Integration of Traffic Simulation into Design Visualization

Traditionally, design visualization for transportation projects has focused on the transportation facility's appearance. Traffic elements (e.g., vehicles and pedestrians) generally have not been important. With the increasing popularity of three-dimensional (3-D) animation, however, realistic traffic movements are becoming a critical part in design visualization because they effectively illustrate to the public how a transportation facility operates from the perspectives of the driver and the overall system. The public is interested not only in how a system “looks” but also in how it “works.” One challenge facing transportation professionals is how to incorporate realistic traffic movements into a photorealistic visualization. On the one hand, 3-D modeling software that produces photorealistic visualization generally cannot produce realistic traffic movements. On the other hand, traffic simulation software that produces realistic traffic movements generally cannot produce photorealistic visualization. This paper describes a case study in which VISSIM, a microscopic simulation program for multimodal traffic flow, and 3ds Max, a modeling, animation, and rendering package, were used to integrate traffic simulation into a design visualization for the Keystone Avenue Project in Carmel, Indiana. This project involved the upgrade of six at-grade, signalized intersections along Keystone Avenue to six teardrop roundabout interchanges. The case study successfully incorporated realistic traffic movements into a photorealistic visualization through a four-step process. The integration of traffic simulation into design visualization has proved beneficial in combining the strength of 3-D modeling software and traffic simulation software and is likely to be applied further to transportation projects. A few points of guidance are provided to assist future applications.