The Impact of 3D on Plannning

As most of us know Google bought SketchUp this past summer to increase the appeal of Google Earth. At the recent ASLA annual meeting the SketchUp booth was one of the more popular. Microsoft, another fairly large player, is working with Pictometry to provide imagery that has a more real world feel than Google Earth's aerial photography. See www.microsoft.com/virtualearth.

They are also funding a major project to build a street level video tour of major cities. See http://local.live.com/

Is this just about generating traffic to sell more ads on the Internet, or is there really a benefit to giving the average, non-technical person a way to visualize the impact that a proposed project would have on the environment?

Gary Smith a veteran GISer has been publishing an informal 3D GIS newsletter on the subject and has also recently written some thought provoking articles where he states that 3D is the future of planning. See http://www.directionsmag.com/author.php?author_id=364

CommunityViz ( http://www.communityviz.com/) is a program that emphasizes the use of 3D visualization in community planning.

This week PlaceMatters 06 lands in Denver to explore how to better plan communities with the help of 3D visualization. http://www.placematters.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17&Itemid=37

Next time - More on 3D and Planning