ABSTRACT
The emerging Virtual Reality (VR) technology does operate in a three-dimensional virtual world. It offers the viewer a set of stimuli of the 'real three-dimensional world', and provides a high level of spatial cognition, when interactivity is provided to freely navigate the virtual world, and this world is visualized sophisticatedly enough to perceive a 'real' environment. More advanced GIS functionality will only be added when it has been proved that a VR interface to the GIS database improves the understanding of spatial relations. VR offers an even more natural interaction with the data, and promises to be an interesting alternative. In the experiment discussed, the users worked with a familiar environment, their own university campus area, and they used the system just to browse the data available. The geometry of the VR model of the Delft University campus area has been converted from an Arc/Mo coverage.
