Release notes for Urban July 2021

The updates below have been made to ArcGIS Urban.

Updated data model

If you have an urban model created with the previous version of Urban, read this section carefully and follow the step-by-step instructions. The data model has been updated. Existing urban models, plans, and projects need to be upgraded. Urban models created with the previous version of Urban are read-only until they are upgraded.

Upgrade an urban model

Upgrading an urban model can only be triggered by the urban model owner. The upgrade process consists of two steps. It is essential that both steps are executed and that they are executed in the order below. Do not close or refresh your browser while the upgrade is in process.

1. Add the new fields and sublayers to the database. This is done automatically when you (as the owner of the model) open the urban model.

   A message appears with an Upgrade button.

2. Click the Upgrade button to upgrade the data that is not associated with public plans or projects. This must be done in the data manager.

Caution:

• Upgrading an urban model only upgrades data in the urban database that is not associated with public plans. Public plans must be upgraded separately. No additional action is needed for public projects.
• Design plans and projects must be upgraded separately as well.

Upgrade plans and projects

Read this section carefully to successfully upgrade plans and projects. Do not close or refresh your browser while the upgrade is in process.

Upgrade design plans and projects

For design projects, only the first step below is required. For design plans, all steps are required.

1. Add the new fields and sublayers to the database. This is done automatically when you (as the owner of the plan or project) open the design plan or project.

   A message appears with an Upgrade button.

2. Click the Upgrade button to upgrade the data. This must be done in the plan settings (click Configure from the drop-down menu named after the plan).
3. Reapply the building types for each scenario:

   This must be done after a plan has been upgraded.

   1. In the plan editor, click the Zoning mode button in the header to switch to zoning/land-use mode.
   2. In the side panel, click Reapply all building types.

Upgrade public plans

To upgrade public plans, complete the following steps to upgrade the data:

1. Select the public plan in the overview and click Settings on the plan detail card.

   A message appears with an Upgrade button.

2. Click the Upgrade button to upgrade the data.

Note:

Public projects don't need to be upgraded.

Upgrade capacity indicators (optional)

This release introduces metrics (see the corresponding section below for additional details). They replace capacity indicators. You can upgrade your capacity indicator data from the previous version of Urban through the data manager on the Metrics tab. For all plans and projects (design and public), this must be done individually in the plan or project settings. Until capacity indicators are upgraded, they are not visible on the plan or project detail card or the plan editor dashboard.

Caution:

All former second order capacity indicator coefficients that were defined per household are stored per person after the upgrade. The ratio between area per household and area per person is used to convert the indicator values from per household to per person. If the area per person on the space-use type was not defined, the metric parameter values on the space-use types are set to 0.

To continue using your capacity coefficients per household, do the following:

• Change the source in each metric from population to households (see Add and configure a metric to learn more).
• Correct the metric parameter values on each space-use type from a per-person value to a per-household value. The original per-household values continue to be stored in the urban database or the design database.

General

General enhancements are described below.

Available across the app

The following enhancements are available across the app:

• Use the new shadow duration tool to assess the shadow impact on a specific day using different visualization options. See Shadow duration for details.
• Use the new profile tool to draw a path and assess the elevation profile along that path. See Profile for more information.
• Snapping simplifies the geometry editing experience when creating plans or projects in the overview as well as when editing plans and projects.
• Choose between light and dark mode.

Available for plans and projects

The following new features and improvements are available for both plans and projects:

• Discuss your design work in plans and projects with individual users and groups through the newly introduced internal discussions. For discussing public content, the public feedback capability is available as before. See Feedback and discussions for details.
• There is a full-screen page for plan and project configuration where you can manage your data types and layers—similar to what is already known from the urban model data manager. See Configure a plan and Configure a project for additional information.
• There is a new UI for sharing design plans and projects with individual users and groups.
• The editing experience is exclusively available for design plans and projects and no longer accessible for public plans and projects. To bring changes to public plans or projects, the corresponding design plan or project must be edited and republished to public content.

Plan editing

The following new features and improvements were added to the plan editing experience:

• The floors of future buildings are now called spaces and are persisted in the database. They are no longer generated on the fly. This improves performance.
• You can manually edit existing spaces and draw new spaces. You can also place multiple spaces on the same floor. See Develop a parcel for more details.
• You can draw completely new plausible buildings. This also allows you to place more than one building on a parcel.
• Besides building spaces, surfaces are introduced. They can be of any space-use type and are draped to the terrain.
• You can use the following tools when drawing and editing spaces and surfaces:
  • Rotate and scale
  • Edit vertices
  • Move edges
  • Edit building elevation (only available when editing building spaces)
  • Duplicate (only available when editing building spaces)
  • Remove
• As a consequence of the space editing capability, plausible buildings no longer update automatically when you change the zoning regulations. Use the Reapply all building types button in zoning mode to adjust all buildings on parcels with a building type assigned for any changes made to the zoning regulations. You can also reapply building types per parcel.
• A new parameter is introduced that allows excluding building parts when calculating GFA (gross floor area) and FAR (floor area ratio).
• A tool to assess the suitability of parcels based on different criteria is released in beta. You can use parcel properties as well as external layers in your analysis. See Assess suitability for more information.
• Use the dashboard to visualize custom metrics with various chart types (see the Metrics section below).
• You can add and edit existing metric values in the existing scenario.
• The grid tool now supports rotation and splitting areas into a honeycomb pattern.
• You can import new types and layer geometries to any of a plan's scenarios through the plan configuration.
• You can apply a building type mix (formerly called the allocation tool) from the develop tab in the development side panel.
• The content of design plans are always visible in the overview when the plan's detail card is open.
• The UX for publishing plan content to the public view is simplified.
• The export to web scene capability exports additional aggregated building parameters and zoning information to the parcels.
• The export to web scene capability summarizes metrics on the parcel level.
• The export to spreadsheet capability supports the export of metrics from a selected subset of parcels in a scenario.
• The UI for defining zoning regulation overrides per parcel was moved from the development side panel to the zoning side panel.

Metrics

This release introduces metrics. Metrics replace the former built-in capacity indicators.

• Configure metrics. Base the metric calculation on the net floor area or any other metric.
• Metric parameters can be defined per each space-use type.
• Import existing metric values from hosted feature layers for any of the metrics in the data manager or the plan configuration.
• You can upgrade capacity indicator data from the previous version in the data manager. For plans and projects (design and public), this must be done individually in the plan or project settings.

See Manage metrics and Work with metrics for additional information.

Data manager

The following enhancements have been added to the data manager:

• There is a new sharing tab to control who can see the urban model and who can edit it. See Sharing for additional details.
• Configure the default existing buildings visualization (schematic versus imagery).
• Configure a label for the parcels' custom ID that will be displayed in the parcel explorer in the overview as well as in the parcel inspector in the plan editor.
• Import data from hosted feature layers that have sublayers.

Breaking changes

• If you have street view configured for your urban model, you'll need to generate a new Mapillary API client token. This is required due to a change in the Mapillary API that is used to retrieve street view imagery in Urban.
• When importing building types to your urban model from an existing spreadsheet or hosted table, make sure to add the property gfaIgnore to the fields BuildingParts and BuildingSubParts. You can use the downloadable template spreadsheets to learn more about the data structure.

Deprecation

The following are deprecated:

• Setting target values on parcels and scenarios is deprecated.
• Setting existing values on parcels in each scenario is deprecated and replaced with the capability to add existing metric values as points in the existing scenario.
• No warning label is shown on plausible buildings if the minimal requirements of the building type cannot be met by the zoning regulation.
• Uploading capacity indicator coefficients on space use types in the data manager is deprecated with the shift from capacity indicators to metrics.
• The projected change in population, households, and jobs based on capacity indicators from plans and projects across an entire city can no longer be displayed in the indicators mode of the overview because of the shift from capacity indicators to metrics.
• Configuring a scenario design visualization web scene on a plan is deprecated.

Enhancements and bug fixes

The following enhancements and bug fixes were made:

• The UI to create a plan or project from the overview is simplified.
• There is an improved UI and UX if the list of plans or projects in the overview is empty.
• There is a simplified UI for returning to the overview from the data manager or from the plan or project editing experience.
• Several improvements were made on the detail card of plans and projects:
  • There is a new button that simplifies sharing a link to a public plan or project.
  • There is a new button to create a copy of a public plan or project.
• Plausible buildings are now stored in the database. This change can lead to very small changes in floor area and metric calculations compared to the previous version.
• For some fields, the unit in which values are stored in the database has been changed. This has no effect on how the values are displayed in the UI. Old data is fixed in the upgrade process. These changes include the following:
  • Dwelling units density on parcels, overlays, and zone types are now stored in units/m2 (previously in units/ha).
  • Volume-related data (metric parameters) is now stored in m3 (previously in liters).
  • CO2 emissions are now stored in kg (previously in tons).
  • Energy use is now stored in W (previously stored in kWh/d).
• When importing data to your urban model from a spreadsheet or a hosted table, make sure to account for the unit type changes mentioned in the bullet point above.
• Default trip generation rates have been updated in the USA default template.

Known limitations

The following are known limitations for this release:

• Working with many building spaces at the same time can cause the following issues:
  • Not all spaces are displayed in the view.
  • The selection of a lot of spaces at a time might not work as expected.
• The shadow duration tool does not take into account daylight saving time. Use the time zone drop-down menu to adjust the offset from coordinated universal time (UTC) and account for daylight saving time.
• The time zone in the shadow duration tool is automatically detected and may not always be accurate. In this case, the time zone can be adjusted manually in the time zone drop-down menu.