VDI merged video game technologies with 3D models to provide users with interactive 3D simulated tours of downtown Ottawa showing what a proposed light rapid transit (LRT) system would look like.

Movie viewing is passive: you have to watch the movie the way the moviemaker wants you to see it. In a 3D environment, you can place yourself on the corner of Albert and Kent to see what the LRT would look like from your storefront. Or, you can "fly" up to your 10th floor office to see what the LRT looks like from there.

Producing real-time 3D simulations to run smoothly on regular computers has its challenges. We cannot produce the same degree of visual detail as can be obtained in a movie where each frame is rendered out separately on more powerful computers. The movie shown below was captured from a real-time interactive tour.