ARCHITECTURE AND PLANNING
Applying virtual reality technology to architectural design and urban planning helps decision makers visualize the outcomes of proposed development and renewal. Early versions of this up-and-coming use of VR combined computer-aided design with geographic information systems to produce a virtual world in a Web browser. Now that websites can serve up fly-through reconstructions of real cities, the move to fully immersive experiences only requires the ability to incorporate the onscreen view into a VR headset. Meanwhile, augmented reality projects virtual information onto a real-world scene, incorporating new graphical objects or adding notations.