An Integrated Database to Support Collaborative Urban Planning: The N-Dimensional Modeling Approach

Abstract

Urban planning is a complicated process that includes several participants. The acceptance and the development of a new proposal require close collaboration among these parties. Collaborative virtual urban planning provides great opportunities to support cooperative work among geographically separated participants. Recent advances in the computer technology now provide chance to carry out the planning process collaboratively. This paper presents the n-Dimensional (nD) modeling approach to support collaborative working in the urban planning process. The paper argues that an integrated urban database, which brings together various data sets, is needed to support the collaborative urban planning process. The paper will present conceptual models being developed to represent GIS data, building data and various kinds of environmental simulation data in the nD database. Early experiences in using these data models to develop an nD modeling database to support environmental simulations will also be discussed.

Keywords: Urban planning, computer technology, GIS data, environmental simulations.