A thematic network to strengthen regional collaborative projects on the visualisation of virtual landscapes and ecosystems - VLS-LRC (Virtual Landscapes of Languedoc Roussillon and Catalonia)

VLS_LRC Agropolis fondation supported project contributed to establish and develop interactions betwenn Research, territorial collectivities and local SME tissues in the domain of virtual reality applied to sustainable development (land planing more explicitly) . An open exchange day was organized on 2012, May 29th at CIRAD and Agropolis, invoving nearly 50 attendees mainly outside academic world. The day show presentations covering recent research advances, collectivities needs, and product solutions. Topics were open to exchanges and debates. This day did underline the increasing uses and interests of virtual relaity techniques for land planning, but did also raise specific difficulties, especially raising from data acquisitions. More precisely, local and territorial collectivities made data sharing (infrastructure maps, land use maps, 3D models) a strong wish.
Contacts and exchanges developped in the frame of this day and its organization did multiply and led to project proposals and bilateral actions covering four different frames:
* A technical frame, from academy to SMEs concerning technical advices towards SMEs concuming advanced computer graphics technologigies, specificaly on GPU , GPGPU and advanced (realtime) rendering techniques
* Involing plant growth models in wide public applications (video games); AMAP Unit was sollicited in this field on 3 projects, from with one is still on discussion
* Common valorization of existing tools and research results leading to answer to Call for proposal, offering to the scientific community versatile and adaptative solutions to visualize landuse simulation changes in 3D walkthru scenario. Such is the case of the TakeCare proposal, an EuratNet Ruragri proposal, involving CIRAD participation with BIONATICS SA as subcontractor.
* New interactions between research Units, especially concerning L Arago laboratory in Banyuls, the university of Perpignan and Amap Unit on reserach aspects and on line pedagogique ressources definitions

At VLS_LRC project term, contacts linking reserach and SMEs led on one hand, to actions increasing the performances of existing tools, and, on the other hand, to boost the use of existing approaches in studies hold by the reserach communities. The participaption to the latest Euranet Ruragri call illustrates both aspects.