About this Research Topic
A forest landscape is a crucial component in virtual environments. Currently, forest landscapes can be created with 3D modeling software and game engines in a great level of detail. However, most software and tools have been designed to focus on creating visually-appealing scenes rather than scientifically-accurate, thorough manual painting and sculpting or procedural placement with over-simplified parameters. Theoretically, a digital twin of forest ecosystems will capture the dynamics of individual plants, the interactions among plants, other organisms and environmental factors such as soil, hydrological, atmospheric systems, as well as human interventions. In order to accurately model and simulate such complex, organic, growing forests, the joined efforts of computer scientists, biologists, ecologists, climate scientists are needed.
This Research Topic invites researchers to submit high-quality research papers in the broad area of visualizing and simulating the forest landscape. The topic seeks contribution in methodological advancements in plant and forest ecosystem modeling, and XR applicational papers in the areas of data visualization, education, games and trainings pertaining to forest landscapes. Evaluation papers from human cognition perspective will also be considered. Researchers from diverse disciplines and fields, including but not limited to computer science, geography, ecology, forestry, artificial intelligence, virtual reality and augmented reality are encouraged to submit manuscripts.
Topics include, but are not limited to the following:
• Computational methods to model and simulate plants in 3D and/or XR
• Computational methods to model plants interaction, the impacts of disturbances (e.g., fire, climate change) on forests, and ecosystems in 3D and/or XR
• Forest data and scenario visualization
• Applications, validations and evaluations of XR on forestry and ecology
• Games (including serious games and general games), educational applications and trainings in the context of forestry and ecology
• Reviews on state of the art forest visualization methods in 3D and/or XR
• Human perception of forest landscape in XR
About the Research Topic Coordinator
Jiawei Huang obtained her PhD from Pennsylvania State University with a major in Geography and a minor in Computational Science. She is now working on the integration of GIS data and game engines at Esri (Environmental Systems Research Institute). She is interested in geospatial data visualization in VR.
This Research Topic invites researchers to submit high-quality research papers in the broad area of visualizing and simulating the forest landscape. The topic seeks contribution in methodological advancements in plant and forest ecosystem modeling, and XR applicational papers in the areas of data visualization, education, games and trainings pertaining to forest landscapes. Evaluation papers from human cognition perspective will also be considered. Researchers from diverse disciplines and fields, including but not limited to computer science, geography, ecology, forestry, artificial intelligence, virtual reality and augmented reality are encouraged to submit manuscripts.
Topics include, but are not limited to the following:
• Computational methods to model and simulate plants in 3D and/or XR
• Computational methods to model plants interaction, the impacts of disturbances (e.g., fire, climate change) on forests, and ecosystems in 3D and/or XR
• Forest data and scenario visualization
• Applications, validations and evaluations of XR on forestry and ecology
• Games (including serious games and general games), educational applications and trainings in the context of forestry and ecology
• Reviews on state of the art forest visualization methods in 3D and/or XR
• Human perception of forest landscape in XR
About the Research Topic Coordinator
Jiawei Huang obtained her PhD from Pennsylvania State University with a major in Geography and a minor in Computational Science. She is now working on the integration of GIS data and game engines at Esri (Environmental Systems Research Institute). She is interested in geospatial data visualization in VR.
Keywords: 3D visualization, virtual reality, augmented reality, digital twins, landscape visualization, forest visualization
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
