VGEs as a New Platform for Urban Modeling and Simulation

The complexity of interrelationships between urban natural environments and human environments is increasing with rapid urbanization. This brings new challenges to urban modeling and simulation in simultaneously meeting the comprehensive needs of the dual integration of data and models, multi-type visualizations, human-centered simulation, geographic collaboration, and interactions between physical and virtual spaces. We here propose virtual geographic environments (VGEs) as a new platform of urban modeling and simulation. After discussing the evolution, definition, and features of VGEs, we design a VGE framework for urban system modeling and simulation. Two typical cases are provided to illustrate how VGEs support urban modeling and simulation on different scales: VGE-based collaborative modeling and the simulation of air pollution dispersion in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) urban agglomeration, and fire emergency crowd evacuation simulation. In the future, VGEs may also play an important role in digital twin cities and urban metaverses.