Urban Modelling

Building geometry, urban morphology and local climate are crucial aspects to optimize the energy performance of buildings at neighborhoods scale. In addition, urban form is a key parameter in modifying solar availability in densely built-up areas. This paper explores relationships between urban form and energy performance with implications for solar energy production on building roofs. This study investigated six neighborhoods of Turin (Italy) analyzing the urban morphology and the solar potential, taking into account the urban block typologies found across the city. From the energy simulations-made with the use of an urban-scale energy model-it has been found that in densely urban context, the optimal shape of the building-with low energy consumption and high solar energy production-must have a surface-to-volume ratio that varies between 0.37 m 2 /m 3 for favorable orientated buildings and 0.35 m 2 /m 3 for unfavorable oriented ones. These results could help in the design phase of new neighborhoods or in the reuse of existing buildings and empty spaces to promote the transition to low-carbon energy.

Sustainable urban development and the liveability of a city are increasingly important issues in the context of land use planning and infrastructure management. In recent years, the promotion of sustainable urban development in Australia and overseas is facing various physical, socio-economic and environmental challenges. These challenges and problems arise due to lack of capability of local governments in accommodating the needs of the population and economy,(ie land supply, employment distribution, open space, ...

This paper presents a comprehensive procedural 3D modelling solution called Virtual City Maker, which relies on scripting algorithms for automatic generation of photorealistic virtual urban content. This solution uses the combination of aerial images, terrestrial photographic input and 2D ground maps in conjunction with a user-friendly customized interface allowing for automatically and interactively generating accurate georeferenced textured 3D virtual city content from this information, specially optimized for use with mobile devices and navigation. The paper also discusses the development and introduction of an innovative mobile virtual reality visualisation engine operating on a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant), called Virtual Navigator, which supports the import of 3D visualization file formats and also includes a front-end user-centered interface for fully immersive virtual 3D navigation. Finally, experiments with the resulting models, the engine and a number of human subjects have been conducted in order to gain insight on the issues of efficient modelling for mobile navigation but also assess some of the usability issues of the interface.

Abstract: This paper focuses on a new,definition of urbanization trends by investigating the concept of a fuzzy urban boundary,(UB) that assigns different membership,levels to urbanized aggregates based on a proposed,composite,index. The research work,builds on this logic to investigate a new,approach,in defining urbanized areas by compounding,the characteristics of the fuzzy density of an urban agglomeration,with land use variation and intensity of

The paper presents the development of a configurational model for the identification and analysis of what has been called "weak heritage", and its application on Valparaíso. The main objective of the paper is to contribute to the methods currently under development aimed at representing a person's visual field in the environment in an objective and automatic way. Nevertheless it chooses to test the new tools in a very special place: a city built in an abrupt topography that has been listed by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, and in doing so it also aims at clarifying the "weak heritage" concept. Weak heritage, also known as "modest heritage" refers to those aspects of a city that, while not related to monumental buildings or spaces, are nevertheless responsible for a large part of its identity and quality. The weak heritage concept presents a paradox from its very definition: how to protect and give boundaries to something that is defined as dif...

Sustainable urban development and the liveability of a city are increasingly important issues in the context of land use planning and infrastructure management. In recent years, the promotion of sustainable urban development in Australia and overseas is facing various physical, socio-economic and environmental challenges. These challenges and problems arise due to lack of capability of local governments in accommodating the needs of the population and economy,(ie land supply, employment distribution, open space, ...

