3D environments

Nowadays technology and media allow users and citizens to interact with cities in several spatial and time dimensions. On the one hand, the past and the heritage should be revisited and recreated using reliable resources and scientific knowledge produced, as is stated both in the London Charter and in the Principles of Seville. On the other hand, the available digital technologies (ICT and media) of our time allow for the development of new uses and functions and to project innovative experiences to be experienced in the city. 3D computer graphics, alternate reality games or mixed reality, among others, help us to understand how a city or an old settlement was and represent both material and immaterial heritage, which will aid us in our effort to understand the present and enable us to design and conceive future interactions and experiences based on urban spaces. This paper focuses on the state of the art and innovative experiences conveyed by media technologies, which, on the one hand, allow us to connect with and visualise the past and, on the other hand, project the different potential city for the future, linking the present to both. We therefore aim to ponder on how technologies and the advancements in media may help researchers achieve a high degree of authenticity. Are they founded on veritable historic resources, be they written, graphical or even based on the urban place that is being represented itself? Are they close to what reality could be? Or can they be viewed as “virtual” theme parks? As these proposals create a veritably new kind of digital heritage, how can we protect them? How can the public at large forge a new relationship with them, a connection that goes beyond seeing them as mere gaming scenarios? Or, for that matter, how can the public perceive their message? Advances in digital technologies and immersive and interactive environments can give us a glimpse of how researchers may be able to find ways to reconstruct and represent
our past.

The relationship between the human mind and creativity in design is always confusing where it is interspersed with a lot of consequences that might hinder the design process. Since the beginning of creation, the design is constantly evolving. However, architectural science has lately witnessed tremendous boom in the use of computers to express complex geometric shapes that were difficult to move from the mind to the drawings. The design process relies in all stages of the transfer on signals from the right lobes of the brain to the nerves and then to the hand to carry whatever information that is reached by the mind to graphics. With the development of science, design three-dimensional programs have begun to rely on coordinates instead of the two-dimensional drawing and turn it into perspective. Therefore, it is possible to imagine that there could be a direct connection between the waves of the human mind and programs in order to design the coordinates of the cell is to be the future design codes.

The concept of dramatic level is crucial for a model of dramatic flow. We present a framework to maintain optimal dramatic flow in an interactive 3D environment where both linear and emergent narratives co-exist. Unlike all other interactive narrative prototypes the framework advanced focuses on the optimal dramatic flow of the emerging user narrative so that although fragmented, it can be engaging and make sense. Using a sample narrative from Ovid’s Metamorphoses [18] we demonstrate a method to evaluate dramatic levels as plot points so that movement across narratives retains a strong dramatic flow. Although users may never choose to explore any given linear narrative in its entirety, the result is an engaging and rich narrative experience.

Three dimensional games are compelling and provide a forum for interactivity and engagement. A dramatically different environment from typical settings for the discussion of issues in addition the interactivity and all-engaging nature of the 3D environment is expected to facilitate deliberative attitudes. Complex reasoning if represented in a 3D environment is likely to be more compelling and interesting than the same issue represented using other means.