Hack Your City Using 3D Visualization

Ever had a vision for how your city or neighborhood could be, but struggled to show that vision to others? Now you can play SimCity with your city, using 3D visualization software.

Mapping software company Esri offers CityEngine, a 3D visualization tool that allows you to drag-and-drop features like bike lanes and bus rapid transit into your cityscape. In the background, CityEngine calculates the impact your change would have on aspects such as city budgets, traffic flow, pedestrian safety, and air pollution.

Granted, Esri software is usually the province of governments and big corporations. (CityEngine started as a tool for modeling cities for the movies.)

If your city uses Esri software but doesn’t have CityEngine, maybe you could lobby the planning department to get it and use it. Citizen activists might have better access to StreetMix or Key to the Street, free tools similar to CityEngine mentioned in this Fast Company article.

What will you design?

(Image courtesy of ESRI)

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