Title: Maintainable city models for sustainable development

Authors: Gerhard Navratil; Rizwan Bulbul; Andrew U. Frank

Addresses: Institute of Geoinformation and Cartography, Vienna University of Technology, Gusshausstrasse 27-29/E127, A-1040 Vienna, Austria ' Institute of Geoinformation and Cartography, Vienna University of Technology, Gusshausstrasse 27-29/E127, A-1040 Vienna, Austria; Institute of Geographical Information Systems, University of Sciences and Technology, NUST RIMMS Building, H-12, Islamabad, Pakistan ' Institute of Geoinformation and Cartography, Vienna University of Technology, Gusshausstrasse 27-29/E127, A-1040 Vienna, Austria

Abstract: 3D city models are getting more important as a field of research and business and received an increasing amount of attention from both the scientific community and the professional field. 3D city models are one of the new tools for sustainable city development. Since development questions occur repeatedly, the used city models should be maintainable, i.e. the system should be kept up-to-date and not be created new for each decision. This is a challenge. Creating a model representing the current status of a city has been addressed in research literature. The major challenge is the vast amount of data to be collected, processed and visualised. However, keeping the resulting model up-to-date has not been discussed yet. Updating requires the introduction of a suitable concept of time in the model. This would then allow representing historic and current status of the city as well as future scenarios. Processes provide the connection between different points in time. Processes also change the appearance of the city and need to be represented in the model for change detection. In this paper, we discuss the challenges and show necessary properties for city models and systems maintaining them to reach a reasonable level of maintainability.

Keywords: city models; 3D models; three dimensions; three dimensional; maintainability; data collection; LoD; level of detail; maintainable models; cities; city development; city status; data processing; data visualisation; updating; time; historic status; current status; future scenarios; change detection; sustainable society; sustainable development.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSSOC.2013.052910

International Journal of Sustainable Society, 2013 Vol.5 No.2, pp.97 - 113

Published online: 22 Sep 2014 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article