amsterdam, the local government linked up with local companies,

citizens, entrepreneurs and artists to develop a circular neighbourhood

at a cultural heritage site: the northern IJ-shore, a former industrial area

with remnants of the rich Amsterdam history in producing a.o. ocean

liners, oil tankers and aircrafts. The joint efforts aim for a zero-waste

district that is self-sufficient in energy and re-uses not only rainwater but

Figure 10: Implementation of solar panels

30

all materials to establish a circular economy. Buiksloterham is a so-called

‘Living Lab’: no top-down plan is enforced but local initiatives following

the guidelines are supported and stimulated.

In the middle of an undeveloped part of this district, the Hyperion

Lyceum is situated. Its students are going to use Geocraft to design the

urban environment of their own school. Different issues are being

addressed. 350 residences have to be integrated in a lively, mixed

district with a high diversity wherein people can work, live ánd recreate.

At the moment, Buiksloterham is distinctly separated from the adjacent

neighbourhoods; somehow this should be breached. Several old

industrial buildings have to get a new destination, fitting in the context

of a circular neighbourhood. Moreover, the possibility of bridging The IJ

can be considered, however the students should examine how this

would affect mobility patterns and what possible social implications

might be caused.

In this project the disciplines economy, geography, history and visual

arts meet in an attempt to contribute to an innovative urban design,

fostering the awareness of the cultural heritage. The students get

divided into design teams, each dedicated to a specific challenge. At the

end of a 8 week period, each team will present their ideas and designs to

meet their challenge. We look forward to the results of this

groundbreaking approach.

Figure 12: The Buiksloterham in Geocraft, existing buildings in black,

planned buildings in white.

31

2.5 The Netherlands in Minecraft – thousands of

children contribute to enhance the virtual reality

Stichting Geofort11

asked Geodan whether it was possible to create the

whole of the Netherlands on a scale 1:1 in Geocraft, including all the

trees, roads, rivers, buildings, etc. Geodan succeeded in this challenge,

the children of The Netherlands were next: Geofort challenged them to

turn the grey Geocraft towns into a realistic impression mimicking the

real world, appropriate on scale. Every minecraft player can join the

Geocraft.NL server online.12

Figure 13.1: The Eusebius church in Arnhem (The Netherlands), a marvellous

example how children succeeded to change the grey data loaded in Geocraft into

a realistic representation of reality. The grey buildings with orange roofs in the

surroundings are still waiting to be made more realistic.

11 GeoFort is an educational attraction on an

exciting fort in the New Dutch Waterline in the field of cartography and navigation. On GeoFort the visitor will meet old and new geotechniques in the GeoExperience, the ‘intelligent’ maze and Bat Trail Garden. See: www.geofort.nl 12

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bU3nZGHmwEw

32

Figure 13.2: The church doors are open, welcoming GeoGuests and GeoCitizens

to visit and have a look inside.

The results were stunning, as illustrated by figures 12.x. Over 3000 kids

have already been building fantastic churches, fortresses, residences,

schools, railway stations, hotels, shopping centers, town squares, etc.

Geocraft players can find their way in the Geocraft.NL world by a smart

plug-in made by Geodan: all the larger cities, towns and villages can be

‘warped’ by entering /WARP followed by the name of the place.

Figure 13.3: A splendid example of an interior, mimicked in Geocraft. Notice the

church organ in the rear.

33

The dawning of a virtual society

On Geocraft.NL, collaboration and joint projects emerge spontaneously.

Children initiate big cooperate building projects, for example to finish

the Dom Tower in Utrecht. In the chat, children make appointments and

set a date and time to put their shoulders to the wheel. The people of

Vreeland joined efforts to mend every detail of their town. The center of

Amsterdam is being collaboratively build by a group Minecraft players.

The Netherlands in Geocraft comprises over 1000 milliard blocks. It took

some doing to oversee and regulate what the kids were doing. Initially,

The Netherlands in Geocraft were more or less immediately destroyed

at the day of release. Volcanic flows emerged everywhere and many

phallus symbols were raised, especially after showing this particular feat

on the national youth news channel that very evening. As in the real

society, this virtual society needs regulations and administrative

leadership.

