Fusion and Visualization of 3D Image and Elevation Data in Computer Automated Virtual Environment (CAVE)

Consisting of rear-projected screen walls and a front-projected floor, the CAVE is a multiple person, high resolution, 3-D graphics video and audio environment. The CAVE's true stereoscopic capabilities, coupled with its uniquely immersive design, enable scientists and researchers to interact with geospatial data in ways never before possible. This paper presents an approach and results of using CAVE to fuse and visualize 3D image and elevation data containing critical infrastructure. Various formats of data are collected for 12 cities. The geospatial data includes image data, elevation data, and topographic map data in different files and in different formats. By using vGeo software and these data, we integrate the 2-dimensional image data and the elevation data into 3-dimensional images in the virtual world. The virtual world then can be presented in CAVE equipment, which helps to identify the geometric objects and their attributes.