Virtual Forests as a Creative Medium for Community Co-Creation and Collaboration

Aidan Ackerman, Daphna Gadoth-Goodman, Emily Esch, Robert Malmscheimer, Timothy Volk, Sara Constantineau, Lauren Cooper



Abstract

Our team of forest scientists, landscape architecture faculty and students, and communications staff collectively develops virtual, embodied forest experiences. These experiences enable us to invite those who care about forest landscapes to think together with us about positive futures for our working landscape. Conventional decision making processes often aim to communicate static scientific information to constituents through data and written form, limiting the agency of individual recipients who are not offered avenues for meaningful contribution to the ideas they receive. Our work is a direct challenge to this dynamic, developing an alternative way of working that uses three-dimensional, visually immersive, artistic virtual reality models to create a shared space for iterative idea generation. In this shared space we welcome community members, landowners, policymakers, and many others to experience the virtual forest and share ideas about ways of sustainably managing the land towards a more sustainable climate future. Each of these groups has different and often competing goals that are not easily resolved through discussion and feedback processes such as community meetings or stakeholder focus groups. In contrast, the virtual forest has allowed participants to identify shared values about the working landscape which result in buy-in and connection to the land, its management, and others who care about the working forest. This has resulted in advocacy for sustainable forest management, adoption of sustainable forest management practices, and critical feedback which has helped the academic team to hone and refine our virtual forest models.

Impact Statement *

Our project creates immersive virtual experiences of sustainable forest management practices. We use virtual reality to simulate different forest practices and show how they impact the environment. Through visuals, narration, and graphics, we explain the long-term effects on forest benefits and carbon storage. The virtual forest can be accessed through videos or in-person demonstrations with a virtual reality headset. Viewing the virtual forest empowers individuals to make informed decisions for a sustainable future and mitigate climate change.

Virtual Forests as a Creative Medium for Community Co-Creation and Collaboration

Published:

November 14, 2024 (120 views)

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Virtual Forests as a Creative Medium for Community Co-Creation and Collaboration © 2024 by Aidan Ackerman, Daphna Gadoth-Goodman, Emily Esch, Robert Malmscheimer, Timothy Volk, Sara Constantineau, and Lauren Cooper is licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0

SIGNIFICANCE

This project, named the Forest Climate Visualization Partnership, advances understanding of university-community collaborations that center around the arts and design. By combining interdisciplinary expertise and leveraging cutting-edge technology, we have showcased the power of collaboration in effectively communicating complex environmental concepts to a broader and more diverse audience. Our work highlights the potential for arts and design to bridge the gap between scientific knowledge and public engagement, fostering a deeper appreciation for sustainable forest management practices.

CONTEXT

Our project combines traditional and modern approaches to sustainable forest management and climate change mitigation. We take inspiration from past and present landscape management efforts while also drawing inspiration from emerging uses of virtual reality and data visualization to create immersive virtual landscapes and arboretums.

Video 1. Virtual forest walkthrough of Arbutus watershed in the Adirondack Mountains, New York. This walkthrough highlights the forest’s visual character, materiality, and sensory aspects, allowing the viewer to connect directly with the experience of walking through a healthy, well-managed forest.
Video 2. Series of views within a virtual northern hardwood forest. Each view captures the way that one might physically explore a real forest by gazing at the tree canopy or crouching down to get closer to the ground. This invites the viewer to connect with the forest on a visceral level, creating a feeling of presence as if they were actually there experiencing what is framed within these views.

RESEARCH

Our university partners embrace a co-creative research approach that merges art, design, and scientific expertise to address science communication and knowledge transfer needs for various stakeholders. These stakeholders are diverse, including conservation organizations focused on biodiversity preservation, government agencies responsible for forest management and land use policies, and nonprofit environmental advocacy groups working on sustainability initiatives. Each brings unique strengths and perspectives to a project. Conservation organizations such as regional land trusts play a key role in identifying ecologically sensitive areas and conveying local priorities. Government agencies, including state and local forestry departments, provide essential policy frameworks and data on forest health and land management practices. Collaborating with forest scientists, landscape architects, and communications professionals, these partners help enhance the art and design process by ensuring that the visualizations are not only scientifically accurate but also resonant with the values and needs of diverse stakeholders. Such collaboration contributes to a deeper understanding of the role of arts and design in bridging gaps between academic research and community-based environmental action. Overall, by integrating the knowledge and priorities of these varied partners, we are more able to facilitate a more holistic and inclusive approach to visualizing sustainable forest management.

