ISPRS Workshop on Service and Application of Spatial Data Infrastructure, XXXVI(4/W6), Oct. 14-16, Hangzhou, China 
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Similarly, taking master digital urban planning as an example, 
the technical and information planning contents should include 
at least following nine aspects. (1) Master goals of digital city 
development and construction. (2) Components and structure of 
digital city system. (3) The tasks of each construction stages and 
investment scales. (4) The goals and tasks of city information 
infrastructure. (5) The general constitutes and structure of city 
information infrastructure. (6) The goals and tasks of city spatial 
data infrastructure. (7) The general constitutes and structure of 
city spatial data infrastructure. (8) The goals and tasks of urban 
planning and managing information system. (9) The general 
constitutes and structure of urban planning and managing 
information system. 
4. TECHNOLOGY OF DIGITAL URBAN PLANNING 
Determined by the characteristics of digital city and concept of 
digital urban planning, the whole process of digital urban 
planning can be divided into three periods. Illustrated by figure 
2, the three periods are planning information preparing, 
planning scheme compiling, and planning result expressing. 
Many kinds of technologies need to be applied during the whole 
planning process, and each period involves different technology. 
Digital information and spatial database play an important role. 
And all the planning process are supported by digital city 
technological platform, which is the main difference between 
traditional urban planning and digital urban planning. 
Digital Urban Planning 
Planning 
Information 
Preparing 
—► 
4— 
Planning ■ 
Scheme 
Compiling 
—► 
4— 
Planning 
Results 
Expressing 
A i 
“1 
"1 
Planning 
Information 
Acquiring 
—> 
4— 
Planning 
Information 
Processing 
Planning 
Information 
Expressing 
DBMS 
Network 
RS 
GPS 
—► 
GIS 
RS 
DBMS 
Network 
4— 
Word 
VR 
GIS 
DBMS 
TÌ ÎI 
Planning 
Information 
System 
■> 
<- 
Information 
Infrastructure 
(Network) 
Spatial Data 
Infrastructure 
(Database) 
Digital City (Technical and Information) 
L 
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rrr 
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Department 
ft 
City 
Other 
of Urban 
4 
Information 
4- 
Departments 
Planning 
Center 
of City 
Reality City (Physical and Social) 
Figure 2. Technical Process of Digital Urban Planning 
Comparing to the traditional urban planning, the technical 
process of digital urban planning is much more complex. The 
relationship between each period is not just linear but network, 
which is not only very good at the feedback and circulating for 
the tentative planning scheme, and also very helpful for 
evaluation and optimization of final planning scheme. Further 
more, the technical method, analysis process, and information 
category are much more complex during the process of digital 
urban planning. Lots of technologies, such as Remote Sensing 
(RS), Data Base Management System (DBMS), Geographic 
Information System (GIS), Virtual Reality (VR), and Computer 
Network will be applied widely. The whole technologies consist 
of a system of technical methods for digital urban planning. All 
the technologies can be divided into three categories, such as 
technology of planning information acquiring, information 
processing, and information expressing. 
4.1 Planning Information Acquiring 
There are two main tasks for planning information acquiring. 
One task is to acquire all kinds of existing information for urban 
planning by means of urban planning and managing information 
system supported by information infrastructure and spatial data 
infrastructure of digital city. All the information, such as city 
natural resources information, city social and economical 
information, and city construction information, are need to be 
acquired and collected for later use. Besides, some kinds of 
field investigation are also needed because of the high speed of 
city development. 
Another task of information acquiring period is to transfer all 
the information into the same system. Regarding to the different 
sources of the original information, the differences between the 
information are always in existence, such as different type, 
different format, different time, different coordinates, and 
different semanteme. Therefore, all the information acquired 
needs to be transferred by means of different technical methods. 
Among all the technical methods, DBMS and computer network 
are the very basic technologies for planning information 
acquiring. The functions of DBMS querying and searching 
operation by network will be used very frequently. Other spatial 
information acquisition technologies, such as RS, GPS and GIS 
will be used for spatial information updating. And other new 
technology for collecting field information will be applied too. 
4.2 Planning Information Processing 
Planning information processing is the key procedure for digital 
urban planning. The processing will include spatial information 
processing, such as overlay analysis, network analysis, and 
three-dimensional analysis, and attribute information processing, 
such as population forecast analysis, economical information 
analysis, and energy consumption analysis. All the analysis will 
be finished based on the current urban planning database which 
is prepared during the planning information acquiring. 
The result of the planning information processing is the primary 
planning scheme. The primary planning scheme should be send 
to public by means of web-based public participation GIS to 
collect the public evaluation. And at the same time, the planners 
need to evaluate their primary planning scheme by means of 
some quantitative analysis technical method. The third way is to 
present the primary planning scheme to urban planning expert 
and urban managers to collect their evaluation, in order to 
improve primary planning scheme and obtain the final optimal 
planning scheme. 
During the information processing period, most important 
technical method is GIS because of its plentiful spatial analysis 
functions. RS technique is applied for raster image processing