At Lands End

C40 Large Cities Climate Summit

I just wrapped up attending the C40 Large Cities Climate Summit as a guest of the Carbon Disclosure Project, an important group that we sponsor and partner with.

• CDP Cities and their 1^st year report was showcased on the mainstage by Mayor Bloomberg and others; a mention of CDP Cities was one of the last mentions of the closing ceremonies today
• 800 attendees including executive-level delegates from 70 globally recognized cities including New York City, Austin, Toronto, Berlin, Sao Paulo, Johannesburg, Yokohama, Taipei, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Portland, and many more
• Intense discussions about Infrastructure and Urban Planning related to what Mayors do or do not control; good discussions of:
  • Mass transit and transportation solutions (focus on BRT, rail, bike) – Example, Santiago Chile is building 100s of km of paved, marked bike trails through the city and an additional 40km of subway lines or more in the near future
  • Urban greening (trees, green corridors)
  • Infrastructure risks from climate change (water contamination, storm sewer flooding, erosion)
  • Smart Grid for Water and Electric
  • Building retrofit and roof whitening (NYC has 1.6B sq ft of roof space with only a few percent whitened)
• City of Melbourne, Australia had a good talk about Access to Data and Smart Grid and actually presented a 3D model of the city and discussed GIS and Planning and the need for 3D modeling for information sharing

The summit was an amazing glimpse into the activities of some of the world's leading cities in the fight against climate change.  There's clearly been a lot of good activity, but there's a long road to go.  Hopefully our solutions can help pave the way.

To 3D or not to 3D?

Hi folks,

Sorry it's been a few weeks.  Busy time around here in the saltworks.

Over the last couple of years, I've become convinced that 3D for geospatial applications is neither a fantasy nor impossible nor a gimmick.  Working on LandXplorer and now Project Galileo and all the great customer feedback that we receive have demonstrated to me that most users actually expect that 3D will simply be a ubiquitous technology available to geospatial, civil, and architectural applications, becoming better and better integrated across domains over time.

What are the infrastructure-related workflows that you think are most relevant to visualization and analysis in 3D?  When would you like to see transition between 2D and 3D?

I had an article published on the topic today. I'd be interested in your feedback either there or here.

Thanks!

 

GeoDesign Summit 2011 Takeaways

I previously posted about presenting at this month's GeoDesign Summit 2011, hosted by ESRI at their great campus in Redlands, CA.  I am very grateful to have been given the opportunity to present to the group who was in attendance and to participate in the workshops that were offered.  The other speakers were fantastic both in complexity and diversity of problems that they are solving and solutions that they are using.

In comparison to the 2010 conference, I would say that this year's conference was somewhat subdued.  The first year presenters emphasized the criticality of the problems that we face as a civilization. Dean Thomas Fisher, UMn, gave a startling talk on our civilization as a Fracture Critical System that I'll never forget. The 2010 conference was the first time that I saw systematic recognition by a cross functional group that we have transformed from a society that inhabits and adapts to space on the planet to one that fundamentally changes and shapes the planet and the space around us.

This year, much of the emphasis changed to tools.  There were even a couple of groups that referred to their "geodesign tools" or "their tools for geodesign." I also saw a tremendous focus on the bridge between Architecture and GIS, whereas in 2010, the discussions seemed more to embrace not only those two disciplines, but also engineering, construction, and even consumerism.  Clearly, influencing the environmental and social impact of increasing urbanism is one important component in guiding us toward a more sustainable society.  Next year, I hope to see more treatment of other systemic problems that GIS and engineering technologies address and which are other parts of this story.

For the talks, I was really impressed with some of the following:

• Danielle Cummings from Texas A&M gave a great talk on ground breaking research into gestural sketch interfaces
• Constance Bodurow, Laurence Technological University and Studio(Ci), gave a great talk about a 3D workflow with Google Earth, SketchUp, and ESRI products that showed how her group uses 3D GIS to examine social and environmental issues in Detroit
• Chris Pike from the US Green Building Council reminded me that professionals in many adjacent fields to ours still don't appreciate the opportunity and power of even basic GIS tools.  I'm glad his group is getting it.
• I was happy to see Carsten Roensdorf, OS and OGC, presenting on CityGML
• The programmer in me is always happy to see someone like Stephen Ervin, Harvard, educating the masses about OOP
• Kimon Onuma gave an interesting demo of crowdsourced Urban Planning that was good for demoing the potential interoperability of Revit and GIS tools
• Stuart Rich, Penobscot Bay Media, worked with ESRI to give a really compelling demo of using GIS for solving spatial problems using detailed internal floorplans for buildings.

