Virtual urban — A scientific tool and platform for urban research

Virtual reality is one of the earliest dreams human owns; nowadays, people are still making further research and attempts in this field and accumulating a lot. Virtual urban is one formation of virtual reality, researches were making experiments of urban on the platform of virtual urban through construction of all kinds of urban models. These experiments not only offered incredible simulation effects, but also provided a scientific platform for studying urban rules, which could be further applied in urban management, spatial planning and so on. This paper briefly summarized the developments of virtual reality and virtual urban, it focused on the core for virtual urban research-urban model. In the end, these papers summarized the advantages and disadvantages of urban models, and look into the future trends of virtual urban.