Did you miss our recent User Meeting in Stockholm but still want to see some tips on Project Design from the OpenCities Planner team? Read on…

Project Design 101

During our two day event we held a user workshop on the first day and a general meetup on the second. There are 2 presentations you can download in PDF format. The second file, Tips & Tricks Edition, is a brief summary of the first.

Topics covered include…

• Best practices
• Colour
• Typography
• Image formats & optimisation
• Styling the interface
• Publishing
• Making an organisational template
• Dos & don’ts

Download PDFs

• Project Design 101
• Project Design 101 – Tips & Tricks Edition

We plan to convert the presentation on making an organisational template into a tutorial in the future, stay tuned to the blog for the latest updates on this and more.

Using custom typography is an easy way to boost the look of your project

Match Your Organisation’s Profile

Does your company or municipality have it’s own graphic profile? If so, customising the typography in OpenCities Planner allows you to match other digital and print projects you produce.

Here’s an example from the City of Stockholm, who not only use a custom typeface but actually commissioned their own:

Compare OpenCities Planner to printed initiatives, such as these posters in town:

Free & Easy

Don’t have your own typeface, but still want to give OpenCities Planner a custom look? Fear not, Google is here for you. Head over to Google Fonts to discover oodles of high quality, professional, free typefaces.

1. Visit fonts.google.com, Browse and find something you like
2. Click “Select this Font“, in the upper right
3. Open the window at the bottom of the screen, and click the Download icon

Step-by-Step

Now you have your font files, here’s all you need to do to use then in OpenCities Planner:

1. Open the Interface window (under Project Info)
2. Switch to the Typography tab
3. Click the Upload button, you can use TTF, OTF, and WOFF font files
4. Voilà! You can now customise OpenCities Planner with your custom typeface!

Have any questions, fire us a message and we’ll be happy to help.

Here’s a easy way to make icon-style POIs stand out

Icon Library / Outline Tab

Outline style icons are ideal for use with Points of Interest, as the outline serves the contrast needed for display over an array of different background styles and colours.

Want to give it a shot, here’s all you need to do:

1. Create or edit a Point of Interest
2. In the Style section, select Icon Only
   

   

3. Click the Change Icon button, in the Icon Options sub-section
4. In the Icon Library window that appears, switch to the Outlines tab via the dropdown menu
   

   

5. Choose your desired icon, now optimised for in-map use!

Here are some examples

Inner Icons

Another use for the outline style markers is using them inside of a light coloured POI, or any situation where you are using light colours – as they lack contrast to couple with the standard white icons.

If your 3D City Model uses proper IDs for each building/object, you can turn it into a “Smart 3D City” within minutes using the new On Click action for building objects. 

Step-by-step

Here’s what you need to do to create a Smart 3D City in OpenCities Planner:

1. Open the Properties Window of your building set object in Object Manager
2. Go to the On Click tab and choose the Embed Code action
3. Use the predefinded variable $OBJECTID to get the ID of the active object

In order to do something useful, you would likely need a backend service that you can query with that ID.

In the screenshot example, the National Survey Agency’s REST API for building information was used to fetch relevant building data which is then displayed as HTML.

In the embed code text box, the query string is as simple as: http://urltoservice.com/servicename/$OBJECTID

Here are a few ideas on how to use it

• Building information queries
• Fault reporting on trees, lamp posts, buildings, etc
• Crowdsource building information

There are a lot more potential use cases, too. If you come up with something clever, we’d love to see your project. Send us feedback.

We’ve recently added a new “2D Mode”. What is it? How do you enable it? Here are the basics.

Explanation Situation

2D Mode is simply what we call the simulated flat map with a top down perspective. We’ve added this mode because it can be preferable to “flatten the map” for certain use cases.

Here’s how it works: You can choose to have a 2D/3D Toggle Button appear in the Toolbar, or lock your project in either 2D or 3D – foregoing the button entirely. Furthermore, you can configure each mode as follows:

• In 2D Mode, you can choose whether or not to allow the map to be rotated
• In 3D Mode, you can set a maximum tilt angle

Configuration Information

There are two windows you need to manage in order to enable and configure 2D/3D Toggle.

• Under Toolbar, there is a 2D/3D Toggle tab. Here you will choose whether or not the mode can be toggled via the Toolbar, as well as customise the appearance of the icon and tooltip text.

• Under Settings, you’ll find a 2D/3D Settings tab. In this window you can choose which mode is default, as well as edit the specific settings for each mode.

It’s really quite simple, there are only a few settings but they can be combined in different ways allowing you to craft the user experience your project requires.

Log in and test it out yourself, or simply check out this demo: OpenCities Planner 2D Demo.

As always, feedback is more than welcome.

There are more things in Heaven and Earth, OpenCities Planner User, than are dreamt of in your settings

– William Shakespeare, probably

Image formats can be confusing. Let’s explain the difference between ‘vector’ and ‘raster’, plus offers tips on when it is best to use each format. 

Vector vs- Raster

OpenCities Planner allows image uploads in the following formats: SVG, PNG, GIF, and JPG.

• Vector – SVG is the only available vector format. It is preferred for graphics and logos. Vector files are mathematical, made of lines and points, which basically means they retain sharpness regardless of screen size or resolution. Your graphic will never become blurry.
• Raster – PNG, GIF, and JPG are raster formats. Raster files are made of pixels, or single points of colour. They appear blurry when scaled upwards and on higher resolution screens.

Note: This is just a very brief overview. Click here if you’d like to learn more.

