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Introduction

Nottingham City Council has created an immersive, interactive and highly-detailed 3D model of the entire city to support development planning. This advanced digital twin enables planners to understand proposed new developments more easily, have more interactive discussions with developers and accelerate the planning process.

Challenges

Nottingham City Council was an early pioneer in the field of 3D urban planning. It began to use digital 3D modelling techniques nearly 20 years ago, primarily for long-term strategic planning and major regeneration schemes. As demand for 3D visualisations grew, the council realised that it needed to replace its desktop software with a more flexible, web-based approach, and it started to explore the 3D capabilities of Esri’s ArcGIS system.

First the council developed a couple of lightweight public applications using ArcGIS, including an app for helping tourists to discover and appreciate the vast network of caves that lies beneath the historic city centre. Soon, though, a bold ambition arose to create a detailed 3D digital twin of the entire city, covering more than 73 square kilometres and depicting thousands of historic and modern buildings, open spaces and infrastructure.

Solutions

Using its existing ArcGIS licenses and leveraging its accumulated knowledge and 3D data, Nottingham City Council created an extensive and immersive 3D cityscape that could be accessed and shared via the Internet. It developed this digital twin using ArcGIS Online, hosted in the cloud, receiving support from Esri UK’s Professional Services team to create the pilot solution and optimise the generation of 3D data at Level of Detail 2 (LoD2).

Far more than just a 3D model, the citywide digital twin embeds and visualises a vast amount of contextual information, including 2D data on conservation areas and flood plains, and street-level videos from CCTV cameras. The solution also includes a 3D photo-realistic mesh from Bluesky and live traffic data, both of which are streamed directly from Esri’s Living Atlas of the World.

Results

The Digital Twin is now used for site assessments and is fully embedded within the council’s pre-application planning process resulting in.

A single source for all planning information

For the first time, Nottingham City Council’s planners can see all the information they need relating to the pre-planning application process in a single GIS application.

Quicker decision making in planning process

Using the Digital Twin, planners can now make faster, well-informed decisions about the potential impacts of new developments on the city’s distinctive character and skyline.

Improved transparency and engagement

Planners can use the Digital Twin in meetings with developers to improve the transparency of the planning process and support interactive discussions about any modifications that need to be made to plans.

Greater ROI from ArcGIS and 2D data holdings

The Digital Twin has significantly increased the return on investment that the council gains from ArcGIS licenses and staff training.

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