Discussion:

Limitations in programming and limited knowledge of Arc Scene and Arc Globe led us to seek results elsewhere. Since we were unable to obtain an acceptable outcome we shifted our analysis to the internet. Investigation and interactive simulation of three dimensional cities is now becoming more commonplace with the emergence of inexpensive virtual reality and ‘Internet GIS’ (Dodge, Doyle, Smith, & Fleetwood, 1998). We used a free internet program provided by Google called Sketch Up as our alternative to ArcScene. What led us to this program was its ability to import a Collada 3D image. We were able to convert out Multipatch buildings to Collada within ArcScene and them import them one by one to Sketch Up.
While it was not initially our goal to work in the form of web based virtual scenes, we have come across some inherent benefits of these 3D programs. We have been able to depict imagery that is much more consistent with people’s actual perception. In terms of our goal in presenting the consequences of a proposed building construction, the audience’s visual perception of the site is massively significant. We are giving them an improved comprehension of local area attributes such as relative scale, distance, and orientation. Most importantly, we are providing them with information that a physical model cannot, which is the effect that a new building will have on sunlight to the original building and area (Sheppard & Cizek, 2007). Furthermore web based programs clearly have benefits towards public viewership, we the scientist are able to communicate using internet tools to a broad audience of web users. While there may be minor limitations to our analysis due to conversion of pixels from the internet, the overall message is available to the viewer (Sheppard & Cizek, 2007).

Furthermore Declan Butler notes the implication of using web based systems with GIS techniques and science. In his paper in Nature in February 2006 he comments, “Brian McClendon, director of engineering at Google Earth, says he wants as many people as possible to use the program — and will consider adding features that make it easier for them to get their data into it ” (Butler, 2006). This shows the considerable future of GIS science within internet programs. ESRI similarly provides free Arc GIS online where you can use, share, and organize data; it even includes an ARC GIS application for smart phones.

Obviously, our future intent would to be to continue an analysis within Arc Map Programming or another GIS software. As seen by the Philadelphia model a detailed shadow examination which takes into account time of day and previous shadows is a significant addition of 3D analyst tool. 3D virtual city models create visually compelling images which display a vision or development concept, the real value is the depth of analysis, such as a volumetric shadow analysis, which is not available in the 2D (ESRI). ESRI points out a few specific benefiters of such analyses:
•    City planners and developers can visualize impacts of proposed projects and share insights with community stakeholders
•    Mining and geoscientists are able to visualize subsurface structures and calculate volumes
•    Facility managers can create and maintain building, infrastructure, and utility networks
•    Civil engineers can perform line of sight and shadow analyses for buildings, cell towers, utility infrastructure
•    Police and security personnel gain more complete situational awareness with 3D views
•    Military can perform realistic mission and flight path analysis of potential threats
Finally, we came across two intriguing studies in which research was based on exploring three dimensional models.
They can be found here:
•    Wind Farms
•    Quick Hazard Response
The wind farm investigation explores wind turbine possibilities by virtual manipulation of environmental elements, as well as the noise analysis at different potential locations in a program called Sieve Viewer. The user is then able to compare different models they have built. Furthermore different weather patterns and time of days can be considered, a clear limitation in two dimensional GIS (Bishop & Stock, 2010). In another three dimensional study on quick hazard response a GIS analysis on the following criterion road network uncertainty, entry point uncertainty, and route uncertainty within the building allowed a detailed examination of the uncertainty emergency responders may encounter (Kwan & Lee, 2005).

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