Seeing is Believing

Want to see the difference for yourself? Here are two example masthead files you can experiment with:

• MastheadVector.svg
• MastheadRaster.png

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions…

It’s a lot of information for non-designers to digest, so here is a simple breakdown of when it is best to use each image format:

• SVG – All graphics and logos, everything you upload to customise the interface (Masthead, Buttons, etc).
• PNG – If it’s not possible to use an SVG for a graphic, use a high resolution PNG.
• GIF – This one is most useful for adding animations to a Details Window, but it is a less common use case.
• JPG – Photographs! Most commonly used for adding content to Project Info and Details Windows.

Resources

• If you lack vector assets, you can use Vector Magic to automatically convert images from raster formats.
• Inkscape is a free open-source program for Windows and MacOS which can be used to edit and convert vector formats.
• Commercial vector software options include Adobe Illustrator, CorelDRAW, and Sketch.

New to OpenCities Planner? Wondering how to get immediate value with minimum effort? Here are four things you can do right now.

1. Save time and frustration by sketching and visualising in OpenCities Planner

3D authoring tools like Sketchup, AutoCAD, Maya, and others are great for actual detailed modelling you sometimes need to do – but when you need to visualise a larger project with several buildings plus existing terrain and houses, those tools simply won’t cut it. You’ll spend a good portion of your day waiting for the application to become responsive again while you dream of hardware upgrades.

With OpenCities Planner, you can do the basic sketching directly in the entire 3D city model with no need to worry about performance or application-freeze-syndrome.

You can add 3D volumes, set dimensions, and create basic visualisations within minutes.

Alternatively, you can import your CAD models and create the scene directly in OpenCities Planner. Voilà, in no time at all you’re able to do shadow analysis and line of sight visualisations from any point in the 3D city.

Bad news though… you won’t need that hardware upgrade.

2. Save cost by avoiding software installation just to view a 3D scene

So you’re the team visualisation expert. You’ll need a bunch of different applications to create and visualise projects. Then one day you find yourself surrounded by a team of stakeholders who all need access to view project content.

You may be tempted to purchase more licenses of your 3D authoring application so you can share your content with all members in the team, but that drives cost up exponentially. Conversely, you might need to schedule meetings every time you update the model in order to share your work with the team, but that is quite inefficient for all involved.

In OpenCities Planner, you can invite team members with just a few clicks – instantly granting them viewing access to your project. Click the Team button, change to the Viewing Members tab, and type in the emails of all the people you want to invite. You can even add a Dialogue form to get instant geo-referenced feedback from your team members.

A single minute of work for you, with no added cost plus days of work saved for your organisation.

3. Make revenue with the Export 3D tool

With the built-in Export 3D tool, you can drawn an area in the 3D map and export as a 3D-model in Collada or KMZ. No need to build a custom FME-script or develop your own dedicated solution to do simple exporting from your 3D city model. With OpenCities Planner, you can navigate to any area of your 3D city model, visually inspect it and then export it. What you see is what you get.

The exported model will be geo-referenced so you can use it in other GIS-systems or import it into 3D-authoring tools such as Sketchup, AutoCAD, Maya, and others.

After making changes, you can re-import your 3D-model drawn on the background to OpenCities Planner and maintain geo-referencing. This is a way better method of doing geo-referencing than, for instance, using Google Earth terrain like the geo-referencing tool in Sketchup does because your 3D city model most likely has better precision than the Google Earth terrain and will be more accurately positioned in altitude.

Another use case is sending an exported 3D-model to external consultant working in your project as background material to draw on.

Maybe you even can turn it into a revenue stream by selling the data to real estate developers or other types of commercial entities. Setup a public project, promote it, and have buyers order with a Dialogue form where they can mark an area that they want to purchase. Deliver with the Export 3D tool.

It literally could not be easier.

4. Increase your communication efficiency by publishing your project

A lot of effort goes in to the communication of successful project. A key ingredient is making sure your material is easy to comprehend by people with limited knowledge about urban planning and its formal processes.

OpenCities Planner is a great way to share a 3D visualisation with the public. Combine 3D-CAD models or 3D volumes with relevant content such as images or videos, text and documents, GIS data and publish it with a few clicks.

Go to Publish and set your project to ‘Published’. Publicise the link in social media or embed the project view on your web site.

That’s it. Now go get some easy wins.

Want to know what a LOD-window is and how to configure it? Basically, it controls the draw distance for buildings in the background and the level of detail for terrain models. You can change these settings from Object Manager.

To learn more, head on over to the reference pages:

• Terrain Layer & LOD Window Settings

Depending on the purpose of your project and the type of content you’re using, you may want to start your project in different modes.

For instance, if you want the user to easily find Layers or Viewpoints, you’d want to start with the Ribbon button “Project content” pre-selected. On the other hand, if you’re crowdsourcing ideas then maybe you’d want to start with the Dialogue Form as the initial thing a visitor sees. Here’s how to configure.

Start Settings

Open Interface and switch to the Start Settings tab.

Here are the options you’ll find:

Project Info window: Open window on load

If checked, the Project Info window or panel will be the very first thing that a visitor will see. This can be useful if, for example, you need to give the user instructions or show terms & conditions.

Show Ribbon item

• Logo Button (Hide Interface) — If selected, the interface will be hidden.
• Dialogue Form — Start with the form open.
• Dialogue Answers — Start with the answer page open.
• Project Content Button — Shows Layers, Viewpoints, and Sun & Shadow tools. This is the default setting.
• None — Starts with no Ribbon item selected.

Related settings

Related concepts that affect the initial startup experience are:

• Start View — This is a viewpoint which moves the camera to a predefined view when first loading a project. Check out Viewpoints to learn more about Start View.
• Groups & Layers, Initial State — You can set content to be turned on by default on startup. Go to Groups and Layers documentation if you want to learn more about initial state.