 ... and there were many more great talks.

Some other key takeaways that I had were:

• Continued focus on Planning, GIS-BIM, Sketching, Collaboration, 3D, decision systems 
• My Galileo presentation was well received... at least I got some great questions after it!

(I've posted a narrated version of my talk, though note that the GeoDesign committee plans to post all of the live talks.)

• General desire by the customers in attendance for better interop between GIS and engineering software vendors  
• Concept of “Geography of Buildings” – Interesting trend to explore, analyze, and even determine the layout and form of interior and exterior buildings starting with external geospatial and environmental factors
• BIM-to-GIS discussion focused on strong need for interoperability, increase in demand for facilities applications of BIM and GIS data, desire to figure out how to move BIM into operations workflow, views on BIM/GIS data for use in other systems

 

 

 

 

Where are my GIS attributes? (part 2)

Last week, I submitted a post on how to create a new model with custom attribution and categories.  I wanted to get out something that you could use to get started.  At the time, I was unable to revise the part of the schema XML file that allows you to add categories and pretty names to make your new attributes and classes appear more attractive in the interface.

Now let's take a look at a new version of sample Galileo schema definition XML file that I've updated to add some more descriptive categories and attribute names.  There are two major types of changes that I've made.

The first change was to insert new <Item> elements in the <Display> section that represent the new classes that I might use for categorizing assets according to whether buildings will be in my study area or whether they will not.

(Click to enlarge images.)

Then I add additional <Item> elements further down the <Display> section that are used to add descriptive names to the new custom attributes that I defined and that assign the attributes to a category. Note that the "priority" attribute identifies the display order of the attributes in the interface (lowest to highest).

After I create a new model with the revised schema, you can see that the display of the new attributes in the attribute mapping interface is now a bit more user friendly:

 

The new building classes are now individually categorized in the Model Explorer:

Also, you see that the Property Inspector now has a more descriptive representation of the attributes:

This completes the process for adding in custom classes and attributes.  I hope you've found this helpful!

Where are my GIS attributes? (part 1)

One of our Technical Specialists posed a great question to me this week:  

"Where are my GIS attributes?"

If you have played with Autodesk Project Galileo, then you know by now that you can import all sorts of GIS, 3D model and even LandXML data to create an infrastructure model.  Galileo creates a cool model with some great tools for changing the appearance and even sketching data... but every time the schema for the attribute data behind the model is the same!

To get you this technology preview, we had to make some choices about what we would deliver first.  We focused on experience, import, and look-and-feel.   We also managed to squeeze in a few extras, such as the ability to change the schema of a model when you first create it!  (At the moment you are not able to change the schema of a model after it is created.)

When you select File-->New or click the icon to create a new model on the startup page, you see a dialog box in which you have the option to select a schema mapping file for the new model.  We use a simple XML Schema document to structure the classes and some of the attributes of the model schema.  

How to do it

The first thing that you'll need is a sample schema file.   I've attached a sample xml file (alx_schema.alxst) and included the XSD document in case it is useful to you.

When you open the alx_schema.alxst file in a text editor, you'll see something like this:

(Hint: Click to enlarge images in this post.)

In the highlighted section, you can create custom Classes (groups of the same asset type) with their own attributes.  In this example, I'm going to do a carbon footprint visualization so I've created a custom type of BUILDINGS called C_STUDY_BUILDINGS and another type called NON_STUDY_BUILDINGS.  The C_STUDY_BUILDINGS class has custom attributes, but the NON_STUDY_BUILDINGS class will use the default attributes.

I then launch Project Galileo and create a new file.  In the "New City" dialog, I have the option to load my custom schema:

An empty model is created and now I can import data.

I import a simple building footprints data set and I see my two buildings classes in my class definition:

I pick C_STUDY_BUILDINGS because the imported dataset has my carbon analysis attributes.

During the mapping step, I can see my new attributes and map fields into them from the incoming FDO data set:

I map fields appropriately and then I click "Finish" and my data are imported.

Now is the fun part.  As I poke around the interface, I can see that my new classes appear in the Model Explorer:

My custom attributes appear in the properties inspector:

(Note that had I been a little smarter, I would have added the attributes into the <DISPLAY> section of the schema XML file and I would have had a prettier title and order than "Empty.")