Figure 13.4: Gothic architecture mimicked in Geocraft: the interior of the

Eusebius church (Arnhem, The Netherlands).

The call for regulations and enforcement

Several measures had to be taken. First of all, The Netherlands had to be

reloaded in Geocraft. Secondly, a GeoCadastre and a hierarchic structure

were established, distributing rights to build. Geofort appointed

34

different government officials. The officials of the Geofort themselves,

maintaining this Geocraft world, have the highest ranks: ‘Son of the

King’. Adults spontaneously offering technical support and assistance are

appointed ‘Representatives’. All other officials are Minecraft playing

children, who can apply for the job. GeoCommissionars of the King are

highest in rank and have special building permits. GeoMayors can build

everywhere and give GeoCitizens rights to build on a limited area.

This hierarchic system worked for some time, but when some children

started to berate one another, and others started to destroy each others

buildings, it became clear that a penalty policy was needed. These rules

are now clearly communicated to every GeoCitizen (children building in

this Geocraft world have to register themselves as a GeoCitizen) .

Transgressing the rules, one might be muted, kicked or even banned.

The Bijlmer Bajes (the jail of Amsterdam) was equipped to house

delinquents spending their ban time.

Crowd sourced in-game management

Since October 2015, over 3000 kids registered as GeoCitizens. Geofort

succeeded in establishing a partly crowded sourced in-game

management: teenagers who successfully applied to the job of

GeoMayor or GeoCommissionar. Now these voluntary officials fulfill

over a 300 positions, familiarizing GeoGuests and newborn GeoCitizens

with the rules and possibilities of Geocraft.NL. They answer questions,

explane how to do things and serve out building plots to newborn

GeoCitizens.

Next to these daily active volunteers contributing to The Netherlands in

Minecraft, a couple of Geofort workers deal with the administration and

server management of Geocraft.NL on a day to day basis. At the

moment, Geofort is upscaling its support and maintenance capacity, to

deal with the growing numbers of visitors and actors in this virtual

society.

35

Figure 14: Minister Melanie Schultz-Van Haegen, Ministry of Infrastructure and

the Environment, looking for her own residence in GeoCraft.NL.

An ongoing challenge

The challenge continues: GeoCitizens are invited to take screenshots of

the buildings they are most proud of and send these to Geofort. Weekly,

GeoFort selects the building of the week. Every day, The Netherlands in

Minecraft resembles reality more and more.

36

PART 3: The basic logistics of creating, using

and maintaining a Geocraft world

Smart conversions enable us to import data from existing databases into

the virtual environment of the popular Minecraft game. Basically, in

Geocraft all 2D and 3D geospatial data can be visualized. In principle,

there is no limit to the amount of users you want to give access to a

Geocraft world.

3.1 The creation of a Geocraft World

In table 1, we render an overview of the input data we used so far. From

these geospatial datasets, we create georeferenced raster files on a

scale 1:1. Subsequently, we generate tiles according to the Minecraft

scheme and map the raster files to the Geocraft region tiles. The first

step, creating all needed raster files, only takes a few days on a single

computer, even for a geocraft world comprising the whole of The

Netherlands. For the second step, the generation of the Geocraft region

tiles, much more computer power is needed. For example: on a 4 core

CPU machine, the creation of all region tiles of The Netherlands in

Geocraft would require more than 100 days. However, this part of the

process is suitable for parallel computing.

To create The Netherlands in Geocraft, per region file a distinctive set of

4 input raster files (building height, surface height, trees and land use) is

used. This allows the processes to be executed independently of each

other. In a cloud based parallel computing environment, the conversion

of all raster files into Geocraft region files can be executed in a few days.

We deployed this process in the Microsoft Azure Batch platform. We

describe the procedures in more detail in our paper “The Netherlands in

Minecraft – Methodology and usage” (Fruijtier et al 2016, in progress).

37

Figure 15: From geospatial data to Geocraft world.

38

The Netherlands are approx. 300x200 km in size. On a scale of 1 meter is

1 block this results in a Geocraft world of approx. 300000x200000 blocks

in size or 60 billion square blocks. As every Minecraft world is divided

into region files of 512x512 blocks, the Netherlands in Minecraft will

consist of 586 x 391 region files or 229.126 Geocraft region files. Each

Geocraft region file is approx. 4 MB in size. The Netherlands in Geocraft

will therefore be approx. 900 GB.

