Virtual Tourism Concept Planning and Design Platform

Tourism area planning refers to the overall deployment and specific arrangement of various tourism elements to protect, develop, utilize, and manage tourism areas, enabling them to perform multiple functions and roles. Tourism area planning is divided into overall planning, regulatory detailed planning, and construction detailed planning based on planning levels. A tourism area is a space or region where tourism and related activities are the primary functions.

The virtual tourism conceptual planning platform, based on the functional background of tourism area planning, is dedicated to using 3D virtual space engine technology to virtually simulate the terrain design, regional functional planning, road planning, tree and vegetation planting, distance measurement, area measurement, latitude and longitude measurement, model measurement, path roaming, exporting regional functional maps, exporting road maps, exporting planning maps, exporting high-resolution screenshots, and exporting AVI video files of scenic areas.

Based on these software functions, users can use this software platform to design scenic area planning layouts, edit terrain undulations, import building and character models, create road traffic and roadside accessories, arrange and plant flowers, vegetation, and trees, design lakes and rivers, divide functional areas of scenic spots, label information, measure terrain area and road length, measure latitude and longitude and positions, and export planning images and video data. Through this series of design exercises, the effectiveness of the planning layout can be verified, and the scenic area planning scheme can be adjusted and corrected using these visual effects, thereby achieving twice the result with half the effort. Below, the functional modules of this software platform are introduced in detail.

Terrain editing functions include raising terrain, sinking terrain, leveling, smoothing, adding water surfaces, image brushing, loading terrain libraries, setting skyboxes and sun, overlaying satellite images, importing height maps, and importing DEM data.

Raising, sinking, leveling, smoothing, image brushing

The operations for raising, sinking, leveling, smoothing, and image brushing are the same, so these five operations share the same attribute interface, which is the brush attribute, as shown in Figure 2.2.

Taking raising as an example to introduce their operation methods: click the raise button, press the left mouse button and move the cursor over the area to be raised. This area will be raised. To cancel the raising operation, release the left button and click the right button to cancel the raising operation. During the operation, the cursor changes to an icon indicating the raising operation, and a blue dot and a blue circle centered on that dot are rendered at the cursor's position in the scene to indicate the position and range affected by the raising operation. The raising effect is shown in Figure 2.3. Since these operations involve pressing the left button and moving the mouse, the process is like using a brush to sweep the ground, so we also refer to these operations as raise brush, sink brush, level brush, smooth brush.

The function of sinking is to make the ground sink. The effect is shown in Figure 2.4. The effect in this figure is formed by moving the sink brush and making its movement trajectory form a loop.

The function of leveling is to make a piece of terrain automatically become the same height. Select the level brush, press the left button, and then move the cursor in the target direction. The terrain height in the target direction will change to the height value at the position where the left button was pressed. As shown in Figure 2.5, the left mouse button is pressed at the far left, and then moved to the right (performing the leveling operation). The areas the cursor passes through become as flat as the far left of the loop.

The function of smoothing is to process and transition the abrupt parts of the terrain surface to make it smooth. As shown in Figure 2.6, the terrain surface is relatively steep. Press the left mouse button and move the mouse to make the smooth brush move over the steep surface for processing. The steep surface becomes as shown in Figure 2.7.

The function of image brushing is to change the texture of the target terrain area, thus modifying the ground appearance. To use the image brush, first select a texture in the brush attribute panel, then press the left button and move the mouse over the target area to brush the new texture onto the ground.

You can use the brush range to adjust the area affected by raising, sinking, leveling, smoothing, and image brushing. Use the brush strength to adjust their impact intensity on the target area. The greater the strength, the greater the effect of these operations. The shortcut key for adjusting the range area is: CTRL key + scroll wheel; the shortcut key for adjusting brush strength is: SHIFT + scroll wheel. Scroll wheel forward: increase brush range area, increase brush strength; scroll wheel backward: decrease brush range area, decrease brush strength.

Functional Area

The functional area module includes creating rectangular functional areas, rounded rectangular functional areas, circular functional areas, elliptical functional areas, polygonal functional areas, arrow markers, and labels. These functional area tools graphically represent the function and purpose of the target area, making them vivid and eye-catching, achieving an obvious regional division and identification function.

Rectangle, Rounded Rectangle, Circle, Ellipse

The methods for creating rectangular, rounded rectangular, circular, and elliptical functional areas are the same. First, click the corresponding button for rectangle, rounded rectangle, circle, or ellipse, then press the left mouse button in the target area and drag the mouse, then release the left button to create the corresponding functional area. Figure 3.3 shows examples of creating rectangular, rounded rectangular, circular, and elliptical functional areas.

