London in time | A London's Evolution Animation

The Roman Road network 410AC, as a floating layer over contemporary London in 3D. 

How did London become what it is today? How did it evolve and why? It is widely known that London is a historical city. One that has been inhabited for over 1500 years. What most people don't know however, is that the greatest preserved feature of the city, is the road network itself. Unlike other historical cities such as Athens or Rome where there is an obvious patchwork of areas of different periods, London's scheduled sites and listed buildings are individual structures, in many cases assembled gradually by parts from many different periods. Those who tried to locate different historic structures will know that these features appear as pieces of different puzzles, scattered within the vast fabric of the contemporary city. What has been preserved, and what will we preserve in the future?

The London Evolution Animation (LEA) was developed by The Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (UCL), as a partnership project between English Heritage, The Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction (University of Cambridge)/Dr Kiril Stanilov and Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) (with the Mapping London and Locating London's Past projects), and was initiated and directed by Polly Hudson (PHD).

The London Evolution Animation for the first time, brings together and shows the historical development of London from Roman times to today, through the evolution of the road network and preserved structures of the built environment. The information is categorized by periods and the new road segments appear gradually over an image of the faded contemporary London. For each period, gradually enlarging yellow points highlight the position and number of statutorily protected buildings and structures. Datasets cover London's 19,000 Listed Buildings and 156 Scheduled Monuments which are categorized by period (listed date) and integrated into the animation. LEA brings together datasets provided by English Heritage’s National Heritage List for England, MOLAS, University of Cambridge -Dr. Kiril Stanilov and Ordnance Survey. Originally, LEA was meant to be developed fully in 3D, which is an ongoing project.

The animation was part of the "Almost Lost" Exhibition and aims to create awareness of the importance of preservation of the city's past and provide a reflection for the future. The exhibition included several digital exhibits from the Centre of Advanced Spatial Analysis, such as the popular Pigeon Sim and the Bloomsbury Augmented Reality Application, which allows visitors to view a 3D fully interactive model of the area's historic periods, using their iPad.

A series of digital pictures showcase the what if scenarios of developments in London that were never realized, while 3D animations of London's history of the built environment explain more about the city's architectural heritage.

The exhibition is found online in Polly's Hudson Almost Lost online and its a great showcase of London's historic wealth. Further information on the Animation, a historical overview and on the production of the video can also be found in Polly's Hudson website.


List of References:

A. Paolo Masucci, Kiril Stanilov and Michael Batty (2013) The growth of London's street network in its dual representation http://www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/casa/publications/working-paper-189

CASA UCL: http://www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/casa

MOLA: http://www.museumoflondonarchaeology.org.uk/NewsProjects/Current-News/LondonEvolutionAnimation.htm

Cambridge: http://www-smartinfrastructure.eng.cam.ac.uk/

English Heritage: http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/

TweetCity: Building London using Real time feeds and CityEngine

As part of our time here in CASA UCL, Stephan Hugel and I, developed a simple tool to capture and visualize live tweet feeds and project them onto the actual form of the built environment.

The application uses the Twitter API, and visualizes results in 3D, similarly to the known London Twitter map by UrbanTick, developed using the data collector created by Steven Gray, in an attempt to create a new urban landscape.

This work is a first attempt to bring real-time data feeds directly into 3D GIS and 3D cities and visualize them using a different view. As Stephan wrote: "What if London's buildings grew according to the amount of data they generate?". There is currently a big emphasis on BIM and data management, with a clear focus on sustainability and social infrastructure. However, there is very little information on how and if this process affects the way the built environment grows and evolves.

Of course this project does not aim to address such questions, but to demonstrate new ways of augmenting already existing spatial data. The application was built entirely in ESRI's CityEngine, as it offers a range of 3D visualization techniques which relate to the urban environment. CityEngine allows the generation of forms using simple "rules". In this case, the project collects real-time tweet feeds, aggregates them by a custom discrete zone system and by default, visualizes them as building heights. CityEngine provides the key-advantage of  allowing the automatic storing of spatially geolocated data directly on a shapefile, augmenting GIS with live information and update the visualization real-time. That is why this application, can work with different basemaps, such as a land use map, wards, or even roads.  At the moment, the script stores the number of total tweets for any discrete zone and keeps track of time and date.

For example, if the user wants to know how many tweets will fall in the area of Hyde Park for a specific period of time, he will only have to import an outline of the park in the scene of CityEngine and adjust the values appropriately. The rules that generate geometry are independent of the Information System, a feature which according to my opinion is one of the main advantages of CityEngine, as is allows the customization of different visualizations.

Use of different Basemaps to represent real-time twitter activity - Greater London - 1 km Grid zones. 

Here is a little video preview, while thanks to Stephan you can download the full script along with instructions and samples from GitHub.
Works with CityEngine, download trial version here.

Developing classical and contemporary models in ESRI's City Engine- CASA Working Paper 191

ESRI's City Engine not only is a great urban generator, but it also provides the ideal approach for turning the 3D virtual city into an urban modelling tool. Procedural modelling visualizes the results of mathematical models on a 3D Environment and simulate the changes real-time, providing all the necessary features for testing the consequences of Urban modelling theories onto the physical form of the urban environment.


I am very excited to have this first paper published in the CASA UCL webpage.

Abstract:

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 full paper and other publications by CASA from here


This paper presents work conducted within the context of the MRes in Advanced Spatial Analysis and Visualization. Supervisor professor: Dr. Andrew Hudson Smith.


I will soon publish a brief tutorial.

A London Network Analysis using City Engine

I thought i might try a very quick network analysis of central London using the new City Engine Graph analysis tool and the OS road network. In City Engine, Graph networks can be analyzed by computing global integration, local integration and inbetween centrality. Global integration refers to the sum of shortests paths between each road segment and all other selected segments. In short, this tool calculates all shortest paths between street segments, while the cost fuction takes into account the angles between segments. In this case i' m using automated settings, but even so, the graph tool identifies key features of London's street network such as the high values of Global integration on Oxford Street, which are highlighted red.

3D Paris - An Interactive approach

image source: obey magazine

3D Paris is an interactive application designed for IPad and following Recce, it aims in bringing the 3D city closer to the user. The viewer can wander in the streets of Paris of 1829, learn about the evolution of the city, or enjoy an aerial view of the city from the top floor of the Eiffel tower.

In this application the city itself becomes the object of interest, creating a bridge between the broader public and urban history. Virtual reality and the interactive approaches of gaming are being applied on the actual form of the city and that makes me wonder of how long till we see interactive city planning.

In any case, watching something like this makes me anticipate for an application narrating the history of Athens, the Parthenon and the Ancient Agora. I am looking forward to chatting with the ancient philosophers instead of kinect's (now cancelled) "Milo"...

Experience 3D Paris in your browser at:
http://paris.3ds.com/#Patrimoine

for more images:

Interactive AR urban planning - Attractive City Generator

Attractive City Generator, is a part of a research program in Zyrich, created by Sofia Georgakopoulou, Edyta Augustynowicz, Stefanie Sixt and Dimitri Demin. " The idea behind it, is to explore urban design methodologies, based on object oriented programming." It is very interesting how this project brings closer the idea of public participation in urban design , since it communicates very successfully basic urban planning principles. The idea of using augmented reality for interactive urban planing models seams very promising for the designers as well. Real time location suitability and many other types of analysis, can be performed in 3d, helping decision making and evaluation. It is certainty a step in making 3d virtual reality something more than iconic modelling.