Author(s)

M. Berger, P. Buš, V. Cristie, A. Kumar

Abstract

The urban space nowadays is considered as an aggregate of large amount of complex characteristics. Information collected by means of urban big data approaches play a crucial role in how to understand, interpret and model urban environments. Simulation models are the best solution for architects, urban planners and designers to integrate various information about urban complexity into the design process. The connection between several simulation approaches within one user interface is still a big challenge to make the design process faster, more accurate and visually convenient. The interface would be involved in the modelling process, pre-processing, simulation, post-processing and visualisation. A CAD integrated user interface is proposed where all these particular components are embedded into one system. The whole process would be based on a workflow loop whereby each component will be depending on the previous cycle. As a case-study of such a principle we establish an extendable modelling and simulation platform connected to a user through the game-engine Unity3D in order to achieve a robust interactive environment. The model platform operates with real urban conditions of an existing part of the city of Singapore and simulates the distribution of traffic’s heat within the investigated environment. Based on the simulation results the user can configure more proper spatial scenarios within the urban plan in different variations. The proposed system would help architects and urban planners to enhance their decision repertoire during the design phase and allows them taking into account more complex information about the urban entirety. The result of the research is therefore a computational decision-making tool with enhanced visual output.

Keywords

CAD integrated urban simulation, urban modelling workflow, simulation-design loop, multi-simulation user interface, simulation integration, UNITY3D engine, interactive urban modelling