3.2 Hosting

The standard Minecraft server software offers little possibilities for

managing the Minecraft worlds. Therefore, almost all Minecraft servers

use modded Minecraft server software called Spigot. Spigot allows

additional functionality and management options through plug-ins.

Smart plug-ins

Geodan develops its own plug-ins to add specific functionalities to

Geocraft. We focus on the connection with existing (spatial) data and

services. An example is the geocoding service used in GeoCraftNL. It

allows people to transport to a given address instead of entering

coordinates. The geocoding plug-in takes the entered address and uses a

web service from the GeodanMaps cloud environment to return the

location of the address. Another plug-in calculates the energy efficiency

of projects built in Minecraft and compare these to the actual local

energy consumption. There is even a plug-in to track and trace people

real-time and show their locations in Minecraft.

Using a local copy of a Geocraft world, no hosting is needed. The single-

player mode of Minecraft is dependent on data stored locally on your

computer. This can be usefull, for example when you add a 3D model

and want to check whether it is loaded correctly before making the

world available to other users. As soon as you want to share a Geocraft

world with others, you use the Minecraft multi-player mode and have to

39

connect to the Minecraft server where this specific Geocraft world is

hosted.

Geocraft servers

An example of a Minecraft server is the GeoCraftNL server, where

people mend the basic contour lines of The Netherlands in Minecraft by

adding more detail and colour to mirror the real world, as described in

paragraph 2.5. This server can be reached through the Minecraft address

geocraft.nl. Another example is Geocraft, a server offered by the SPINlab

of the Free University of Amsterdam to provide secondary schools (VWO

level) with serious Geocraft games, addressing a variety of geospatial

issues (see use cases).

Setting up a server involves installing the Minecraft server software. The

software can either be deployed on own servers or a managed

environment can be used. When using a managed environment, system

administration tasks such as the installation and configuration of

Minecraft services, back-ups, etc. are carried out by the provider.

3.3 Maintaining and controlling a Geocraftworld

When making available a Geocraft service, several organisational aspects

have to be implemented in order to create a maintainable and

controllable service. If you just setup a server and offer free access to

everybody without restrictions, it will be a complete mess in no time. A

notorious example is the Danish server which was partly blown-up

within a month from the release.13

To maintain and control a Geocraft

world several roles must be filled in:

System administrator

13

See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2623697/American-hackers-bomb-Minecraft-version-Denmark-raise-stars-stripes-cyber-attack-education-project.html

40

The system administrator is responsible for supplying and upgrading the

server hardware and backups, server user management, etc. When a

managed environment is used this role will be carried out by the

provider.

Minecraft server manager

The Minecraft server manager makes sure the Minecraft service

software is up and running. He installs, updates and configures the

necessary plug-ins. So basically he is responsible the functionality

needed is available for the Minecraft players. When a managed

environment is used this role will be carried out by the provider.

In-game management

An important aspect is the organisation of the in-game management.

See use case ‘The Netherlands in Minecraft’, paragraph 2.5. In-game

management keeps order and hands out claims (if needed).

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PART 4: Possible future applications

In this last part of the paper, we explore several trends of relevance to

the future development and applications of Geocraft. First, we

elaborate on future policy and several relevant citizen science related

questions. Next, we explore technologic advances which might lead to

innovative future applications of Geocraft.

4.1 Trends in spatial planning and citizen science

To be able to understand the usefulness of Geocraft in the pursuit of

sustainable and healthy cities, first of all we need to understand current

planning systems and current policy themes. From various points of

view, we stand at the threshold of a new era with respect to the

development and governance of cities.

The worldwide growing population lives more and more concentrated in

cities. After decennia of top-down ruling and dominance of big players in

the market, local initiatives blossom shifting governance towards a more

bottom-up approach. The advantages of large business estates and top

down planning systems are no longer valid. At the same time, lots of

cities face the limits of expansion; for example in The Netherlands, we

cherish the limited green areas left. The focus has shifted towards

intensifying, improving and transforming existing urban areas. This

means that values of people of the place become more important.

