02/10/2016

CityInformationModeling:AECbytesFeature
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CityInformationModeling
AECbytesFeature(September22,2016)

Nowthatbuildinginformationmodeling(BIM)hasbeenfirmlyestablishedintheAECindustryfor
thedesign,construction,andoperationofindividual buildings, and infrastructure modeling (also
referred to as BIM for infrastructure) is starting to gain some traction for the design,
construction,andoperationofinfrastructure(seetheAECbytesarchivedarticle,Extending BIM
toInfrastructure),wearealsoseeingsomemovementtowardsapplyingtheintelligent modeling
concept to the next broader level of human habitation, the city. While there is no agreedupon
terminology yet to refer to the concept of modeling cities, we will refer to it here as city
informationmodelingorCIM.
The basic idea of CIM is to have an intelligent (or smart) city model, similar to how we have
intelligent models for buildings and for infrastructure that contain detailed information about the
entities in the model and the relationships between them. Just as these intelligent models can
beusedtodesignandbuildbuildingsandinfrastructuremoreefficientlyandeffectively,similarly,
an intelligent city model could potentially be used by city planners and urban designers to plan
out a city more efficiently and effectively. Also, just as the BIM model of a building has the
necessary information about it to enable analysis and simulation, likewise, a CIM model could
enable citywide simulation of various aspects such as traffic, congestion, energy, impact of
naturaldisasterssuchasearthquakesorhurricanes,floodcontrol,etc.
WhilewearestillalongwayofffromhavingsuchCIMmodelsavailableforourcities,thereare
various technology initiatives in this direction that seem promising, some of which are
highlighted in this article. Before looking at these, however, lets look at how CIM is different
fromtheconceptofSmartCitiesthatweareincreasinglystartingtohearmoreandmoreabout.

CIMandSmartCities
Whiletherearemanyideasaboutwhatmakesacitysmart,the overall vision is more or less
the samebetter planned, more connected, and more livable cities. There are an increasing
number of Smart Cities initiatives all over the world, most of which are driven by local, state,
andnationalgovernments.NotableexamplesincludeSingapore,AmsterdamintheNetherlands,
Barcelona in Spain, Stockholm in Sweden, and Manchester in the UK. There is even an entire
Smart Cities Mission project in India which aims to develop 100 cities all over the country to
make them citizenfriendly and sustainable. And in the US, earlier this year, the Department of
Transportation (DOT) organized a Smart City Challenge competition which was won by
Columbus, Ohio, for its vision of the future of an American city with a fully integrated, forward
lookingtransportationnetwork(Figure1).

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Figure1.TheUSDOTSmartCityChallengecompetitionheldearlierthisyear.Thesevencitieshighlightedin
themapwereselectedasthefinalists,withtheeventualwinnerbeingColumbus,Ohio.(Courtesy:USDOT)

There are also an increasing number of Smart Cities conferences being held every year,
including global events such as the Smart City Expo World Congress which was launched in
2011andwhichisheldeveryyearinBarcelonatheWorldCitiesSummitconferenceheldevery
twoyearsinSingapore,withthe2016eventjustconcludedinJulyandtheNew Cities Summit
whichisheldinadifferentcountryeveryyear,withthe2016eventheldinMontral,Canada,in
June. Then there are also countryspecific events such as the annual Britain's Smart Cities
conference, the Smart Cities Week in Washington DC, and the Via Expo Smart Cities
Exhibitions and Conference for SouthEast Europe coming up in Sofia, Bulgaria. While it is
terrifictoseesomuchinterestandactivityinimprovingthelivingconditionsandstateoftheart
ofourcitiesworkthatisabsolutelynecessaryandmustbedonewhatwearereferringtowith
CIMisalittlelessambitious:developingatechnologytocreateinformationrichcityinformation
models that can assist in the planning, design, and analysis of different aspects of our cities.
This, while smart cities involve so much more than technologysuch as policy, politics,
governance,etc.CIMisfocusedpurelyonacomponentofthetechnologythatwillmakesmart
cities happena critical piece no doubt, but one that has to work in conjunction with other
technologiessuchasbigdata,IoT(InternetofThings),realtimemonitoringof sensors, and so
on.

CIMSolutions
It is not surprising that some of the leading vendors of BIM applications for the AEC industry,
particularly those also developing BIM for infrastructure such as Autodesk and Bentley, are
slowlybutsurelyexpandingtheirtechnologyrepertoiretoCIM.Autodeskhasalreadymadegreat
strides in developing an intelligent modeling tool for infrastructure design, InfraWorks (see my
Viewpointarticle,WhyIsn'tThereaSmarterBIMToolforBuildingDesign,Yet?),anditisalso
positioningitasatoolforsomelevelofcitymodeling.Forexample,fortheUSDOTSmartCity
Challenge competition mentioned earlier, Autodesk provided the finalist cities, including the
winner, with complimentary access to its InfraWorks 360 software, including training and
technical support, to help define their vision for the competition (see Figure 2). InfraWorks was
also used to develop a sustainable city strategy for Washington DC in a case study last year
(Figure3).

