Between the Poles

MEST 2009: Locating Underground Infrastructure in Bahrain

Today at MEST 2009, I had the opportunity to see a system for maintaining a single database containing all underground infrastructure in Bahrain.  A single repository for all underground facilities is something that is only possible in a very few places in the world such as Tokyo and other Japanese cities, Sarajevo, Calgary, and Edmonton, which are the ones I am aware of.  The system I saw is the Intelligent Decision Support System (iDSS) of the Ministry of Works and it was shown to me by Mr. Abbas Ally, Head of Central Planning Engineering in the Central Planning Office (CPO).

The Bahrain underground infrastructure system is unique for several reasons.

One Database of All Underground Infrastructure

According to Mr. Abbas the location of all underground infrastructure in Bahrain is stored in a single Oracle Spatial RDBMS.

• electricity including transmission, distribution, and street lighting,
• water including transmission and distribution,
• wastewater including storm, road, sanitary, and combined
• telecommunications

Stewardship

The source databases are maintained by the respective owners, water and electricity by the Water and Electricity Authority, telecommunications by Batelco, and wastewater by the Ministry of Works.  iDSS has several layers of security, using OS and Oracle security, that determines who can see what, and who can update what.

Frequent Updates

The intention is for each operational database to be replicated to the iDSS database, which means that the iDSS database will be as up-to-date as the source databases are, though this capability does not appear to be functional at the present time.  In the short time that I have been here I haven't been able to determine how reliable the individual source databases, electricity, water, wastewater, and telecommunications, are.

Excavation Requests

Anyone proposing to add to or make a change to undergound infrastructure is required to complete a Proposal Request, essentially a building permit.  The request is forwarded electronically to all of the participating utilities, who are required to review and respond to the request within three days.  Utilities who don't respond within three days are assumed to have approved the request.  In 2008 over 7,000 requests were processed.

Voluntary

Accordng to Mr. Abbas, participation in iDSS is voluntary, but all utilities and Batelco are participating.  Mr. Abbas explained that the primary reason that all the utility and telecommunications companies have agreed to participate is the business benefits they see resulting from participation.  Given the amount of money utilities and telcos in North America spend on locating underground facilities in response to Call-Before-You-Dig and One-Call centers requests, I expect the business benefits to the individual utilities are considerable.

Map Asia 2009: What Governments Can Do to Facilitate Digital Cities

After Dan Campbell's presentation at Map Asia yesterday, there was a lively discussion moderated by Sank-Ki Hong of Anyang University in Korea.

Lies, Damn Lies and Visualizations

One of Dan Campbell's main points was that 3D could dramatically improve communications with the non-technical public and politicians, for example, about the impacts of a proposed project or a new zoning by-law.  However, he cautioned that it could also be misused. To make his point he paraphrased Benjamin Disraeli, there are lies, damn lies, and visualizations.  Jon Fairall of Asian Surveying and Mapping carried this one step further and, not entirely tongue in cheek I suspect, asked Dan to help him better understand how to lie with visualizations.

Government Regulation and Digital Cities

Digital signatures

In the discussion one of the things that came up was what is government's role in the development of digital city models.  To put this context it is important to know what the Government of Singapore has done in this regard, because Singapore is leading the world in making the building permitting process more efficient.  I am beholden to Ho Chow Jin for much of this information.

Digital signatures are legal in Sinagpore.  In many jurisidictions around the world, engineering and architectural drawings submitted to a muncipal government require a signature or signatures of a licensed professional engineer (P.E.), in ink on a piece of paper.  Making digital signatures legal requires government legislation.

Electronic submissions

Digital submissions are mandatory in Singapore.  Singapore's e-submission system means that when making a submission for a building permit, you have to submit DWG, DGN, DXF, DWF, or PDF files.  Adrian Patrick Lim of the Urban Redevelopment Authority explained that the process of moving to electronic submissions began a decade ago and took about four years to complete. 