Citizen initiatives in spatial development are on the rise.14

A distinction is made between citizen involvement through participatory

planning and spontaneous civic initiatives, which are hard to fit in with

formal planning procedures. Both forms of activities of people of the

place are in line with the ideas of active citizenship. Spatial planning

14

Boonstra, B. (2015) Planning Strategies in an Age of Active Citizenship, InPlanning, Groningen.

42

strategies must bridge the gap between these informal processes and

the formal framework of the Dutch planning system. Top down planning

strategies are converted into more bottom up planning strategies.

Amsterdam, like many other cities, has created an informal platform to

facilitate different types of initiatives.15

Civic enterprises are stimulated

in many different ways. Actual themes are circular economy, sustainable

energy, healthy living and cycling, local care systems, urban food, multi

functionality of public space and reliability of sustainable mobility and

transport networks. Citizen initiatives can be undertaken by residents,

entrepreneurs, artists, etc., in loose and informal structures. For both

participatory planning and citizen initiatives, Geocraft can be of added

value at low costs. This requires:

1. Access to open SDIs (e.g. Data lab of Amsterdam)

2. Data collection tools (using social media and sensing

technology)

3. Geocraft tools for describing and analysing the impact of these

initiatives and scenario’s developed by local communities

4. Tools which translate these initiatives into more formal

planning processes (import and export facilities between

Geocraft and SDI’s)

5. Instruments for formal assessment procedures, like scenario

design modelling instruments (e.g. LUMOS, which is developed

by the Dutch Environmental Assessment Agency), strategic

environmental assessments, societal cost-benefit analyses and

tools to calculate business cases for spatial investments.

15

see a.o. https://dezwijger.nl/

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4.2 Technologic advances

The next visual revolution is highly portable and immersive. It captivates

the user in a virtual environment or assist it in the real one, using smart

glasses and 3D sensors such as the Kinect. For the virtual Geocraft world

that means two broad scenarios: either feeling present in the virtual

Geocraft using Virtual Reality (VR) technology, or looking at the real

world with an enriched view, a virtual (but geocoded!) Geocraft world as

an overlay being added on top of the real world using Augmented

Reality (AR).

Figure 16: AR underground view (Geodan Research 2009). Looking through smart

glasses, the user observes reality enriched by visualized georeferenced

underground features such as cables and tubes, using Geodan’s Falcon 3D

viewer. The 2D window in the upper left corner shows a mini map, while the

window in the uppper right corner shows the cable properties currently gazed at.

The same can be done using Geocraft as a datasource for any 3D viewer.

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4.2.1 Augmented Reality and 3D sensors as a

collaborative tool The combination of AR, georeferenced 3D virtual worlds such as

Geocraft and high precision satellite positioning such as Real Time

Kinematic (RTK) or Precise Point Positioning (PPP)16

technology enables a

host of new experiences. Now, the real world can now be blended with

the virtual world. Invisible aspects of the concrete world can be

observed using a dedicated (georeferenced) virtual world as an overlay

on top of the real world. These virtual overlays can contain all kinds of

available geospatial data, visualising not only real time data but also

predicted and modelled data.

Figure 17: AR underground view (Jiazhou et al. 2012). Looking through smart

glasses, the user observes reality enriched by an imaginative trench. Now the

user not only observes the underground tubes and cables in relative position, but

is also able to observe the different earth layers. The same can be done using

Geocraft as a datasource, providing the modelled underground 3D information.

16

See http://www.navipedia.net/index.php/Precise_Point_Positioning for more information

45

Unfolding spatial plans

Visualizations of spatial plans can for the first time be experienced in-

situ - being at the actual location. Future changes can be experienced

while considering the real, physical context. These are not static views,

as AR allows for hiding portions of reality and projects future plans as if

they unfold on the spot at that very moment. For example a 5 year

construction can virtually get constructed in 30 seconds. With

transparent AR glasses such as the Microsoft Hololens, discussing these

plans with other AR glass users becomes natural as normal eye contact is

preserved. Normal navigation such as walking around remains possible

as the user is still grounded in reality, greatly enhancing the experience.

