Geoff Zeiss of Autodesk moderated a spark panel at the GeoWeb Conference, and one question he posed that’s stuck with me is whether digital city models would become an über model or many models for specific domains. There are many ways to look at this question. When considering an über model, there’s the issue of organization, and the need to determine whether the digital city will reside within an interoperable framework or as a central collective repository. Another way to look at this is to assess the different requirements of specific domains to determine if there’s a compelling need for separate modeling environments for different professions or workflows. The issue of ownership and governance of the model also comes into play, particularly in light of security-related issues, which will demand a level of centralized control.
There’s no easy means to build a digital city model for wide interaction and adoption. The number of potential users is equal to the number of citizens that inhabit our real-world cities, and competing and overlapping interests makes it an impossible task to address the issues of all users at once. A measured approach with good groundwork is necessary, and first and foremost is a workable business model.
Common Framework
Given the complexity of our world, and the many digital means to represent it, the growing trend is toward common framework data and a means to interoperate. It’s simply too big of a challenge for one system or model to try and become a comprehensive representation of reality. Efforts that take this tact are bound to fail, because an inordinate amount of time will need to be devoted to create definitions and to resolve data conflicts among users.
The more realistic approach is to work on defining core data requirements for the basics of a universal shared model. This initial effort to define a common framework needs to be built upon standards, with an effort to develop model data and model exchange mechanisms at the outset. Establishing this core profile and functionality is much easier to maintain, and much easier for users to participate in. The less complex the core system is, the greater use and data it will receive.
The idea of an interoperable digital city model isn’t far removed from a system of systems approach. The key idea here is the creation of the shared framework and the means for different systems/models to interact with one another. The über model in this sense becomes the sum of all the separate models, and doesn’t exist in its own right without the input and participation from other models.
Domain Requirements
Ultimately, for the city model to perpetuate, it must engage a broad set of users that contribute their own data and expertise. The need for a large digital city model comes directly from specific domain requirements — planning, development, building, transportation, infrastructure, energy, water/wastewater, public health, emergency response and security. Each of these domains has realized the promise of the shared model to make our processes more efficient, reducing time and cost for our processes and making our cities more livable. And the model also represents a place where we can combine our domain knowledge and create multidisciplinary workflows.
It’s imperative that we stand up digital city models that preserve the characteristics and workflows necessary for multiple domains, yet realize the ability to share inputs and views from other stakeholders. There may be individualized digital city models for multiple domains, but what cannot happen is a redundancy of data collection and time wasting duplicated maintenance. We must get to the point of the core model, and then work closely with individual industries to preserve their way of working, while making certain that there’s no repetition of labor.
When the core model has reached a certain level of fidelity, it’s then time for individual domains to peel off and enhance the layers and details that they find necessary. There cannot be individual models for specific domains without the common model to begin with. If we don’t achieve this goal of a shared modeling effort, then we’re worse off than if we hadn’t started, for we’d step backward in time to the early days of digitization where competing efforts took many years off of progress.
Governance and Security
The issue of digital city model governance is a tricky one, yet there needs to be a strong effort here to avoid the issues of needless competition and redundancy that are stated above. The city model should ideally be administered by the city and its many citizens in a transparent and user-governed fashion. The city is a relatively neutral player that’s interested in seeing all domains successfully interact. With a board of directors structure for model governance, the individual interests of separate domains can be voiced and consensus can be reached on core platform issues.
The shared governance model can establish data sharing agreements to maintain intellectual property rights and security-related detail. There will be reasons why certain data types or levels of detail cannot be shared, and with transparency at the model governance level, the existence of certain data will be clear and available should an emergency situation arise where that data becomes critical information. The model sharing activity has the potential to engage many more domains than previous geospatial-centric data sharing efforts. The expanded community should gain the benefits of previous similar sharing efforts to reach model build out in the shortest possible time.
The über model is an old construct that cannot fly in the current information age. We need to create a model of amalgamated models, where shared effort is equaled by shared benefits.
———-
Read what Jeff Thurston has to say on this topic here.