The organization responsible for building permits in Singapore is the Building and Construction Authority (BCA).  When a submission is received, it is reviewed by 16 government agencies, but BCA has the final authority to grant or reject the submission or ask for clarifications or modification.

BIM

Currently, e-submission requires 2D drawings with layers defined according to a BCA standard.  Underway is support for e-submission of building information models (BIM).  Right now I believe that you can submit architectural BIMs.  Support for submitting structural BIMs is in progress, while e-submission of MEP BIMs will be starting later in the year.

In the case of Singapore the objective of mandatory e-submission appears to be  efficiency, reducing the time and effort required to review submissions.  In fact, Singapore has been aiming for some time to automate as much as possible the review process and seems to be optimistic that BIM will help make automation practical.

Governments need to follow Singapore's lead and 1) support e-submission and 2) encourage the submission of model-based designs such as BIMs.  I have come across jurisdictions in North America that are encouraging e-submissions by promising faster response times for digital submissions.

Map Asia 2009: Developing Digital Infrastructure for 3D Urban Modeling - Vancouver’s Experience

Dan Campbell of the City of Vancouver gave an outstanding presentation to a standing-room only crowd at Map Asia 2009 in Singapore yesterday on Vancouver's 3D city model.

History

Dan has been involved with the development of the Vancouver 3D city model for over 15 years.  One of the important messages for a town or city interested in developing a 3D model is that models grow incrementally, much like cities and towns grow.  The Vancouver model started as a hardcopy model in the 1980's, became a Drafix 3D model, then an AutoCAD city model in the 1990's.  The City first used Autodesk VIZ to visualize it,and then moved to 3ds Max .  Now in addition to AutoCAD and 3ds Max, they are using Sketchup and Pictometry EFS.

In the future they expect to integrate building information models (BIM) and LandXplorer, which have the potential to make 3D urban models more intelligent and more accessible to the public.

Business Drivers: Some examples

The Shaw Tower is one of the highest buildings in Vancouver.  When the building was proposed, there was concern about the building being high enough to interfere with harbour air traffic.  A model of the building was added to the Vancouver 3D city model to verify that the building was not a risk to float plane traffic.

Vancouver is located very close to coastal mountains and is one of the most scenic cities in the world and Vancouverites want to keep it that way.  To do this Vancouver has developed bylaws that define and protect what are called view cones. For example, the view cone bylaws protects views of Grouse Mountain and the Lions from various locations in the city.  If you're a developer planning a building in Vancouer, you have to make sure your building does not project into any of these view cones.  Defining and ensuring compliance with the view cone bylaws is much easier to do with a 3D model.

3D as a Communication Medium

One of the most insightful points Dan made was in comparing 2D and 3D as a communication medium. It is much easier for the non-technical citizen, councilman, or mayor, to grasp the implications of a proposed project from a 3D simulation than from hundreds of 2D maps and engineering drawings. The corollary is that it is harder work for the city planner to prepare a 3D simulation than 2D maps or drawings, though Dan hopes that with tools like LandXplorer, this will become easier. 

Digital Cities and BIM, CAD, Geospatial, and 3D Convergence

In the July/August 2009 edition of Geoconnexion International there is an article by Tracey Stone that outlines the impact that CAD, BIM, GIS, and 3D convergence is having on city planning and management.  She includes an overview of some of the results achieved in the Autodesk Digital Cities pilot at the City of Salzburg, Austria.

Modeling Buildings, Infrastructure and Geography

There's an interesting article by Neil Brooker about how different technologies including model-driven design, GIS, and 3D visualization developed in the gaming world in coalescing to create a more holistic view of the cities where more than 50% of the World's population now lives.   Neil's point is that althought the integration of building, infrastructure and geographic models won’t solve every global challenge we face today, "it could help create more appealing, practical and safer cities for the future. In short, the type of city we’d all like to live and work in rather than spend our time trying to escape from."

