Real time 3d rendering navigation

Question

I have no idea at all about the 3D Visualization ,and i want to create an application ,the application idea depends totally on the 3D structure .

I'll do my best to clarify my question to avoid considering it vague .

The main goal of my application is the (navigation) part in 3D environment .I want to upload maps of a specific area and the application allow to guide the user to its destination.(real time 3d rendering).

The application should work on kiosk ,smart phones and on web.(multiple platforms).

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The following video clarify what i want to do exactly :

3D wayfinder

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Now I want to know a start point to begin without reinventing the wheel,if there are some frameworks should i learn about first?

I'm a.net developer(asp.net) and i begin to learn CMS (Joomla),so it 'll be great to find APIs or frameworks near to this area to achieve my goal as soon as possible.

Answer 1

From requirements you specified, I would like to advice to look at Unity3D.

1. Unity3D will help to develop application which will work on almost all major platforms including kiosk, smart phones and on web.
2. You can develop using C# language which should be familiar to you.
3. There are number of projects which aims similar goal as rendering 3D map. There are "Google Maps for Unity" plugin and I can advise to look at Displaying Maps in Unity3D post.
4. Unity can be integrated to Joomla if necessary

Answer 2

Another option would be to build the front-end of the app using HTML5 and do the 3D using Three.js http://threejs.org/

Your back-end could serve up the map and navigation data to the front-end and you render everything in the browser or in your HTML5 smartphone app. If you need to update information in your visualization or load a new location dynamically, this can be done with a simple AJAX call and your callback would add the new info into your Three.js scene.