AR can be used for a wide range of applications, it is not limited to

spatial outlooks. It allows for interaction with real time data, such as

physically hidden or obfuscated data. For example the rich underground

world with its cables, metro and sewer systems can be easily modelled

in Geocraft and “pulled” above ground on the spot to inspect.

Obfuscated data, such as the street contours in a busy district can be

easily highlighted while distracting phenomena, such as moving cars or

billboards, can be blurred. This provides a clear survey, without

unnecessary data and hindering details.

Dynamic interaction

Sensors can collect data on current phenomena such as heat

distribution, concentrations of atmospheric particulate matter or

chemical pollution levels. These data can be collected and visualized in

Geocraft, enabling the AR user to observe otherwise invisible

phenomena directly in its context. This raises insights in complex

situations.

We can create an interactive link between the real world and the virtual

world. As Geocraft is a smart world, predictive analytics can be provided

on the spot. While designing future scenarios, these scenarios can be

instantly visualized to analyse the impact of proposed changes. For

example future noise disturbance levels after placing a windmill or a

46

sound barrier. Or the increased energy demand as a result of adding

extra residences to the original plan. Different future scenarios can be

examined and compared while walking around at the building site.

Figure 18: First person AR view of Geodan’s Falcon 3D viewer using marker based

tracking. Each AR glass wearer around the sphere sees other information. Note

that real 3D terrain and building data is shown and is fully queryable.

Enhanced collaboration

The availability of a geocoded 3D virtual world and the concept of

blended (sometimes called mixed or trans) realities enables new forms

of collaboration. Imagine streaming a 360 degree 3D sensor feed to one

or more remote (virtual reality) users. In a constrained mode, the

remote user, for example your colleague at the office, can really see

what the wearer of the AR glasses is seeing (ISWYS - I See What You See

concept). Figure 17 becomes more interesting when there is a mission

involved such as finding pipes containing a special substance in a busy

street. Spoken dialogues such as "See that blue pipe, just below 3

meters? Who's it from and what runs through it?" are natural and let the

user feel empowered by being able to query data on-the-fly.

47

In free mode, the remote user observes the view of the user on the spot,

but is free to look around via the cameras mounted on the AR glasses at

the same time. The remote user can point to information that the AR

wearer has missed, but the remote user deems relevant. It’s like

collaborating, surveying and discussing things teamwise in the field,

whilst your colleague did not leave the office. The AR possibilities for

collaboration are endless; virtual instructors or remote users can walk

alongside the AR user as a hologram, etc.

Gaming gets really serious

With AR and Geocraft, the world becomes a digital playfield. AR

geogamers can query real geo structures such as buildings for all kinds of

available data. For example construction date, owner, energy label,

energy demand, planning permissions, etc. Users might vote for specific

parts of spatial plans or can gain points by providing accurate

alternatives. In paragraph 1.6 we sketched multiple opportunities for

serious gaming in Geocraft. In combination with augmented reality,

these games can be played on the spot in the real physical context. With

multiple AR geogamers, gaming in the real world becomes both fun and

social.

Figure 19: Minecraft in the living room, Microsoft Hololens Press Video

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4.2.2 Virtual Reality as a simulation and

education tool

Where Augmented Reality uses physical reality as the base layer, in

Virtual Reality (VR) the user is completely disconnected from the

physical world in both space and time. Immersive VR immerses the user

in impossible experiences such as prehistoric or futuristic travels, life in

slow motion or a first (or third!) person view of a rock star. The past,

present or future world can be experienced without actually going

outside.

Geocraft is a special case virtual environment as it is fully based on real

geographical 3D data, making simulations as-real-as-it-gets. In the

Adventure Mode, people cannot change the virtual Geocraft world but

visit it and go for an adventure. For example think about raising a 17th

century town in Geocraft. Geocraft players may visit this historical place

and for example go for virtual geocaching17

. Virtual books and displays

can provide historical information. Players might have to collect

information or get tasks to perform.

Recently, several GeoMayors visited Geocraft.NL18

with the Oculus Rift.