Chat about Vancouver Digital Cities Initative with Greg Hebert of CFRA's Business@Night

I chatted with Greg Hebert of CFRA's Business@Night about the pilots that Autodesk has initiated in Vancouver, British Columbia; Incheon, Korea and Salzburg, Austria last night.  You can find the MP3 of the conversation here. 

3D Urban Modeling Is Becoming More Accessible

If you are interested in how accessible 3D urban modelling is becoming, you might want to read a recently published article in GIS Development which walks you through the kinds of things that are now available in a very accessible form to people who might have feared that this was much too complicated or expensive to attempt.

Autodesk Announces Vancouver as Third Digital Cities Pilot

Autodesk has announced that Vancouver has been chosen as a pilot for its digital cities initiative, which focuses on applying digital 3D urban modeling technology to helping cities plan future development, increase the sustainability of urban environments, and make it easier for citizens to get involved in the development of their communities by integrating architectural, engineering, and geospatial/GIS data with transporation, utility and communications networks into intelligent 3D models.

Vancouver is the third digital city pilot announced by Autodesk.  The two other pilot cities announced by Autodesk are Salzburg, Austria and Incheon, Korea.

Vancouver is known for applying geospatial technology to improve communications with its citizens.  The best known example is VanMap, a web-based application that provides access to view corridors, street names, property lines, zoning information, and locations of sewer and water mains.  To give you a feel for what you can find on VanMap, some of the things that have been recently made available on VanMap are

• Orthophotos
• Voting divisions and voting places
• Vancouver School Board French Immersion School Catchment Areas
• Poster Cylinders - places where someone can legally put posters on City property.
• Neighbourhood Integrated Service Team (NIST) area boundaries - NIST is a City program supporting neighbourhoods.
• Property identifiers (PID) from the Land Titles Office - clicking on these displays a report on the property
• Traffic Counts - displays automated traffic count information as well as manual traffic counts.

Vancouver is the site of the 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics.

Making Sustainable Cities Real

There is an interesting article in Imaging Notes that discusses the evolution of sustainable cities as a government objective in the US starting with President Clinton establishing the President's Council on Sustainable Development (PCSD) in June 1993.  We have just passed the point where over half of the world's population lives in cities, and given the sheer impact this many people in urban areas have, city governments are realizing the importance of making cities sustainable. According to the article, 600 mayors from across the United States and Puerto Rico in 2007 signed the U.S. Conference of Mayors' Climate Protection Agreement, committing to reducing CO₂ emissions by 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. As of December 2008, a total of 910 mayors have signed up to this agreement.

I remember reading last year that Chamblee, Georgia had passed a municipal ordinance requiring all private development 20,000 square feet or greater to become  LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified. The ordinance also applies to future municipal buildings regardless of size. And I've just read that Doraville became the second city in Georgia to mandate LEED certification.

(Images of Portland courtesy of NC3D.com)

Official 3D Model of Berlin Available on Google Earth

Monday, Harald Wolf, Senator for Economics, Technology and Women's Issues and Mayor of Berlin presented a virtual 3D model of the entire city available on Google Earth , including some 890 km² and 500,000 buildings.  It was developed over the past two years by a team of developers from 3D-Geo, now part of Autodesk, and includes 80 highlights that have been modelled in detail including inside, such as the Reichstag, Museum Island, Olympic Stadium, Sony Center, and the Central Station.  The model is intended to make Berlin more attractive for conventions and trade fairs, contribute to commerce, and help with urban planning.  It even has the route of the infamous Berlin Wall which was removed in 1989.

Two years ago Berlin was the first city in Germany to make available a photorealistic 3D model on Google Earth.  Over the past two years aerial overflight data together with laser scan data have been linked with business data.  For example, the locations of the music industry has been integrated into the model as well as the location of available commercial property.

Interestingly, this model is neither a commercial model nor based on commercially available 3D models, but rather its development was supported by the Berlin Senate Department for Urban Development, the Senate Department for Economics, Technology and Women and the Berlin Partner GmbH.