New technologies are enabling environmental planners to collaborate and communicate in more effective ways. The Virtual Environmental Planning Project is a EU programme Interreg IIIB NWE and Department for Communities and Local Government (UK) effort that was completed in 2008. The project resulted in technologies that support public participation in the planning consultation process through the use of a 3D application.
The Virtual Environmental Planning Project (VEPs) has developed and demonstrated the use of interactive, web-based technology to help people understand planning proposals and share their views about them online.
The VEPs partnership proposed an alternative approach to planning consultation by allowing people to view and leave comments about planning developments using 3D visualisation software in a web browser, within the context of an existing landscape or cityscape. The idea was to develop a tool which enables discussions about planning with a direct connection to a 3D scene.
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During the preparation stage of the project, it was realised that many people find it difficult to:
• access and comment on planning proposals during office hours (which is usually when planning offices are open),
• visualise what a proposed planning development will look like from looking at two-dimensional plans only,
• understand how planning decisions are made and how their comments are taken into account during the decision-making process.
The demonstrations developed were aimed at encouraging active public involvement in planning. In all the examples produced comments about planning proposals/ buildings are given a spatial relationship to and context within the 3D city landscape model (see Fig. 1).
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The VEPs 3D participation tools all consist of a 3D model, a discussion forum or blog style commenting and a 2D map, all communicating with each other. This allows people (see Fig. 2) to; move around an area in 2D and 3D, click on markers or select buildings to see planning information and comments, click on attachments to see photos, video clips and other files, leave their {sidebar id=246 align=right}own comments or add to a discussion forum about specific buildings, add their own photos, video clips and web links relating to the proposals, view simple environmental models in 3D (e.g. noise or floods).
VEPs System Architecture
The approach involves the implementation of rich web applications supported by digital 3D models and various concepts and techniques of Web 2.0.
The general structure of a VEPS application consists of three components, a 3D view, a 2D map and a communication tool. The three modules have separate connections to their data stores; there is no central component that manages the data for the client. These modules can be regarded as separate applications running in one website. In order to show information that belongs to one object or comment these separate modules have to be synchronized on the client side, through an API (a Web 2.0 Mash-up approach).
This architecture allows developers to exchange components and replace them with their own implementations. The only restriction is that the new component has to support the client side API. To integrate the modules it is necessary to provide a technique so that the components can communicate with each other. For the VEPS applications this needed to be flexible in terms of extending the client tool by additional components. To achieve this the Architecture uses a ‘broadcast’ module (see Fig. 3) that sends event messages to all components that are registered at the ‘broadcast’. In that way the individual module only has to implement one API function, the one called by the ‘broadcast’ to transmit the message.
{sidebar id=247 align=left} The 3D models are mainly merged from datasets managed by different data providers in distributed sources. In this environment data integration coupled with flexible data access is extremely important and open standards (e.g. OGC) are vital to realize such a system. Within the VEPs project existing standards and proposals (e.g. Web 3D Service, Web Map Service, Web Feature Service) were used ,tested and enabled the flexible combinations of client and server implementations.
Evaluation summary
The evaluation of the VEPs project focused on gathering information about: what users thought of the proposed approach to planning consultation; what users thought of the tools developed and the use of 3D; if and how the VEPs tools could practically benefit public participation in the planning consultation process.
The evaluation information was gathered though: small ‘focussed’ evaluation workshops; larger ‘event-style’ facilitated sessions (up to 50 attendees) and expert reviews. The majority of users agreed that the use of web-based tools to support public participation in planning consultations are useful. As a consultation can be available on the web it allows people to take part from anywhere (and anytime) they can access a computer capable of running such tools.
{sidebar id=248 align=right} Use of 3D visualisation tools as part of public participation in the planning process:
– There was debate during a number of evaluation sessions on how accurate people
expected the 3D visualisation to be.
– Some planning officers stated concerns that if a 3D visualisation is too detailed it may give the impression that planning decisions have already been made and the user is viewing the ‘final’ plan, thereby devaluing any consultation.
– Navigation issues, the perception of how “user-friendly” a 3D tool is depends very much on the experience a user has with the applications.
– A key factor in gaining users trust is the accuracy, timeliness and quality of the data in the visualisation, regardless of whether it is 3D data, 2D data, text, audio / video’
– The resources required to use such tools in a consultation (set-up, administration,
moderation, etc.) could be a barrier to them being used.
Need for facilitation:
– It should be clearly explained to people taking part in a consultation why they are being asked for their comments at a particular time. The points at which consultation is carried can appear to be politically motivated rather than part of a formal process.
One of the main concerns found at the sessions is the lack of confidence the public have towards their involvement in planning consultation generally. If these types of tools are to succeed then they need to ensure that the users can believe that their information is important and that it will be used appropriately.
Andrew Richman (Environment Agency for England and Wales) Project Manager. ([email protected])
Jürgen Boghdan (University of Applied Sciences, Stuttgart, Germany) Technical team. ([email protected])
This project was funded through the EU programme Interreg IIIB NWE and Department for Communities and Local Government (UK), finishing in March 2008. More information about the project, including partners involved, links to documents and the final public versions of the VEPs tools (version 3.1) and reports, can be found at http://www.veps3d.org
