digital urban

UCL Quad – Procedural City and Lumion

Andy — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 09:24:48 +0000

The Quadrangle at University College London was designed by William Wilkins and constructed between 1827 and 1828. It is a natural building of urban research as its surroundings provide a mix of architectural styles. The 3D model of the quad was built using SketchUp with photos grabbed via a mobile phone – quick and simple.

UCL Quad – Lumion

Regular readers will recognise the model from our previous Elder Scrolls IV Game Engine work. We found the model on an old hard drive for a group of students working on a new UCL project. As such we took the opportunity to load it into Lumion and add it into a future Bloomsbury created using CityEngine. Finally, the falling cubes (CASA branded, home of digital urban) are via 3D Max, linked in from a previous tutorial on Mass FX:

The building is centered on a Corinthian portico, after the completion of University College London Wilkins went to design the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square.

AR Navigation System for Pedestrians – Android App

Andy — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 08:39:24 +0000

Sung-Hyun Jang, one of my Ph.D. students here at CASA, has launched an Android app called AR Navigation System for Pedestrians.

The app is a part of his Ph.D. studies, and is an attempt at visualising geographic information via an augmented reality interface. Specifically, the app provides navigation information via both map interface and an augmented reality interface.

AR Navigation Application

The app was written in Java using the Android SDK, and uses the Google Maps API and the Google Direction API. Going forward, Sung is looking to use the app to research Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and in particular to help him investigate spatial knowledge acquisition.

You can learn more about app at http://www.pinenutapps.com/arnavi/index.html.

The app is available at Google Play. (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pinenutapps.arnavi)

Developing Classical and Contemporary Models in ESRI’s City Engine – CASA Working Paper 191

Andy — Thu, 30 May 2013 18:09:02 +0000

CASA Working Paper 191 – Developing classical and contemporary models in ESRI’s City Engine – is now available to download.

By Flora Roumpani, The Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London:

Abstract

Working Paper 191

In this paper we describe the development of projects which aim to explore the use of procedural modelling as a complete toolkit for building interactive visualizations of urban modelling theories. We will use three case studies, starting with the original von-Thunen model, a generalization of von-Thunen using multiple centres and finally the standard dynamic retail model by Wilson and Harris. We will discuss the advantages and limitations in using ESRI’s City Engine and the use of interactive techniques, to visualize and explore classical and contemporary urban modelling theories, by introducing spatial interaction and spatial dynamics within the simulation of a 3d city. In this framework, we provide a guide for developing urban models to aid better analysis and understanding of the urban environment through 3d urban visualizations, complexity theories and interactive systems.

Download the working paper (8.5Mb pdf)

The full working paper series can be viewed on the main CASA site – http://www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/casa/latest/publications/working-papers

Follow the work behind the working paper at en-topia.blogspot.co.uk

Colours: A Live London Weather Dashboard

Andy — Thu, 23 May 2013 06:05:51 +0000

Here at The Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis we run a Davis Vantage Pro 2 unit with Solar and UV sensors from a rooftop on Tottenham Court Road. The current output is via our live ‘Weather Dials‘ page, which is all singing and dancing, complete with graphs and updates every 2 seconds. Sometimes however there is a need for something simpler, a dashboard style view that changes background colour to a variety of pantone shades according to temperature:

Colours – London Live Weather

Made with a tablet in mind and to hang on a wall, ‘Colours’ is designed to be a simple weather application for London at a glance, data updates every two seconds.

Backgrounds

Thanks go to Ollie from CASA for the background script and the NounProject (Adam Whitcroft) for the icons.

View it live at http://www.casa.ucl.ac.uk/weather/colours.html

500 Words a Day: Academic Writing

Andy — Wed, 22 May 2013 09:53:07 +0000

Its not something many academics admit – but writing is hard, not for all, there are some academics who simply flow words but for many its a challenge. There is nothing worse than the blank page of a Word/LaTeX document, knowing you have 10,000 words to go and only a title or abstract in place. It also depends on your stage in an academic career. Researchers generally have more time during the day to, as the job title suggests, to research and therefore write, lecturers less time (increasingly so) and so on. That said, the ability to do anything else than write the paper/masters thesis/PhD chapter is strong, many academics are excellent in justifying just one more bit of research before they start writing.

500 Words a Day…

If you go through a period of not writing, be it weeks or months, then the guilt as an academic starts to build up, we are meant to write papers as those around will often be only to keen to chip in during conversations. I see it across the board, from professors through to starting out researchers and students leaving the course essay until the last possible minute. There is a need to not only get over the fear of starting a new paper but to also form a pattern to take away the worry that can all too easily build up.

It turns out the answer is easy, who would of thought it, and thanks go to Sir Alan Wilson of CASA who i found sitting typing early one morning, turns out he always aims for:

Write 500 words a day

I am at the stage, as head of department, that my day is not one of research, it is one of almost constant meetings, as such it is rare to find quality time to write. However 500 words is achievable, it can be fitted in between meetings either in one go or in small chunks.

Writing 500 words a day gives you 2,500 a week - 10,000 a month which is easily a PhD chapter, two working papers, or one journal paper.

It may seem obvious, but it is all too easy to complete a long day without having any words on paper and the aim for 500 words a day is not a mountain. It is not the sometimes recommended 1000 words a day that can turn into a slog and all too easily lead to a writers block.

