Machinima tour of three Second Life builds related to Berkeley, California. Real-life geographic information is modeled at three levels, or scales of detail. The (1:42) Level 1 build mimics Google Earth with globe-type data at 1/42 scale. The (1:16) Level 2 build adds LiDAR first-return data to include the tops of every building and trees at 1/16 scale. The (1:3) Level 3 build is the best we can do, solid geometry 3D graphic primitives and real-world textures hand-tuned for optimal streaming at 1/3 scale.

The Level 1 and Level 2 builds have been ported over from full (1:1) scale originals created for live streaming to Second Life clients from a single four-threaded server running 40 regions with OpenSim (downloadable from Opensimulator.org). By posting these "thumbnail" versions of the content on the Second Life mainland we hope to demonstrate the various ways that GIS data may be published as immersive 3D spaces, depending on the level of detail available in the original data and the resources available for constructing the immersive 3D model. (less info)