Providing EO and GNSS based 3D virtual reality planning tools for tourists & local authorities for their maintenance and preservation activities in Nature Reserves and National Parks in South Africa. 

A total of 8.9 million tourists came to South Africa in 2015. Tourists are particularly attracted by the abundant flora and fauna, and outstanding beauty of the Cape region, where nature reserves and national parks offer numerous recreational outdoor activities. CapeOutdoors3D addresses the increasing number of tech-savvy tourists that plan their activities on mobile devices by conceptualising a 3D virtual-reality planning tool for outdoor activities. 3D maps make searching for recreational and tourist information a fun online experience.

Users broadly span two categories: the tourism industry (both operators and tourists) and the administrative protected area management, operating within South Africa’s national parks and nature reserves.

The proposed service combines the space assets Satellite Navigation and Earth Observation, with Copernicus data as the fundamentals for interactive 3D maps. Sentinel-2 imagery and a Digital Surface Model (DSM) are used for 3D visualisation. The integration of very high resolution data for some nature reserves and protected areas can be achieved depending on their availability. The interactive 3D maps flawlessly work landscapes into lifelike scenes, rendering the maps convincingly realistic. Destination information is provided directly to the mobile device with full GNSS  functionality, allowing for on-site orientation and position-tracking.