Visualization of real-time heterogeneous smart city data using virtual reality

As the size and dimensionality of big heterogeneous data increases, finding patterns and anomalies with existing visualization methods and tools poses a significant challenge. The majority of open data platforms that offer smart city data visualizations use browser-based two-dimensional (2D) visualizations as 2D displays are widely adopted. These displays are however ineffective in depicting multi-dimensional heterogeneous data. The recent growth in the virtual reality (VR) consumer market resulted in an affordable alternative for 3D visualizations. In this paper, we propose a VR system capable of visualizing real-time smart city data concerning the city of Brussels. A subset of external data sources that is already visualized in existing web platforms is incorporated in the VR application. A user study is conducted to assess perceived workloads and data immersion parameters for a set of data exploration tasks in three existing web platforms and in the proposed VR system. Results indicate significantly lower levels of perceived frustration and significantly higher levels of data intuitivity, immersion, overview in data, and intuitive interaction. However, no significant difference in total perceived workload is observed.