Figure2.TheuseofInfraWorksincreatingamodelofdowntownColumbusfortheSmartCityChallenge
competition.(Courtesy:Autodesk,HNTB)

Figure3.3DmodelofWashingtonDCcreatedusingInfraWorksforstudyingsustainabledesignstrategies
forthecity.(Courtesy:Autodesk)

Bentley,whichhasalwaysbeenstrongontheinfrastructurefront(itsannualconferenceiscalled
Year in Infrastructure), actually has a formal 3D Cities Solution which provides an integrated
above and belowground information model of the city comprising the built environment and
utility infrastructure. The solution comprises several Bentley solutions including its core BIM
application, AECOsim Building Designer several of its map and GIS applications including

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Bentley Map, InRoads, and GEOPAK point cloud solutions such as Descartes and Pointools
itsstandardprojectmanagementandcoordinationtoolssuchasProjectWiseandNavigatorand
themostrecentadditionstoitsprojectportfolio,ContextCaptureandLumenRT(describedin the
articleBentley'sYearinInfrastructure2015Conference).BentleysCIMsolutionshavealready
been widely used in largescale city modeling projects in Montreal, Helsinki, and in Londons
Crossrailproject.Amorerecentexampleistheirusefortheproductionof3Dmapdataandthe
citymodelforthecityofSingapore(Figure4).

Figure4.3DmodelofSingaporecreatedusingBentleysCIMproducts.(Courtesy:Bentley)

In addition to these solutions from BIM vendors, there are also CIMspecific solutions being
developed which have the advantage of being designed for city modeling to begin with rather
than extending existing modeling solutions for buildings and infrastructure. These solutions are
closely integrated with GIS technology such as CityGML, which is an open data model and
XMLbased format for the storage and exchange of virtual 3D city models, and the
corresponding3DCityDatabase,afreegeodatabasetostore,represent,andmanagevirtual3D
city models on top of a standard spatial relational database. Examples of these CIMspecific
solutionvendorsincludevirtualcitySYSTEMS,whichdevelopsasuiteofproductsforcollecting,
managing, distributing and using 3D city and landscape models (see Figure 5) and Cityzenith,
which develops a webbased SaaS platform called 5D Smart City that integrates publicly
available city, county, and federal data about a city with data from IoT devices, social media
data, maps, models, etc., to help cities monitor water, energy, WiFi coverage and utilities, as
wellasunderstandsocialtrends,politicalsentiment,trafficpatterns,andfinancialmetrics.

Figure5.3DcitymodelofBerlincreatedbyvirtualcitySYSTEMSiscurrentlytheworldslargesturbanspatial
database,withamappedareaof900squarekilometers.(Courtesy:virtualcitySYSTEMS)

Additionally, there are also some vendors developing solutions focused primarily on visualizing
city models such as SmarterBetterCities, based in Switzerland, which develops an online
platformcalledCloudCitiesforhosting,sharingandvisualizingsmart3Dcitymodels(Figure6)
CyberCity3D,basedintheUS,whichhaslauncheda3DSmartCitiesmappingplatformtohelp
municipalauthoritiesandplannersvisualizetheirtownsandcitiesin3D,including existing and

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future city plans, proposed developments and schemes (Figure 7) and Agency9, based in
Sweden, which develops a navigable 3D city visualization solution for urban planning called
CityPlanner(Figure8).

Figure6.TheCloudCitiesplatformforvisualizingcitymodels,evenonmobiledevices.(Courtesy:
SmarterBetterCities)

Figure7.3DmodelofLondonontheCyberCity3Dplatform.(Courtesy:CyberCity3D)

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Figure8.CityPlannermodelofMalm,thethirdlargestcityinSweden.(Courtesy:Agency9)

Conclusions
The concept of having an intelligent city information model to design, create, and operate our
cities is extremely exciting, and even more is the idea of how far we can go. Once we have
made substantial progress in the domain of CIMassuming we have mastered information
modelingforbuildingsandinfrastructurefirstitisconceivabletoimagineinformationmodeling
for increasingly higher level geographic entities such as entire countries, then continents, then
even the entire planet! And if mankind has moved on to inhabit other planets by then, why not
planetinformationmodeling?
Ofcourse,westillhavealottodoevenwithBIM,letalone,infrastructureandcitymodeling.We
havejustexploredthetipoftheiceberg in this article. Subsequent articles devoted to CIM will
take a deeper dive into related technologies such as maps, GIS, and CityGML, and how they
need to come together to create intelligent city models that can be analyzed and simulated in
real time to continuously improve the health, safety, and wellbeing of the people who live in
them.

AbouttheAuthor
Lachmi Khemlani is founder and editor of AECbytes. She has a Ph.D. in Architecture from UC
Berkeley,specializinginintelligentbuildingmodeling,andconsultsandwritesonAECtechnology.
Shecanbereachedatlachmi@aecbytes.com.

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