And I can even do things like set up subsets and highlight colors in the Model Explorer to begin to do visual analysis with my custom attributes.

So... To answer the question... That is where the GIS attributes went.

 

Hello from the 2011 GeoDesign Summit in Redlands, CA

This week I'm spending some serious quality time with a variety of industry experts who are helping to define and expand a budding field called GeoDesign.  

GeoDesign has several definitions, but the one I like best is by Mike Flaxman at MIT:

    Geodesign is a design and planning method which tightly couples the creation of design proposals with impact simulations informed by geographic contexts

I like to think of GeoDesign as the entire planning and conceptual design process that precedes detailed design, although I would add that there is a moralistic element to the definition as well.  Many of the GeoDesign community members recognize that a major point for better problem solving in this area is to  combat global climate change and to optimize the economic, social, and environmental performance of our impacts on the planet.

What I'm seeing this week is many topics that are worth taking a look at within the Autodesk community.  These include:

• The use of planning and conceptual design output through the detailed design and into the operations and maintenance stages of the asset life cycle
• The preponderance of groups beginning to look at the modeling of 3D volumes for internal building space (floors and rooms) within what could be called "3D GIS"... or in some cases... BIM-Lite
• Sketching in 3D and sketched symbol recognition (really cool)
• Rapid ability to share know-how by posting reusable workflows to the web (very good ESRI demo)
• Tighter integration between the Infrastructure and Buildings community
• What role Infrastructure, GIS, and BIM will or should play in Facility Management solutions (there seems to be HIGH demand for solutions in this space)
• Driving more analysis into the workflow to derive more value from data... it's not just about the graphics

Perhaps most validating has been many snippets of information that show that we're on the right track with Galileo. 3D city scenes appeared in most of the talks I saw today.  There has been sketching, collaborative workflows, 3D above and below ground, GIS and BIM integration... yet I clearly see a relevant role for Galileo in the midst of the workflows and other tools that are being discussed here this week.

Maybe Autodesk should host this Summit next year?

I speak tomorrow...wish me luck!

Autodesk Sponsors Carbon Disclosure Project Cities Program

“We are delighted to work with the Carbon Disclosure Project to assist in developing a standardized reporting platform for climate change-related information.  Autodesk’s design software will help city managers better understand their existing assets, allowing planners to develop strategy for improving the urban environment.”   ---Jay Bhatt

Global Cities to Report Carbon Emissions with Help from Autodesk

Cities, businesses, and citizens require better information about climate change and its impacts on the urban environment to plan and act more sustainably. Now, thanks in part to Autodesk’s lead sponsorship of the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) Cities program, Cities around the world will be able to report on carbon emissions and strategies for dealing with climate change.

As lead sponsor, Autodesk is providing subject matter expertise with respect to sustainable design for geospatial, civil infrastructure, and architecture. In return, we will play an important role in the creation of the annual survey as well as have access to the findings.  Autodesk will benefit greatly from access to the market information that CDP Cities will collect as the program grows over the next few years.

About the CDP Cities Program

The CDP Cities initiative provides a single platform for cities to report on emissions data and compare their climate change strategies and risks with those reported by other cities. CDP Cities has the support of major cities around the world, including the C40 group whose membership includes New York, London, Sao Paulo and Toronto.  

To learn more about this exciting partnership read the press release that went out earlier this week, visit the Carbon Disclosure Project website, or check out the Autodesk CDP website. 

Editor's note: Guess which team is driving the sponsorship from inside Autodesk? :)

500,000 ROOFS FULL OF ENERGY...

...this is the head line in the press release from the city of Berlin regarding their solar atlas based on the existing 3D city model. This new invention gives a perfect idea of how sustainable information can be shared in a visual appealing and understandable manner on a city wide scale.

“The Solar Atlas functions as follows: It takes just a few mouse clicks on the online three-dimensional model of the city to find out both whether a particular roof is suitable for the installation of solar panels and how much solar power they are capable of generating. Buildings are no longer represented in their actual height, but rather assigned a height relative to their solar potential.” (press release Berlin)

 

 www.businesslocationcenter.de

Here are the links to the Google Earth 3D Model, the 3D Solar Atlas and the 2D Solar Atlas.

As the model has been created with LandXplorer Studio Pro the Google Earth model is the output of the Landxplorer Publisher a free tool integrated in the LandXplorer Studio setup. The 2D Solar Atlas is based on MapGuide. The work has been done by virtulacitySYSTEMS one of our LandXplorer partners.