Release notes for Urban February 2022

General

General enhancements are described below.

Overview

The following new features and improvements are available in the overview:

• A new viewing experience for plans and projects for unlicensed and anonymous users is introduced:
  • The Details side panel in this new experience shows general information about the plan or project and replaces the detail card in the overview.
  • The public feedback functionality is moved from the detail card in the overview to the Discussion side panel of the viewing experience.
  • Explore scenario metrics in a more streamlined way using the Dashboard side panel.
• The search for plans and projects through the lists in the side panel and the search bar is improved:
  • The camera of the map view adjusts when you access or filter the list of plans and projects. All plans and projects listed in the side panel will be visible in the map view.
  • The camera of the map view adjusts when you enter a text query to search for plans and projects. All plans and projects listed in the search results will be visible in the map view.
  • Hovering over an item in the list of plans and projects highlights the location pin and the study area in the map view.

Plans and projects

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

• This release introduces viewpoints. Use viewpoints to restore locations in the view and jump between locations. See Use viewpoints to learn about the details.
• There is a new user experience for sharing plans and projects:
  • The settings to share a plan or project with a group of users, the entire ArcGIS Online organization, or everyone can be configured directly on each plan or project. See Share a plan and Share a project for details.
  • The new user experience replaces the workflow to publish plans and projects to the urban model.
  • An improved embed mode allows you to embed plans or projects as an iframe element in your website. Generate this iframe element on the Sharing tab of the plan or project settings.
• Pop-ups configured on external web scenes for design visualization and context are visible in the following situations:
  • When the Details side panel is open in the plan or project viewing experience
  • When the Details side panel is open in the plan or project editor
• A new read-only experience allows licensed users to open plans and projects that have updates available that were not applied yet by their owner.

Plan editing

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

• The suitability tool is further improved and is now out of beta.
  • You can create suitability models and store them at the plan level.
  • You can duplicate existing suitability models.
  • A criterion is automatically disabled and shows a warning if it uses data from an external layer that is not accessible.
  • Use criteria scores calculated outside of Urban in suitability models without additional reclassification.
  • Several improvements are made to the Edit criteria side panel:
    • It shows detailed source information when criteria values are read from an external layer.
    • The criteria interval editing experience is improved.
  • When clicking a parcel, an improved pop-up shows the final suitability score as well as a breakdown of the contributing criteria values with their corresponding score.
  • The ability to persist suitability models replaces the ability to store suitability scores on the parcels.
  • When exporting a scenario to a web scene, you can export the cumulative suitability score as well as the value and the score of each suitability criterion.
• Improvements were made to the metric connections in the metrics dependency graph:
  • The input metric is displayed in the connection node ToolTip.
  • The input metric is displayed on the Edit connection dialog box.

Project editing

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

• Report scenario metric values using the new project dashboard.
• If a scenario has a design visualization configured, the LOD1 buildings layer is automatically hidden.
• Set the project status for any project, not only for public projects.

Data manager

The following new features and improvements were added to the data manager:

• You can export an urban model to a file geodatabase.
• You can create an urban model from a file geodatabase. See License and set up ArcGIS Urban for details.
• Instructions for mass-importing projects to the urban database are improved.
• When mass-importing projects to the urban database, a new check box allows you to automatically mask existing buildings and trees based on the project study area.

Removed and deprecated functionality

Removed and deprecated functionality is described below.

Removed functionality

The following functionality has been removed:

• The detail card for plans and projects in the overview has been removed. See the release notes about the improvements to the overview for details.
• The Load default metrics button has been removed from the Metrics tab in the plan and project configuration and the data manager. To get preconfigured metrics, set up an urban model based on the USA Default template.
• The workflow to publish plans and projects to the urban model (urban database) has been removed and is replaced with the new sharing workflow. See the release notes about improvements available on Plans and projects above for details. Plans and projects that you published in earlier versions remain stored in the urban database and are still shown to users who can view the urban model. They can be opened in a read-only experience. To edit a plan or project that is stored in the urban database, choose from the following options:
  • Edit the original design plan or project.
  • Duplicate the published plan or project and edit the copy.
• Configuring a modal split on scenarios has been removed.
• Storing suitability scores on parcels has been removed.

Deprecated functionality

The following functionality is deprecated and will be removed with the June 2022 release of ArcGIS Urban:

• The ability to configure the net area factor on individual building floors and surfaces will be removed. You will still be able to configure the net area factor on the space-use type level. The metric calculation will exclusively use the net area factor as configured on the space-use type. See Work with space-use types to learn more about space-use types. See Work with spaces and surfaces to learn more about building spaces and surfaces.

Enhancements and bug fixes

The following enhancements and bug fixes were made:

• Support for Bulgarian is added.
• The Shadow duration tool is renamed Shadow cast analysis.
• The user interface of the screenshot tool is now more user-friendly.
• There is an improved user experience for users who are trying to access an insufficiently shared urban model.
• There are improved ToolTips on disabled buttons in the plan and project editor.
• This release introduces an improved setback behavior that is less likely to cause jagged buildings for certain edge settings.
• The number of built dwelling units as reported in the building regulation side panel is always rounded down to the next integer per space-use type on every parcel. Before, mathematical rounding was applied, which led to overestimating the number of built units. See the Building regulation side panel section to learn how the number of built dwelling units is calculated.
• The USA Default template includes improved optional chart labels for some metrics.
• Several improvements are made to the space-use type dialog box for residential space-use types:
  • The field to configure the area per dwelling unit was renamed to Gross floor area per dwelling unit. Before, it was not clear if net or gross floor area was represented.
  • This field is only shown for space-use types of type Residential.
  • Editing the space-use type’s Residential setting is disabled if the type is in use to prevent issues with dwelling unit building types.
  • A new info icon explains what the area per dwelling unit is used for.
• Bug fix—The built dwelling units calculation as reported in the building regulation side panel did not account for the net area factor configured on the space-use type. This is fixed for this release. Ensure that the value stored in the Gross floor area per dwelling unit field on the space-use type represents the gross floor area and not the net floor area.
• Bug fix—The tools for splitting and merging geometries no longer generate multipart geometries.
• Bug fix—Changing the parameter operator of a metric connection changed the constant parameter value in some cases. This is fixed for this release.
• Bug fix—Large metric dependency graphs with many characters could only be displayed in the list view but not in the graph view. This is fixed for this release.
• Bug fix—Memory issues with the screenshot tool are fixed for this release.
• Bug fix—Importing data from an ArcGIS Enterprise hosted feature layer failed. This is fixed for this release.

Known limitations

The following are known limitations for this release:

• Zoning envelopes cannot be displayed together with existing buildings served from an integrated mesh scene layer.
• The resolution of screen captures taken with the screenshot tool is reduced to prevent the creation of blank images.
• Urban currently limits the support of zoning, land-use, building, and space-use types to 1,000 each. This limit is set per plan and urban model.