Continual, historical, and spatio-temporal information about the land use and land cover (LULC) changes of theEarth’s surface is extremely important for any kind of sustainable development program, in which LULC serves as one of the major input criteria. This study explores the combined application of remote sensing, supervised classification and change detection techniques for the mapping and analysis of urban growth in the south western part of the Kolkata Metropolitan Area. The study is based on the thirty-five year time series data set which has been compiled from the Landsat series of data from the year 1980 to 2015. Supervised classification method has been applied to scrutinize the trends and pattern of land use in the southern fringes of Kolkata city. Four LULC categories were identified and mapped because these are the major land cover features of the area. Change detection method with change detection matrix has been applied for analyzing the spatio temporal changes of land use pattern of Budge Budge municipality which is one of the smallest municipality in the south western fringe of Kolkata city. This study reveals that substantial growth of built-up areas in the south western part of Kolkata over the study period resulted in significant decrease in the area of water bodies or wetland, cultivated land, vegetation and fallow land. This urban land transformation has been largely driven by huge population growth and economic and infrastructural development of the area.

The paper presents the development of a configurational model for the identification and analysis of what has been called "weak heritage", and its application on Valparaíso. The main objective of the paper is to contribute to the methods currently under development aimed at representing a person's visual field in the environment in an objective and automatic way. Nevertheless it chooses to test the new tools in a very special place: a city built in an abrupt topography that has been listed by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, and in doing so it also aims at clarifying the "weak heritage" concept. Weak heritage, also known as "modest heritage" refers to those aspects of a city that, while not related to monumental buildings or spaces, are nevertheless responsible for a large part of its identity and quality. The weak heritage concept presents a paradox from its very definition: how to protect and give boundaries to something that is defined as dif...

The paper presents the development of a configurational model for the identification and analysis of what has been called “weak heritage”, and its application on Valparaiso. The main objective of the paper is to contribute to the methods currently under development aimed at representing a person’s visual field in the environment in an objective and automatic way. Nevertheless it chooses to test the new tools in a very special place: a city built in an abrupt topography that has been listed by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, and in doing so it also aims at clarifying the “weak heritage” concept. Weak heritage, also known as “modest heritage” refers to those aspects of a city that, while not related to monumental buildings or spaces, are nevertheless responsible for a large part of its identity and quality. The weak heritage concept presents a paradox from its very definition: how to protect and give boundaries to something that is defined as diffuse and ambiguous. The research s...

To bridge the gaps between traditional mesoscale modelling and microscale modelling, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, in collaboration with other agencies and research groups, has developed an integrated urban modelling system coupled to the weather research and forecasting (WRF) model as a community tool to address urban environmental issues. The core of this WRF/urban modelling system consists of the following:(1) three methods with different degrees of freedom to parameterize urban ...

To bridge the gaps between traditional mesoscale modelling and microscale modelling, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, in collaboration with other agencies and research groups, has developed an integrated urban modelling system coupled to the weather research and forecasting (WRF) model as a community tool to address urban environmental issues. The core of this WRF/urban modelling system consists of the following:(1) three methods with different degrees of freedom to parameterize urban ...

Urban spatial structure and mobility patterns co-evolve. A fundamental process that underpins the emergent structure of cities and commuting patterns is location choice with respect to housing and employment. Consequently , location choice models constitute important sub-components of land use-and-transport-interaction (LUTI) and urban growth models. This paper documents the development and application of the Metropolitan Location and Mobility Patterns Simulator (METLOMP-SIM). METLOMP-SIM is a geospatial agent-based model that simulates how urban structure and travel patterns co-emerge, as a function of the location decisions of heterogeneous households and individuals within a spatially-explicit urban context. After specifying a generic conceptual model that identifies the model's structure, entities and agents' decision-making framework, METLOMP-SIM is implemented using the Kumasi Metropolis in Ghana, Sub-Saharan Africa as case study. Overall, the implemented model demonstrates that the encoded micro-scale behaviour of households and individuals are able to mimic some macro-scale residential and job location patterns, and patterns of homework trip flows that closely match patterns in the case study metropolis. The current model represents property and job market dynamics in both their 'formal' and 'informal' manifestations, making it potentially relevant to dynamic, agent-based LUTI model development and applications in Sub-Saharan African cities.

