Release notes for Urban February 2024—ArcGIS Urban

The following updates have been made to ArcGIS Urban.

General

The following new features and general improvements are available in Urban:

Use the new Import dialog box and portal item picker with improved item filtering and search, layer, and data validation. You can use the new dialog box when importing from feature layers, feature tables, and spreadsheets, and when selecting basemaps and other items from ArcGIS Online.
The new data validation in the import dialog box includes the following improvements:
- Explore invalid features in a comprehensive data table.
- Use the Navigate to error button to jump directly to the first invalid value highlighted with a red background.
- A popover on the invalid value displays the type of error, and you can navigate between errors with the backward and forward arrows.
- Open the item data page directly from the dialog box to fix errors.
- Use the Refresh button to validate the data after you modified it to check whether the errors are fixed.
Support for projected coordinate systems with feet as units. You can now create urban models using basemaps with those coordinate systems.

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

When creating a plan or project, you can import the study area from a feature layer instead of drawing it manually.
The Add zoning plan and Add land use plan buttons are combined into a common Add plan button and workflow. Select the plan type in the side panel when creating a plan.
The terms zoning plan, land use plan, and project are described in more detail in the create plan or project side panel.
The parcels layer is always shown when creating a plan or a project. The toggle button to turn the visibility of parcels on or off has been removed.

The following new features and improvements are available in the data manager as well as the plan and project configuration:

On the Settings page, click the Open item detail page link below the Urban Model name, Plan name, and Project name fields to open the associated ArcGIS Online item detail page.
On the Sharing page, the user interface is improved:
- Configure the sharing level more easily using new drop-down menus.
- With the new Create group dialog box, you can select individual members from a searchable list to be part of a new group.
- The Advanced settings link opens the associated ArcGIS Online item detail page.
Importing zoning and overlay types from feature layer symbology was extended to handle symbols with other styles than solid fill, for example, hatch patterns.

The following improvements are available in the data manager only:

Configure the urban model name and the city name separately in the general settings.
- Change the urban model name to rename the urban model item, the urban database, and urban database view items.
- Change the city name to edit what is displayed in the overview's header.
Add project status types and feedback categories with an Add button, like for other types.
Use drag-and-drop functionality to reorder items for feedback categories and project status types.

The following improvements are available in the plan configuration:

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

Use the new Modify study area tool in the details mode to change the study area of existing plans.
Use the new Copy parcels tool to copy parcels together with their spaces and settings between scenarios.
Use the new Copy zones and overlays tool to copy zones and overlays between scenarios.
Use the new Duplicate button in the Edit spaces tool to duplicate buildings on a parcel.
Switching between the editing tools is now simpler.
Scenario switching is now enabled in the Advanced selection selection tool.
When editing the elevation of a building, floors that are pushed to underground are automatically excluded from the gross floor area (GFA) and FAR calculations; floors that are raised from underground count toward GFA and FAR. Uncheck the Change ground floor check box to disable this functionality.
Urban supports parcels and future developments outside of the study area.
- When no parcel is selected, the dashboard and space-use legend only include parcels that are fully inside the study area.
- If parcels are (partially) outside of the study area, a warning label appears in the space-use legend and dashboard. Hover over the warning to highlight those parcels.

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

Use the new Modify study area tool to change the study area of existing projects.

The following functionality is deprecated and will be removed with a future release:

The support for plans stored in the urban database will be removed in the upcoming release (June 2024).

The following functionality is removed from the app with this release:

The Export Urban database functionality in which the urban database is exported to a file geodatabase is removed. Use the urban model copy workflow instead.
The functionality to create an urban model based on a file geodatabase template is removed. Use the urban model copy workflow instead.

The following enhancements and bug fixes are introduced with this release:

When opening Urban on a mobile phone, you will now see a notification that Urban is not available on mobile devices.
A number of additional accessibility improvements are available, including the following:
- The daylight widget calendar is now accessible through keyboard navigation.
- The upload file form in the spreadsheet import dialog box has a visible focus.
- The disabled check box components have improved color contrast.
- The stepper dialog box is no longer focused on the Next button when switching from one step to another.
Dialog boxes in read-only mode only have a Close button instead of a disabled OK and a Cancel button.
Bug fix—Keyboard inputs for the time picker are fixed.
Bug fix—Buttons for dialog boxes on small screens that were cut off are fixed.
Bug fix—On the Urban Model copy dialog box, the elevation layer is now being reset when resetting the basemap.
Bug fix—The urban model copy functionality handles design databases that contain more than one plan or project.
Bug fix—In rare cases, only the urban model owner could create plans and projects if the urban model was stored in a dedicated folder on ArcGIS Online. This is fixed.
Bug fix—Inaccessible or invalid layers in external web scenes are handled better.

The following are known limitations of this release:

You cannot copy urban models, plans, and projects from a coordinate system with metric units to a coordinate system with US Standard units and vice versa. This is due to a platform limitation for vertical coordinates. You will receive an error message when trying to copy to a coordinate system with a different unit.
Basemaps that you published in a way that their spatial reference includes a wkt (well-known text) instead of a wkid (well-known id) identifier can currently not be used to create or copy urban models.
Feature services that you published in a way that their spatial reference includes a WKT (well-known text) instead of a WKID (well-known ID) identifier currently cannot be used to import data to Urban.
In the new Copy parcels tool, you can choose how to handle parcel overlaps. If parcels need to be clipped, multipart features might be created. Applying building types, showing envelopes, and editing parcel edges is currently not fully supported on those parcels. Use the split tool to split multipart parcels after copying.