Status

Completed

Project Team

(Please see side panel)

Description

The Visual Planning Technology Lab is exploring new dimensions in planning. In a joint research effort, the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, the Visual Planning Technology Lab, and the School of Architecture combined the power of surface modeling tools with the planning and database functionality of GIS software. This pilot project was called "InFORMed City".

FAU faculty and graduate students built a nine-block 3-D computer model of a section of Downtown Fort Lauderdale and unlike surface only 3-D models, this GIS enabled model has data attached to each feature that can be queried and analyzed. The project was highlighted in ESRI's Jan-March 2007 edition of "ArcUser" trade magazine: Interoperable Three-Dimensional GIS.

Applications for such technology include: city planning, transportation planning, community participation, real estate development, disaster planning, and homeland security.