Abstract: Cities throughout the world are currently experiencing increased levels of urbanisation resulting in pressure for densification. Questions about the impact on mental health and general liveability are being raised in response to very dense developments proposed in many cities including Melbourne, Australia. In some cases, high density towers in close proximity are proposed with anticipated ‘views’ facing directly into other residential towers. Though not a problem for ‘off-the-plan’ investors, ongoing users may be impacted, potentially not able see water, any form of vegetation or even glimpse the sky.
As city densities increase, ‘view-quality’ becomes increasingly important. There is a growing need for tools which can quantify how much water, sky or vegetation can be seen from each dwelling to assess and guide the form of development.
This paper explores a new analysis and design approach which perverts light simulation modelling within animation and game production software, combined with Java based raster image-processing software ImageJ, to calculate the quality of view from within buildings at a precinct scale.
This approach results in the quantification of view-quality based on visual access to these specific elements either separately or simultaneously. The approach can weight view elements depending on preference using different weighting.  Existing urban morphology can be assessed, as can potential urban form of proposed developments. 
The approach could be used by urban designers and planners when setting up precinct design guidelines to respond to the ‘visual amenity’ aspect of liveability; by architects and developers during design process; by mental health researchers exploring benefits of water, vegetation and sky views. The approach also has potential for application at ground level in assessing the visual amenity of streets as a contributing factor of walkability.

Building geometry, urban morphology and local climate are crucial aspects to optimize the energy performance of buildings at neighborhoods scale. In addition, urban form is a key parameter in modifying solar availability in densely built-up areas. This paper explores relationships between urban form and energy performance with implications for solar energy production on building roofs. This study investigated six neighborhoods of Turin (Italy) analyzing the urban morphology and the solar potential, taking into account the urban block typologies found across the city. From the energy simulations-made with the use of an urban-scale energy model-it has been found that in densely urban context, the optimal shape of the building-with low energy consumption and high solar energy production-must have a surface-to-volume ratio that varies between 0.37 m 2 /m 3 for favorable orientated buildings and 0.35 m 2 /m 3 for unfavorable oriented ones. These results could help in the design phase of new neighborhoods or in the reuse of existing buildings and empty spaces to promote the transition to low-carbon energy.

How and why do houses densify over time? What is the impact of that growth and what kind of constraints affect their potential to change? This research explores built form change and densification, providing historical evidence from the incremental transformation of a 19th-century housing scheme, Cité Ouvrière, in Mulhouse, eastern France. This granular longitudinal morphological study uses historical planning applications and images to map the external volumetric transformations of 1253 single-family houses over a 165-year period. The research combines archival work with three-dimensional (3D) architectural modelling and an advanced density method to record, visualise, analyse and evaluate the densification process at the microlevel. Statistical computing traces the densification process and the Spacematrix tool analyses the impact on open space consumption for different building typologies and for the neighbourhood as a whole. The results highlight seven types of transformations, affected by seven drivers of physical change. Densification is manifested either through built intensification or plot union/subdivision, and its degree is determined by the extent to which non-built space is consumed. These depend on socioeconomic, legal and physical constraints imposed by the original design.

In this paper we present the general-purpose simulation infrastructure MAGI, with features and computational strategies particularly relevant for strongly geo-spatially oriented simulations. Its main characteristics are (1) a comprehensive approach to geosimulation modelling, with a flexible underlying meta-model formally generalising a variety of types of models, both from the cellular automata and from the agent-based family of models, (2) tight interoperability between GIS and the modelling environment, (3) computationally efficiency and (4) user-friendliness. Both raster and vector representation of simulated entities are allowed and managed with efficiency, which is obtained through the integration of a geometry engine implementing a core set of operations on spatial data through robust geometric algorithms, and an efficient spatial indexing strategy for moving agents. We furthermore present three test-case applications to discuss its efficiency, to present a standard operational modelling workflow within the simulation environment and to briefly illustrate its look-and-feel.

The present investigation describes a method for sampling bidirectional reflectance information from multiangular airborne images. The method uses high resolution surface models in the determination of the location of the imaged point on the ground and in the image, and finally the orientation of the measured surface fragment. Two test sites were imaged with a wide range of azimuth angles