Visualization of New York pre-settlement ecology in 1609

The Manhatta Project explored the ecology of today`s area of New York for the pre-settlement time in 1609. Their research shows that 55 different ecosystem types existed in the area. With the help of GIS, the ecosystems and habitat relationships were reconstructed and finally visualized (with “Hollywood technology”). In the following video, landscape ecologist Eric Sanderson explains in detail how his team worked on the Manhatta Project. He finishes his remarkable talk with an outlook how to vision the city of the future now.

Thanks to Kristi for drawing my attention to this great example of landscape visualization, based on landscape ecology.

REAL CORP 2010: CITIES FOR EVERYONE: Liveable, Healthy, Prosper /// 18-20 May 2010, Vienna / Austria

CITIES FOR EVERYONE: Liveable, Healthy, Prosper
Promising vision or unrealistic phantasy?
The role of Urban Planning and Urban Technologies on the path towards improved Quality of Live, Health, Sustainability and Prosperity in our Cities

will be the topic of

REAL CORP 2010 – 15th International Conference on Urban Planning, Regional Development and Information Society

in

Vienna / Austria from 18 – 20 May 2010,
www.corp.at

The CALL FOR PAPERS is open until December 23rd 2009 (abstract, approx. 1000 characters; full paper until Feb. 28th).

______________________________________-

CITIES FOR EVERYONE: Liveable, Healthy, Prosper!
Promising Vision or Unrealistic Phantasy?

Cities are places of competition, stress, inequalities, traffic jams, environmental stresses and strains and permanent struggle.
Cities often are an aggressive environment, not only for children, the elderly and the weak.

But even more then that cities are the centers of economy, culture, creativity, science and innovation and therefore provide the best perspectives and biggest chances for many people—CITIES ARE ATTRACTIVE!
Meanwhile more then 50 percent of world population lives in cities, soon it will be about 70 percent.

REAL CORP 2010 asks for CITIES FOR EVERYONE, that are LIVEABLE, HEALTHY and PROSPER!
Is this a promising vision we should work on or is it an unrealistic fantasy? Is it possible to keep and even improve the advantages of cities and reduce the negative effects? Or does the one require the other?

What are the possibilities and contributions of URBAN PLANNING and REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT?
And where can ICT, URBAN-, TRANSPORT- and ENVIRONMENTAL TECHNOLOGIES help to improve quality of live, health, sustainability and prosperity in cities.

Some of the major aspects and questions to be dealt with and on which we invite you for high-quality paper submissions are:

· Examples and Visions of „Liveable Cities for Everyone“

· Keeping Balance: Managing Complex Urban Infrastructures

· Housing and Real Estate perspectives, High-Tech & Low-Cost Housing

· Perspectives for Future Transport and Mobility

· Re-mixing the Urban Fabric, Future Housing and Working Environs

· Urban and Environmental Technologies to improve Quality of Life

· Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) in the Urban Context

· Healthy Cities / Health in Cities

· Safety and Security vs. Privacy and Total Surveillance

· Data, Information and Knowledge Infrastructures for Planning, Management and Decision Support

· Understanding Cities: Tools and Technologies to support Decision Makers, Citizens and Experts in their Understanding of Cities

As REAL CORP 2010 is co-organized with ISOCARP, the International Society of City and Regional Planners (www.isocarp.org) and REAL VIENNA, the CEE/SEE-focused Real Estate and Investment fair (www.realvienna.at), it is an explicit goal to enhance the experts-dialogue between Real Estate Business, Urban Planning and Technology Providers.

There will also be a buisness-exhibition and possibilities to present companies and products – if interested please contact us per email at office@corp.at

REAL CORP 2009
is a joint event and co-organized by

* CEIT ALANOVA – Central European Institute of Technology, Department for Urbanism, Transport, Environment and Information Society ( www.ceit.at),
* CORP association ( www.corp.at)
* ISOCARP, the International Society of City and Regional Planners ( www.isocarp.org)
* REAL VIENNA, the CEE/SEE-focused Real Estate and Investment Fair (www.realvienna.at)

It would be great to welcome you to Vienna in May 2010 as a speaker or participant.
As usual, complete information and latest news is always available on the website

www.corp.at

Symposium of Visualization in Engineering

The following announcement refers to the forthcoming symposium of Visualization in Engineering in Karlsruhe, October 15:

Inhaltlich dreht sich das Symposium um die Kommunikation von Inhalten rund um das Bauwesen mit den Schwerpunkten Wasserbau und Wasserwirtschaft, Straßenbau, Verkehrswegebau, Raumplanung, Landschaftsarchitektur und -planung. Der Fokus des Symposiums liegt im Bereich der Vermittlung komplexer Inhalte mittels Visualisierungstechniken wie zum Beispiel klassische Bildretuschen, Animationen, gemischte Medieninhalte aus Film und Animation, Analysevisualisierungen und Fluidsimulationsvisualisierungen.

Ein besonderes Augenmerk richtet sich auf die Bereiche interaktive Medien, Analysevisualisierungen und neue Trends.

Voraussetzung zur Teilnahme ist die Verwendung von Planungs- oder Analysedaten als Grundlage für die gezeigten Ergebnisse.

Termin: 15.10.2009, Beginn 13:00 Uhr

Website: http://vi.arteng.de/inhalte/veranstaltungen.html

Flyer

Program

Registration (free)

Sketchup Update 7.1

Last week, Google released its Sketchup update 7.1. It`s just an update, but it brings some important improvements for planners, urban designers and landscape architects:

1. The performance of LARGE models was improved

2. From my point of view, dynamic components are one of the most promising new features in Sketchup. Unfortunately, the export of dynamic components was still buggy when they were introduced in Sketchup 7.0 and this bug has now been removed. Expect more news on dynamic components on this blog!