I’ve been doing it for a week – not long I’ll admit – but i have 1 journal article, 1 conference paper and a two book chapters all due soon and it has taken away the worry, and if I’m honest the guilt, of simply doing the day job. I go home knowing i have completed the goal and i therefore see the completion point, its not building up to the senario where I have to write 4000 words in a day.

I would add that if you dont reach 500 words, don’t try to write more the following day, unless it flows. The aim is to get into a pattern, a pattern that is long term.

This blog post is just over 500 words, of course academic writing takes longer but for anyone out there worrying about output/deadlines/work load then i would suggest giving writing 500 words a day a try.

Working Paper – Virtual Cities: Digital Mirrors into a Recursive World

Andy — Tue, 21 May 2013 11:37:17 +0000

We present our working paper entitled ‘Virtual Cities: Digital Mirrors into a Recursive World‘. The paper comes in at approximately 9000 words and explores visualisation in cities ranging from Twitter to Second Life and through to NeoGeography and The Paraverse. The abstract is below, we have added it as new post as the moment we are mid book chapter on ’Smart Cities, Social Networks and the Internet of Things’ and it seemed timely to republish a paper written in 2007 that is still quite useful (although we are obviously biased):

Virtual Cities: Digital Mirrors into a Recursive World

Digital cities are moving well beyond their original conceptions as entities representing the way computers and communications are hard wired into the fabric of the city itself or as being embodied in software so the real city might be manipulated in silico for professional purposes.

As cities have become more ‘computable’, capable of manipulation through their digital content, large areas of social life are migrating to the web, becoming online so-to speak.

Here we focus on the virtual city in software, presenting our speculations about how such cities are moving beyond the desktop to the point where they are rapidly becoming the desktop itself. But a desktop with a difference, a desktop that is part of the web, characterized by a new generation of interactivity between users located at any time in any place.

We first outline the state of the art in virtual city building drawing on the concept of mirror worlds and then comment on the emergence of Web 2.0 and the interactivity that it presumes. We characterize these developments in terms of virtual cities through the virtual world of Second Life, showing how such worlds are moving to the point where serious scientific content and dialogue is characterizing their use often through the metaphor of the city itself.

Download the full paper as a .pdf (1.8Mb).

15,000 Agents: A* Pathfinding

Andy — Tue, 14 May 2013 08:54:11 +0000

Games engines such as Unity are the perfect platform for agent based modelling, they allow a combination of 3D urban cityscapes and navmeshes/grid graphs/point graphs and local avoidance systems. The A* Pathfinding project features an array of techniques for rapid pathfinding or AI development using a low memory footprint.

Agents in Unity

We have only started exploring the possibilites but the results are intriguing, below features a clip of 15,000 agents using local avoidance, the number could be considerably increased using multiple machines:

A* Pathfinding is available in free and pro versions, it is well worth checking out, we have just upgraded to the pro….

Unity Traffic System – City Traffic

Andy — Mon, 13 May 2013 12:05:01 +0000

Creating a sandbox style traffic system in Unity is a challenge. As our previous posts have shown agents can use NavMesh and calculate shortest paths but the hit is high on processing which in turn limits the number of agents in a scene. Sander van der Vegte is a multidisciplinary game developer who for the past 12 years has fortunate enough to make a living creating games, part of his current development process is a city traffic game and thus finding ways for natural behaviour while maintaining a low processing requirment.

Unity City Traffic

The clip below is a recording of an autonomous traffic system. Cars drive around while aware of crossings and other vehicles. When something is blocking their path, they will stop. If it takes too long, they will back up and look for another path, the basic ruleset allows for humorous situations:

Traffic system from Sander van der Vegte on Vimeo.

Within the development the user is able to click on a car to take it over while falling off the edge triggers the random camera again.

It is well worth heading over to http://sandervandervegte.nl/ to view his other projects and to keep up to date on City Traffic.

Police Agent City Ball – Unity/NavMesh and CityEngine

Andy — Wed, 01 May 2013 12:54:17 +0000

The natural conclusion of our recent posts on Unity and CityEngine is of course a physics/navmesh police chase with the agent target being a drag and drop ball.

Police Car Agents in the City

We will release a version next week on the win/mac platforms for those interested – the aim was to explore shortest path modelling of agents in Unity within an urban scene:

The concept was developed as part of our Masters course here in CASA, to explore the development of 3D interactive urban scenes…

Urban Ball – CityEngine, Unity and Agent Based Modelling on the iPad

Andy — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:14:26 +0000

CityEngine combined with Unity and a tablet – iOS requires a developers account, Android simple needs the 30 days Unity trial – allows city wide models to run with a touch based interface.

Urban Ball – CityEngine and Unity on iOS

We have used our recent work on Unity and Agent Based modelling to create a simple app called ‘Urban Ball’. Development time so far is around a couple of days so the route from city modelling through to iOS app is remarkably short. Via some tweaked physics and a touch interface linked to a to a ball (the target) we have a simple agent based model on the iPad.

The movie below shows the app so far:

We have been impressed with the rapid development path using Unity and the ability of the iPad to run city wide models complete with agents. Arguably we have completed a proof of concept here, in the next few weeks we will explore how much further we can go – perhaps to release our first free iPad/Android app….