Our team's process typically begins by developing a narrative focused on relevant activities or ecosystem drivers, such as sustainable forest management, restoration-induced growth, and climate change impacts on forest characteristics. The team's forest scientists identify visual changes in the forest using peer-reviewed data, real-world photographs, and field expertise, communicating these details before, during, and after the activity or driver occurred. The team develops a script to engage the primary audience, highlight features of interest, convey key messages, and define technical terms using accessible language when possible.

Upon completing the script, the team's artistic staff creates a storyboard as a shared space to integrate project elements, including text, photographs, drawings, diagrams, and conceptual components. The storyboard allows iterative and asynchronous evolution of the project, including refinement of narrative and graphic elements. From the storyboard, the team identifies specific visual qualities to capture in each project phase that will in turn be modeled and rendered in 3D. Questions the team typically asks include: what do we want to ensure gets visually highlighted? How far into the future should we show, and with how many stopping points? What are the key forest conditions we want to show such as geography, species, age, health, and seasonality?

The storyboard is then transformed into a highly realistic 3D virtual reality forest using various visualization tools. Throughout the design process, the team meets regularly to iteratively enhance the visualizations for scientific accuracy and effective communication of the landscape resulting from specific forest management practices. Throughout the script, storyboard, and 3D modeling process, project partners and community members also provide input and critique.

Figure 1. Examples of the storyboard process.
Two rectangles with titles that read "Scenario: High Grade. Timesnap: Immediately After Harvest." Left: Diagrams show changes in forestation and bulleted data points address "Irregular Spacing," "Residual tree species & form," and "Harvest Damage." Right: Photos of forests.
Figure 2. The virtual urban forest showing trees from wireframe to fully textured.
 Four images of the same streetscape with parked and moving cars, sidewalks, buildings, and trees planted along the street. Image 1: black and white line drawing. Image 2: the same black and white line drawing but the trees are glowing white. Image 3: a photo-realistic image but the trees are white and without texture. Image 4: the same photo-realistic image with the trees also rendered in realistic colors and textures.

INTEGRATION

The success of our collaboration stems from integrating diverse perspectives from university and community partners/stakeholders from multiple disciplines and backgrounds. We actively collaborate and follow an iterative design and review process, bringing together forest scientists, landscape architects, communications staff, community members, policymakers, and advocacy agencies. The artists and designers on our team play a crucial role, directly engaging with forest scientists to incorporate their qualitative feedback, criticisms, and real-world data into our immersive forest experiences. This integration enriches the project, making it inclusive, impactful, and relevant to the communities we aim to engage.

Our approach aims to use 3D forest visualization as a way to bring diverse stakeholders together. Our goal is to support the exchange of ideas and development of a shared vision for landscape management using environmental graphics as a unifying mechanism, one that can translate abstract ideas into visual form in an accessible way. Often the virtual forests present an opportunity for dialogue about potential future outcomes, in part due to the high levels of realism and detail in the virtual environments. In contrast to a more abstract visual approach, the site-specificity of our graphics present high levels of visual information as a medium for response and critique. Frequently collaborators offer feedback on specifics of form, material, lighting, and even sound. Incorporating this feedback allows the virtual environment to evoke the specific characteristics and qualities of the actual site being represented.

An example of this is a virtual forest visualization created for Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana (Video 3). The campus is bordered by the Mississippi River, and experiences flooding and erosion of its historic oak forest at an area called Scott's Bluff at the river's edge. The virtual reality depiction of this scenario includes two different futures, one with moderate flooding and the other with severe flooding. The early sections of the virtual experience take the viewer through a section of Scott's Bluff which includes mowed lawn, a large sculpture, and gravesites. The visualization of this section of the site was fairly straightforward and without debate. However, as the visualization continued towards the more wild edge of the riverbank, there was an increased level of debate about the biophysical and sensory aspects of the visualization. For instance, there was some difference of opinion about the current and future level of damage to the oak forest, as well as significant dialogue about the amount of light that would come through the diminished tree canopy. There were also differences of opinion about the ideal use of audio, with some participants preferring background noise of a simple river, and other participants wanting to include audio of wildlife in scenarios depicting a healthier tree canopy.

