Why 3D Modeling Will Play a Huge Role in Tackling Rapid Urbanization

The above image, which looks like a modern-day Thomas Cole painting of the Seattle skyline, in fact was grabbed from a three-dimensional model of the city that has datasets embedded in it. These datasets reflect everything from the downtown’s geological terrain, to its road networks, building heights and flight paths above them. So this image imperceptibly contains much of what a city planner would need to know to begin to model the energy use of all those skyscrapers, or the wind dynamics of a summer storm passing between them, or the effects throughout town of a cataclysmic earthquake.

The first generation of 3D models of cities were used as visual tools for illustrating ideas, like how a new building might alter a skyline. “This prompted the idea that OK, we’re using it only for visual impacts, but what if we used it more for design purposes?” says Jay Mezher, who worked on the Seattle model for the engineering and construction firm Parsons Brinckerhoff. 3D simulations of cities have the potential to help engineers and planners anticipate natural disasters and population growth, and to better plan for them in a way that goes far beyond rendering cityscapes as if they were in a video game.