U.S.-China Cooperative Research: Utilizing Three-Dimensional Data in a Virtual Urban Environment to Support and Evaluate Planning Decisions

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0089884ChanThis is a three year cooperative proposal between Dr. Chiu-Shui Chan of Iowa State University and Dr. Suchun Wan of Beijing Polytechnic University to develop an interactive visualization tool for city planners to manage urban growth and for designers to explore planning codes. This project will involve six U.S. researchers, including five faculty members and one student of Iowa State University, and two Chinese scientists, one from the Beijing Polytechnic University and one from the Beijing City Planning and Administration Bureau. They plan to design a tool in virtual reality (VR) environments including a digital city and a set of planning regulations. The user will be able to navigate through the city, select a property lot, determine planning issues, input data, visualize three-dimensional graphic guidelines, and animate surroundings to see the potential impact caused by the context. This project is unique, in that it will develop a tool that can support the inputs of new building designs, can use of the framework of local government building codes in the analysis, and can evaluate designs using aesthetic and functional bases. The project presents a rare collection of expertise across both disciplinary and international boundaries. The tool produced could become a part of the educational "toolkit" for urban design uses by architecture departments and colleges. The results of this project could have substantial impact on teaching and training of future urban planners and architects, and could have significant societal benefit. The Natural Science Foundation of China and the NSF jointly support this project.