Methodology and Examples for Developing Urban 
GIS’s Spatial Analysis Models 
Jun Chen 
LIESMARS, WTUSM, 430070, Wuhan, P.R.China 
Abstract 
The adequate urban spatial analysis and modelling capabilities are missing or 
are hardly not available in standard commercial GIS software. The consequence 
is that an urban GIS projectmay not deliver their originally anticipated 
benefits in a reasonable time frame or within the predefined time schdule. 
The main purposeof this paper is to examine the basic issues for developing 
synthesized as selecting for designing) a suitable model, mapping the model 
into a GIS’s spatial analysis model and choosing a coupling environment. The 
section 3 gives four examples of urban GIS’s spatial analysis models developed 
by the author. In the end of this paper, some problems in developing urban 
GIS’s spatial analysis models are briefly discussed. 
1. Introduction 
As an increasing number of urban planning agencies or organizations are 
becoming proficient in the use of GIS tools for routine types of spatial data 
storage and retrieval, interests are moving now towards more specified and 
purposeful applications[Chen, 1992]. However, the adequate urban spatial 
analysis and modelling capabilities are missing or are hardly not available in 
standard commercial GIS software. One of the consequences is that an urban GIS 
project may not deliver their originally anticipated benefits in a reasonable 
time frame or within the predefined time schdule. 
The unsophisticated spatial analysis and modelling capabilities of GIS are 
resulted from the historial emphasis on cartographic aspects and automation of 
existing manual map-based operations in the development of GIS. This is 
reflected in the common representation of GIS data models as a series of 
thematic overlays register to a common spatial frame of reference [Granger, 1990] 
and the generic map-based spatial analysis(such as between-layer two-dimentions 
overlay, with-layer topological operations, i.e, nearest neighbourhood analysis 
or network analysis and spatial analysis capbilities emphasize the content and 
structure of a spatial reality (or spatial phenomena). Urban spatial modelling 
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International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXI, Part B4. Vienna 1996