In Figure 3.3, double-click with the mouse to select the target functional area. A blue dashed box and four blue squares will appear around the functional area. These four squares can be used to adjust the size of the functional area. The red and blue arrows can be used to adjust the horizontal position of the functional area, but the green arrow cannot be used to adjust the height of the functional area because the functional area must adhere to the ground.

Next, the attribute interface of the functional area is introduced, as shown in the figure. In this interface, users can rename the functional area, modify the description information of the functional area, adjust the font size, color, and transparency of these texts, adjust the width and height of the functional area image (the standing label image), and set whether the image scales with the movement of the camera.

Using the fill style, you can control the fill color inside the functional area shape and adjust the transparency of this fill color. Using the border style, you can adjust the style, width, and transparency of the functional area border. As shown in the figure, border styles include segmented thin, medium, and thick borders and polyline thin, medium, and thick borders. Style P can control whether to display the border. The "Color | Solid Color" button can adjust the border color. Transparency A can adjust the transparency of the border.

Component The menu items for components are shown in Figure 4.1. The functions of components include creating roads, loading template libraries, creating curved walls, and creating straight walls. Creating roads means generating a road on the terrain, including ordinary roads, highways, country paths, etc. The template library is used to add template libraries to the platform or load template libraries into the scene. Creating curved walls and straight walls refers to generating walls for an area in the scene.

Creating Roads

Click the "Create Road" button in the submenu, and the scene enters road creation mode. The HUB panel switches to the create path attribute interface, as shown in Figure 4.2. Build the path by clicking the left mouse button. Click the left mouse button point by point on the terrain to form a route, as shown in Figure 4.3. After completing the path points, click the "Generate Road | Modify Road" button in Figure 4.2 to generate a default road on the path of the points in the scene, as shown in Figure 4.4.

In the double-click add attachment bar in Figure 4.2, you can add other attachments to the road, such as streetlights, trees, trash cans, and benches on both sides of the road. The trees and trash cans on both sides of the path generated in Figure 4.4 are added in this way. The information of these added attachments is displayed in the road attachment bar in the figure. In this bar, you can adjust the distance of the attachment from the center of the road, whether it is bilateral, the interval, angle, start position, and end position. After adjusting these parameters, click the "(Click here after modification) Update" button to update these attribute values. By clicking the red cross icon in front of the attachment item, you can delete this attachment from the road.

In the road attribute bar, you can modify the name of the road, adjust the width of the road, and change the texture of the road. If you want to modify the path of the road, first double-click to select the target path in the scene. Then, its path key points are displayed on the path. Use the mouse to move these key points to appropriate places, then click the "Generate Road | Modify Road" button in Figure 4.2 to change the road to the appropriate place. Vegetation The function of vegetation is to plant trees and flowers in the scene. Click the vegetation button in the main menu area in Figure 1.1, and the submenu area switches to that shown in Figure 5.1. As shown in the submenu in Figure 5.1, vegetation planting includes range planting, rectangular planting, polygonal planting, row planting, and vegetation erasure. Because the process of planting vegetation is like using a brush to sweep the terrain, these planting methods are called range brush, rectangular brush, polygonal brush, row brush, and erase brush in the submenu. Below, the use methods of these brushes are introduced in detail. Tools Click the tools button in the main menu area in the figure, and the submenu area in the figure switches to that shown. The tools menu includes three functions: enabling alignment, measurement tools, and path roaming. View Click the view button in the main menu area in the figure, and the submenu area in Figure 1.1 changes to the view menu, as shown in Figure 7.1.

The view tools menu includes four submenus: scene, plan, drawing, and camera settings. The scene, plan, and drawing submenus are responsible for switching between full-view scene mode, top-view scene mode, and drawing view mode. The camera settings menu is responsible for editing animation cameras and fixed-point camera functions. Below, the functions of each submenu are introduced in detail.

Scene

The function of the scene button is to switch the scene from fixed-point view mode or drawing view mode to full visual scene mode. In full visual scene mode, all screenshots in the previous chapters of this section were operated in full visual scene mode. In full visual scene mode, users can move the scene forward, backward, left, and right with the left mouse button and rotate the scene up, down, left, and right with the right mouse button.

All chapters before this section were introduced in the full visual scene.

Plan

Click the plan button, and the scene will switch from other scenes to plan view mode. The plan view is as shown in the figure.

Functional Zoning Map

The functional zoning map refers to exporting the distribution map of functional areas in the scene to the local disk and saving it as a .jpg file. As shown in the figure, it is an exported functional zoning map.

The functional zoning map means that this map only contains functional areas, without other objects, excluding the interference of other objects, and only viewing the distribution of functional areas from a global perspective.

8.2 Road Map

The road map refers to exporting the distribution map of roads in the scene to the local disk and saving it as a .jpg file. As shown in the figure, it is an exported road map.

The road map means that this map only contains roads, without other objects, excluding the interference of other objects, and only viewing the distribution of roads from a global perspective.