Best Poster Award at the IEEE VIS 2018 Conference in Berlin (Visualization, Information Visualization and Visual Analytics)

Urban immersion is an important and recurring step in the work of an urban planner. With the increasing availability of data concerning the different aspects of a city, this immersion now involves having a visual overview of data in the urban context. The challenge is to have an overview while remaining focused on the immediate environment of the study area.

Maxime Spur and Vincent Tourre propose a new method for visualizing geocoded data in models of virtual cities which uses the stereographic projection of data in a sphere surrounding the spectator.

The data is separated and folded up from the ground plan, using the otherwise unused visual space above the horizon, creating a preview of the more distant data, while keeping the city geometry and close spatial relationships. Smooth transitions to and from the familiar flat top-down view provide increased interactivity and intuitive navigation.