City Analytics Lab

The City Analytics Lab (CAL) is a dedicated space designed to support smart city planning and design.  CAL is situated within Faculty of the Built Environment, UNSW and support both research and teaching in the emerging area of City Analytics. CAL compromises a large decision support theatre, and three dedicated Virtual Reality (VR) / Augmented (AR) Reality rooms, along with a Tangible Table sandbox – observation room. CAL has been established to support data driven decision-making and smart city planning. 

Please email s.bala@unsw.edu.au

mailto:a.eslamiafrooz@unsw.edu.au

 for bookings.

Multi-touch screen tables

The City Analytics Lab – decision support theatre has six high resolution multi-touch screen cruiser tables. This lab configures to allow users to work collaboratively in a group setting and interact and share with digital data, planning and design tools.

Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality (VR) provides users highly realistic and dynamic experiences. Using VR technologies in undertaking city analytics facilitates communication and collaboration for better decision making.

Observation room

Participant observation is a social science technique which has been widely used for investigating human interactions. The observation room is designed specifically for this use. Two one-way-mirrors separate adjoining rooms allowing researchers to observe and record the behavior of participants in such special experiments.

Eye Tracker

The City Analytics labs are facilitated with eye tracking technology. Tobii pro Glasses 2 and Virtual Reality Eye Tracker allow researchers to run studies to analyse users’ visual attention in a controlled environment.

Augmented Reality (AR) sandbox

The AR sandbox displays a dynamic topographic map comprised by of a box containing kinetic sand, a projector, and a Microsoft Kinect 3D camera which is connected to a computer system. A user can shape the kinetic sand where contour lines, elevation colour maps, and simulated water are projected in real-time.

*The AR sandbox was developed by UC Davis, California.

CAL Equipment

• 6 x High-End Mobile workstations for Mobile VR Lab (Oculus Rift)
• 3 x High-End Mobile workstations for Red Centre Basement VR Labs (Oculus Rift and HTC Vive)
• 5 x Oculus Gear VR’s with Samsung S7’s
• 5 x Microsoft Hololens AR headsets