The differences in opinion that arose during these debates reflected the varying priorities and expertise of the stakeholders involved. Scientists, focused on ecological accuracy, often prioritized data-driven representations of the forest's health and future, highlighting factors such as disease progression and the regeneration capacity of the oak forest. In contrast, local community members were more concerned with the sensory and emotional experience of the landscape, debating how much of the forest’s aesthetic should be preserved in the visualization. For them, issues like the amount of light filtering through the diminished tree canopy were important for conveying how these changes might impact local recreational use and community identity. Meanwhile, environmental advocates pushed for a depiction that underscored the broader ecological impacts, including the role of biodiversity and wildlife in forest recovery. These diverse perspectives ultimately shaped the visualization process, though the final product did not resolve all differences. Rather, the process served as an important moment of dialogue, highlighting the need to balance ecological realities with the cultural and emotional connections people have to the landscape. The process also highlighted the ways that visualization can bring vast areas of expertise together for shared dialogue. Several stakeholders noted that the visualizations served to act as a universal communication tool between constituents to reveal areas where opinions differed. This highlighted the instrumental nature of graphics in bringing up important topics that otherwise might not have surfaced through writing or discussion alone.

Video 3. Virtual reality experience at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, showing erosion and loss of heritage oak trees due to water level rise of the Mississippi River.
Figure 3. College student at Southern University experiencing the virtual reality environment.
A person wearing a virtual reality headset and holding a controller in each hand turns their head and raises both arms to the side. They are in a classroom with rows of chairs and a projection screen on the wall.

While some of the virtual forests depict potential future scenarios, others directly connect to real-world landscape design, planning, and environmental stewardship projects. The visualizations created for these purposes allow their creators to convey the significance of their active project work. This is especially important for environmental projects involving tree planting which can take decades to fully develop and mature, where science-informed visualizations about the project's intended character can stand in for eventual photographs of the actual project site. In one example, the team created visualizations of a riverbed that had recently undergone reforestation efforts to show the growth of the replanted forest 15 years into the future (Figures 4 and 5). The project partners voiced appreciation for the way that these visualizations supported their communication and advocacy about the project.

Figure 4. Visualization of a reforestation site before planting.
Photograph of clumps of tall grasses with patches of sand. There are trees and blue sky in the background.
Figure 5. Visualization of the same reforestation site shown 15 years into the future.
Photograph of a paved path leading through a variety of low plantings dotted with trees.

DISCOVERY

Throughout the project, our collaborative team has made significant findings concerning both methods and outcomes. We observe that the degree of realism in our virtual forest visualizations plays a crucial role in viewers' ability to fully engage with simulated forest scenes. By meticulously incorporating scientifically precise visual and auditory elements, including details like bark texture, leaves, soil and water dynamics, light, and sound, we create immersive experiences that deeply resonate with our audience. Our collaborative approach facilitates the collection of input from diverse partners, which we then synthesize into a concise yet impactful narrative. This allows us to strike a balance between scientific accuracy and intuitive comprehension, producing visualizations that communicate the character and experience of the virtual forest under different management scenarios.

We are continually discovering the forms that our community partnerships can take. In some cases we work directly with the public, yet it is more common to reach communities through a network of partnerships. One example is an existing relationship we have with a national conservation organization, who in turn work with the foresters who communicate directly with landowners. Another example is a relationship we have with a national forestry association and an industry partner, who have connected us with community leaders who work directly with community members. A third example is our efforts to create content for hosted media libraries and websites which are accessed directly by the general public.

Figure 6. Elementary school child experiencing the virtual forest in a community engagement session.
A child wearing a virtual reality headset and holding a controller smiles. She is standing with another child in a bright room with wood floors.
Figure 7. Forestry professional experiencing the virtual forest at a community demonstration session.
A person wearing a virtual reality headset and a nametag raises her arms. The headset is connected with a wire to a screen with an image of a forest. Behind her on a white wall there are sticky notes in a post-up.

REFLECTION

The project significantly advances the missions and benefits the work of all partners involved. By effectively communicating the principles and benefits of sustainable forest management, our project empowers communities to engage in meaningful dialogue and make informed decisions to support a more sustainable future. The project enhances the work of forest scientists, landscape architects, communications staff, and local advocacy agencies by fostering increased awareness of sustainable forest management in a manner that is engaging and approachable, helping to reduce barriers to widespread adoption and implementation of such practices. By bridging the gap between science, design, and narrative storytelling, we facilitate a deeper appreciation and understanding of the interconnectedness between forests, climate change mitigation, and community well-being.

