Immersive Simulation of Flooding during Dam Peak Discharges

02/26/2025

This project presents a VR application designed to simulate flooding events caused by dam discharges, focusing on the Cabril Dam and the village of Dornes in Portugal. The goal is to raise awareness of flood risks and enable impact analysis through interactive experiences. Developed using Unity and the XR Interaction Toolkit, the application allows users to control water levels and flow rates, observe real-time effects on procedurally generated buildings, and calculate individual impacts with percentages displayed in 3D interfaces. Key features include dynamic water control with particle effects, flood detection and threshold visualization, building tagging to differentiate landmarks and flood responses, and bilingual support for english and portuguese. Optimizations such as decal projectors, procedural building generation, and off-screen asset management ensure high performance in VR. The project emphasizes intuitive interactions, building highlighting, and clear interfaces, prioritizing accessibility and functionality over photorealism. User evaluations demonstrated the VR approach effectively communicates flood scenarios and has potential to support decision-making in resource management and risk assessment, highlighting the value of VR in environmental simulations.

Authors in the community:

• 

  T

  Tomás Mota Pinto

  ist1105263

Supervisors of this institution:

• 

  A

  Alfredo Ferreira

  ist14275

electrical-engineering-electronic-engineering-information-engineering - Electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering

eng - English

Instituto Superior Técnico