Virtual Environmental Scenarios Applied in a Geo-Multimedia System

Many rural communities are currently attempting to develop their eco-tourism potential. Tourism in these areas, and especially in national parks and nature reserves, can be regarded as a very important but also very sensitive economic issue. It is believed that by using new geo-multimedia technologies to present tourist information on rural areas, sustainable development in these regions will be enhanced. Innovative strategies for the presentation of tourist information need to consider the spatial context of data and must be optimised for important target groups using a range of output devices such as infor-mation terminals, PDAs (Personal Digital Assistant) and GPS devices. This paper will briefly describe a concept for geo-multimedia information systems and virtual environmental scenarios that fulfil these aspects. The concept development and prototype creation presented in this article was realised by the “ReGeo” project, which is supported by the European Union’s 5th Framework Programme (Multimedia Geoinformation for e-Communities in Rural Areas with Eco-Tourism).