For various purposes, virtual city applications have been developed around the globe to provide users with online resources and services over the Internet. Following our research on the Sheffield Urban Contextual Databank (SUCoD) project, this paper presents an alternative framework for building...

Information and communication technology (ICT) is widely accepted as a potentially favourable set of instruments, which may improve the welfare and competitiveness of nations and cities. Nowadays, both public and private actors aim to exploit the expected benefits of ICT developments. The...

A shape-pattern schema is an organized body of knowledge about spatial relationships between shapes which describes the patterns, syntactic structure, and the characteristics of shape patterns. In this paper we show how such schema can be represented by means of chain models. We also show the...

A new approach to button design has recently been proposed that uses natural segments, instead of even intervals, on the weight value range in determining the number of tabs that should be incorporated in a button system and the value each button carries. Button systems so designed do not have...

Previous research had introduced a genetic algorithm procedure for creating alternative policy options for municipal solid waste (MSW) management planning. These alternatives were generated during the design phase of planning, with the final policy determined in subsequent comparative analysis....

Visual impact assessment using GIS (geographical information system) based viewshed mapping is commonly employed on major projects. However, there is typically little analysis of the possible range of impact based on the size of the introduced landscape element, its contrast with the...

We describe a design process, Emergent Design, that draws upon techniques and approaches from the disciplines of computer science and artificial intelligence in addition to architecture. The process focuses on morphology, emphasizing the emergent and adaptive properties of architectural form and...

There has been considerable interest in recent decades in the identification of the physical correlates of crime in different urban settings. In this study we focus on bus stop crime and seek to understand how different environmental attributes in the vicinity of a bus stop can affect the...

A constrained cellular automata (CA) model based on 'grey cells' for the simulation of different types of urban forms and developments is developed within a raster GIS. Remote sensing and GIS are used to supply information on environmental constraints and locations of growth centers for the...