Wearing this virtual reality headset, they were completely immersed in

this virtual world made by themselves. It was a great experience to pay

the Eusebius church a virtual visit (see figures 13). While sitting next to

each other at the Geofort19

, the children communicated and interacted

like being and meeting each other in the virtual world. They soon found

out, that taking a ride in the functional virtual rollercoaster of The

Efteling (amusement park in The Netherlands, see www.efteling.com),

resulted in real sickness of the stomach....

17 Geocaching is an outdoor recreational activity, in which participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or mobile device and other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers, called "geocaches" or "caches", anywhere in the world. A multi-cache consists of multiple discoveries of one or more intermediate points containing the coordinates for the next stage. See www.geocaching.com. 18 The Netherlands in Minecraft, see paragraph 2.5. 19 GeoFort is an educational attraction on an exciting fort in the New Dutch Waterline in the field of cartography and navigation, see www.geofort.nl.

49

Figure 20: GeoCraft landscape seen through an Oculus Rift virtual reality goggle,

with one image for each eye (view at Museum de Fundatie in Zwolle, Geocraft.NL

- The Netherlands in Minecraft).

As-real-as-it-gets

VR allows the user to interact with a virtual environment, simulating

events and let them unfold differently as many times as the user deems

useful. Ever since VR became convincing, phobia treatments such as

Acrophobia (fear of heights) and Agoraphobia (fear of open spaces,

crowds, leaving a safe place), could be given at the user' comfortable

home while VR content can be matched with the stage of phobia

treatment.

With Geocraft in VR, learning on the job will get a new meaning. New

educational paradigms introduce cutting edge technology for as young

as primary school children. With the inexpensive Google Cardboard and

a basic smartphone, kids in a classroom can experiences subject matter

in VR while being guided by their teacher. With the HTC Vive, VR brings

this educational experience to a new level by scanning the physical

surroundings and allowing the user to navigate in 3D space while seeing

a 3D virtual space. With help from Geocraft, a portion of captured reality

can be brought into the classroom, to play and experiment with. Hurray

for everyday excursions!

50

Figure 21: The real world aligned with a georeferenced virtual one using GPS. In

this above example, we used the Unity Game Engine to create a georeferenced

world with Geodan’s Falcon 3D viewer. It is very straightforward to apply the

same techniques for Geocraft.

Augmented virtual reality

Geocraft in VR raises the bar for location intelligence as sensors in the

physical world can interact with the virtual world and vice versa. This

again creates new forms of interaction and collaboration. For example

using Geocraft, a VR goggle and high precision GPS allows a user to walk

around in the real world except what the user sees is completely virtual -

the Geocraft world. Now a user can play a giant zombie shooter or build

that magical beanstalk in his backyard. Augmenting the virtual world

with real sensor data such as the Microsoft Kinect 3D sensor allows

many innovative scenarios such as "Holoportation" (hologram

teleportation) in VR and more. As technology advances with tactile

gloves, 360 degree treadmills, machine olfaction and whole

exoskeletons, VR will enter a new era of immersion. How long will it take

before we reach the culmination of virtual reality, the Star Trek

Holodeck, where your complete body is active in a simulation?

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With just these few examples, it already shows that a georeferenced 3D

virtual world such as Geocraft in combination with VR opens endless

possibilities. Spatial plans can be evaluated by all types of different users

(eg. children, adults, disabled, specialists) before being executed. VR

engages users in new paradigm, try before do without consequences.

Figure 22: A real location (Geofort) viewed in VR and augmented using the

Microsoft Kinect with two players. The players see themselves present in the

virtual world, interacting with each other and with virtual personalities. We can

accomplish the same virtual experience in Geocraft.

A new Artificial Intelligence framework: Bots and Geocraft

The digital information present in Geocraft is not limited to geometry

only, like in AR. In principle, Geocraft can serve as a spatial information

library containing all imaginable georeferenced 2D and 3D data.

Querying using a location results in all kinds of contextual input such as

nearby addresses, population statistics and more. This can lift several

location based services to a higher level. For example, a speech

recognizer can update its probabilities for most likely addresses to

navigate to and improve its recognition rate. Imagine the same but now

for computer vision algorithms as context such as time of day and

52

shadow prediction can really help clean up noisy images to again

improve recognition rate.