3. Import / Export Collada Files: Most game engines, but also Biosphere3D for example, import buildings as Collada files. Before, you needed modelers such as Cinema4D for Collada export but now you can use Sketchup as well.

4. Import / Export KMZ Files: A long missing step forward to the integration of Sketchup and GoogleEarth

For more details on the Sketchup update 7.1, see http://sketchup.google.com/product/newin7.html

Intergeo 2010

Don’t forget that from September 22 – 24, 2009, Karlsruhe will host the INTERGEO, one of the world leading geoinformation conferences and trade fairs. This year, Biosphere3D is among the presenters and many other new products from the field of GIS can be expected. For more information, please visit www.intergeo.de

Call for Papers: GIS/SIT 2010

From June 16-18, 2010, GIS/SIT 2010, the Swiss forum for geoinformation, will take place at the University of Zurich.

Papers can be submitted electronically at www.gis-sit.ch. Deadline for papers is November 12, 2009.

The same website provides more information on the forum and will provide the detailed program in March 2010. Then, it will be possible to register at the same address online.

Call for Papers: Digital Landscape Architecture 2010

Anhalt University of Applied Sciences in cooperation with the LE:NORTE working group Information Technology

would like to invite you to contribute to the 11th annual conference on new technologies in landscape architecture. Please submit Extended Abstracts (minimum one page, maximum two pages text including key
references and optional additional selected graphics) as pdf file online via a web-based submission system at:

www.landschaftsinformatik.de -> DLA Conference ->
Submission of papers by November 1, 2009

for review and possible inclusion in the program.

The conference language is English.

The conference will be held in Aschersleben at the State Garden Show near the lovely Harz Mountains in Central Germany (www.landesgartenschau-aschersleben.de/)

The conference proceedings are published as fully reviewed papers by Wichmann Verlag, Heidelberg as following: Buhmann/Pietsch/Kretzler (Eds.): Peer Reviewed Proceedings Digital Landscape Architecture 2010,
Anhalt University of Applied Sciences. Wichmann Verlag Heidelberg, Mai

The program committee cordially invites you to submit proposals for original, unpublished presentations focusing on one of the following topics:

– Sustainable Landscape Modeling
– Knowledge based Design and Planning
– Sustainable Landscape Design
– Teaching Digital Landscape Architecture
– Landscape Information Models LIMs
– International Digital Competition Design
– 3+4D Landscape Modeling and Visualization

IMPORTANT DATES FOR THE REVIEW PROCESS ARE:

Abstracts due: November 1, 2009
Notification of acceptance: December 1, 2010
Full manuscript draft due: January 2, 2010
Reviewed manuscript due: February 15, 2010
Conference: May 27 – 29, 2010

Invited Speakers:

Prof. Arno S. Schmid, President German Federal Chamber of Architects (BAK), Berlin, Germany – Keynote
Prof. Dr. Carl Steinitz, Harvard University, USA – Keynote
Prof. Dr. Ian Bishop, University of Melbourne, Australia – Keynote
Prof. Dr. James Palmer, SUNY Syracuse, N.Y., USA – Keynote
Landscape Architect Herbert Dreiseitl, Ueberlingen, Germany – Keynote (req.)
Prof. Dr. Thomas Blaschke, University Salzburg, Austria Keynote
Prof. Dr. Eckart Lange, The University of Sheffield, United Kingdom
Prof. Dr. Joerg Rekittke, National University of Singapore, Singapore
Prof. Dr. Ian Jorgensen, University of Copenhagen, Denmark (req.)
(other keynote speakers will be announced later)

For further information please contact:

Prof. Erich Buhmann
Anhalt University of Applied Sciences / Hochschule Anhalt (FH)
Dep. 1, Forschungsbereich Landschaftsinformatik
Strenzfelder Allee 28, D-06406 Bernburg, Germany
Office: INDIGO PARK, Solbadstrasse 2, Anbau Room 005

Telephone: +49-(0)3471 -355-1116
Digital Fax +49-(0)3471-355-9-1 116
Fax +49-(0)3471-628179

Conference proceedings: atelier.bernburg@t-online.de
Conference organization: la@loel.hs-anhalt.de

Conference Scientific Director: Prof. Erich Buhmann

More info on our series of conferences on digital landscape architecture at http://www.landschaftsinformatik.de

Biosphere3D @ Sourceforge

Biosphere3D is now available at Sourceforge:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/biosphere3d/

Conference Call: ESRI UC 2010

The conference call for the ESRI UC 2010 in San Diego is out. Deadline: October 16, 2009

for more information, please visit http://www.esri.com/events/uc/index.html

ArcGIS Explorer

ArcGIS Explorer
ArcGIS Explorer

ESRI has released a new version of its digital globe “ArcGIS Explorer”. The new version provides an improved interface; enhanced data support including kml/kmz; the opportunity to switch between 2D and 3D; a new presentation mode with titles, pop-ups, layers etc.; new online data libraries; a SDK for customization and plenty of projections to choose from. With the online data, there is also a direct link to BING maps and if some of you remember my previous article on the co-operation between Microsoft and ESRI, this is probably one of its first outcomes.

In the times of GoogleEarth, where is the niche for ArcGIS Explorer? Well, there are some good reasons, why ArcGIS Explorer might be worth a consideration for landscape planners: First, most of us are already working with ArcGIS and the workflow is easier than it is between ArcGIS and GoogleEarth, where you need CommunityViz or other plugins. Particularly, you can add plenty of geodata formats and your own DEM which is not possible in GoogleEarth. Then, the presentation mode is neat for planners who present to the public. And finally, the possibilities to choose a specific projection or even to customize your interface may meet expert needs that GoogleEarth cannot satisfy.