Working across different disciplines has influenced how each contributor has shared their expertise by evolving each individual’s approach to problem-solving and communication. By engaging in exchange of ideas between scientific and artistic disciplines through a co-creative process, contributors have been able to reshape their perspectives on their own work and that of others, developing ways of thinking holistically and finding new and unique solutions that they would not have encountered by working solely within their own discipline. As a result, collaborators have expanded their understanding of their own disciplines while discovering new ways that their own bodies of work are interconnected with that of others.

REFERENCES

Ackerman, A., Cooper, L., Volk, T., Malmsheimer, B., Esch, E., Gadoth-Goodman, D., & Constantineau, S. (2022). Virtual reality visualization of sustainable management practices for forest carbon and climate change. Journal of Digital Landscape Architecture 7, 392-401.

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Frost, S., Kannis-Dymand, L., Schaffer, V., Millear, P., Allen, A., Stallman, H., Mason, J., Wood, A., & Atkinson-Nolte, J. (2022). Virtual immersion in nature and psychological well-being: A systematic literature review. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 80, 101765.

Harrington, M. (2020, August). Augmented and virtual reality application design for immersive learning research using virtual nature: Making knowledge beautiful and accessible with information fidelity. In Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques Conference Talks (pp. 1-2).

Harrington, M. C., Bledsoe, Z., Jones, C., Miller, J., & Pring, T. (2021). Designing a virtual arboretum as an immersive, multimodal, interactive, data visualization virtual field trip. Multimodal Technologies and Interaction, 5(4), 18.

Huang, J., Lucash, M. S., Scheller, R. M., & Klippel, A. (2021). Walking through the forests of the future: Using data-driven virtual reality to visualize forests under climate change. International Journal Of Geographical Information Science, 35(6), 1155-1178.

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Nitoslawski, S. A., Wong‐Stevens, K., Steenberg, J. W. N., Witherspoon, K., Nesbitt, L., & Konijnendijk van den Bosch, C. C. (2021). The digital forest: Mapping a decade of knowledge on technological applications for forest ecosystems. Earth's Future, 9(8), e2021EF002123. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021EF002123.

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Contributors

Aidan Ackerman: Conceptualization, Methodology, Production - Technical, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing
Daphna Gadoth-Goodman: Conceptualization, Formal Analysis, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Writing – original draft
Emily Esch: Conceptualization, Methodology, Production - Technical, Visualization, Writing – review & editing
Robert Malmscheimer: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Project administration, Writing – review & editing
Timothy Volk: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Project administration, Resources
Sara Constantineau: Production - Technical Visualization
Lauren Cooper: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Project administration, Resources, Supervision

Roles

Conceptualization: Aidan Ackerman, Daphna Gadoth-Goodman, Emily Esch, Robert Malmscheimer, Timothy Volk,, Lauren Cooper.
Methodology: Aidan Ackerman, Daphna Gadoth-Goodman, Emily Esch, Robert Malmscheimer,, Timothy Volk.
Production - Technical: Aidan Ackerman, Emily Esch,, Sara Constantineau.
Visualization: Aidan Ackerman, Emily Esch,, Sara Constantineau.
Writing – original draft: Aidan Ackerman, Daphna Gadoth-Goodman.
Writing – review & editing: Aidan Ackerman, Emily Esch,, Robert Malmscheimer.
Formal Analysis: Daphna Gadoth-Goodman.
Funding acquisition: Daphna Gadoth-Goodman, Robert Malmscheimer, Timothy Volk,, Lauren Cooper.
Project administration: Daphna Gadoth-Goodman, Robert Malmscheimer, Timothy Volk,, Lauren Cooper.
Resources: Daphna Gadoth-Goodman, Timothy Volk,, Lauren Cooper.
Supervision: Lauren Cooper.
denotes by-line credit.

Ongoing

Since February 2020

Website:

Project Site

Sites and Institutes

SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry
Michigan State University

Keywords

Landscape Virtual Reality Virtual Collaboration Digital Art Community Collaboration Art And Science Integration Environment Climate Sustainability

Disciplines

Ecology Landscape Architecture Communication Sustainability Forestry Digital And Immersive Media

Views

120 views

Collection

Creating Knowledge in Common

Collection Indexing Tags

#Action Research #Placemaking #Intermediary #Reproducibility #Capacity building #Representation