With more and more digital data entering our physical world, intelligent

data mining and big data processing seems inevitable. Geocraft helps

tying digital data to its digital context. Using cloud computing, AR or VR

goggles and with location as the common denominator, AI in Geocraft

helps overcoming the information overload problem. Last, but not least,

with millions of Minecraft users, another form of strong intelligence can

be asked to analyse and overcome hard problems: the young crowd.

With the announcement of Microsoft's vision for Bots at Build 2016 and

the introduction of the AIX platform for Minecraft, AI in virtual 3D

worlds gains huge traction. With an entire digital environment and full

digital interaction, Geocraft can serve as excellent input for training AI or

advanced machine learning algorithms like Deep Learning Neural

Networks such that they can operate both in the virtual and physical

world. Also, humans retrying any given scenario could be a great cue for

bots (autonomous, intelligent software agents) or physical robots to

explore if it can assist the human in anyway.

Bridging the gap between the virtual and the real world

Any good VR experience is one that immerses the user, stimulating more

than the visual senses. With the 3D data of Geocraft, objects from the

virtual world can be 3D printed and brought to the physical world. Now

the user can interact with the object it sees in virtual reality and feel it in

physical reality without breaking the immersion. A gamechanger for

physical VR games.

Microsoft positions Minecraft as a first class citizen for VR and mobile VR

experiences, having announced support for both the Oculus Rift as well

as the Samsung Gear VR platform. With these announcements high

quality, immersive VR experiences can come to any boardroom or

classroom as a great discussion and learning tool. With Minecraft as its

engine, Geocraft will co-evolve as Minecraft explores new features and

support new platforms.

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Figure 23: AR or VR? Above is a real world hand visible, tracked with a virtual

hand using the Leap Motion Orion and Oculus Rift. The location is again a real

location (Geofort).The same interaction between the virtual world and the real

world can be accomplished in Geocraft.

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Conclusion

Geocraft provides an excellent interactive virtual 3D environment at a

well chosen level of abstraction to design, visualize and analyse future

scenarios, raising spatial insight and mutual understanding. It is not only

a strong educational tool, but also enables us to engage the people

involved in spatial issues in a most accessible way. For example people

of the place, who dispose of highly valuable expertise and unique

insights into local situations and possibilities.

In the 2012 Manifesto for Cities20

, the UN declared that the battle for a

more sustainable future will be won or lost in cities. In the next few

decades, nearly three-quarters of world’s population will live in cities.

More than 60 percent of the built environment needed to accommodate

these new urban dwellers has yet to be built. How we plan, build, and

manage our cities now will determine the outcome of our efforts to

achieve a sustainable and harmonious development tomorrow.

Past and current trends provide some important lessons for what to

avoid. In the circular ‘The City We Need’21

, eight major lessons are listed.

Geocraft might be helpful to address some of them, as we hope to have

illustrated with the use cases we presented in this paper. Foremost,

Geocraft is an easy accessible tool to facilitate effective participation and

engagement of all citizens, youth in particular (see for example use case

‘IJburg’, ‘Buiksloterham’ and ‘The Netherlands in Minecraft’). In

addition, Geocraft is a very strong educational tool to raise awareness

and insights in complex issues (see for example use cases ‘Zaandam’ and

‘Markermeer’). Last but not least: Geocraft advances learning and design

processes, and ameliorates communication and collaboration (see all

use cases).

20

http://mirror.unhabitat.org/images/WUC_Manifestos/ Manifesto%20For%20Cities_English.pdf 21

http://www.worldurbancampaign.org/city-we-need

55

We think the use of Geocraft can contribute to a better urban future by

facilitating the creation of high level solutions. Via advanced internet

interfaces, all urban actors can get a voice and communicate their

insights and ideas. Geocraft could be the way for citizens’ participation

in spatial development and inspire them to take ownership of the city

they inhabit. A Smart City cherishes, taps and utilizes the full potential of

the collected experience, knowledge, talents and ideas of its citizens.

Our Geocraft journey has just begun. We look forward to future

developments and applications, and invite governments, social

entrepreneurs and geospatial industry to exploit the possibilities of

Geocraft.

Figure 24: Future scenario of the Markermeer designed by high school students,

see use case Markermeer (paragraph 2.1).