Open Urban Development Model
OpenUDM is a grid cell-based model which explores where future urban development might take place, subject to attractors, constraints and variable density of development.
The diagram below illustrates how a number of different potential attractors and constraints can be combined to run the model.
OpenUDM has been used in a number of contexts to explore urban development scenarios. For example, this interactive article about urban development in the Oxford-Cambridge Arc introduces the modelling process and analyses the potential impacts of future development on the natural environment.
Alistair Ford, Stuart Barr, Richard Dawson, James Virgo, Michael Batty, Jim Hall (2019) A multi-scale urban integrated assessment framework for climate change studies: A flooding application. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems. 75, 229-243. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2019.02.005.
OpenUDM is a Python package which is tested with Python 3.6 - 3.8. To install the package using pip, run:
pip install openudm
If pip install fails, you may need to install swig,
which is used to build the core model code. On Ubuntu, run:
sudo apt install swig
On Windows (with Chocolatey installed), run:
choco install swig
swig can also be installed using Anaconda:
conda install swig
Before running the model, set up the parameter files and grid data files for
attractors, constraints, current development, and zones. A small example is
included in the Data directory of this repository.
To run the model:
python -m openudm /path/to/data
Command line tool allowing conversion of a raster file to a vector file
raster_to_vector -i input_file -o output_file -f name_of_feature_type
-i - path and name of input raster. Default = 'raster.asc'
-o - path and name of output vector - supports geopackages only at the moment. Default = 'buildings.gpkg'. Where multiple options passed, parameter ignored and files match feature type names.
-f - the feature type to extract from the raster layer output from UDM. Allowed values are 'buildings, 'roads' and 'greenspace'. Pass multiple using a comma separated list.
-c - the coordinate system for the output if to be different from the input data. If not passed, the coordinate system of the input data will be used, and if that can't be established, EPSG:27700 (British National Grid) will be used.
Command line tool allowing for the generation of buildings and urban layouts using the outputs from a UDM run
Outputs from UDM are expected in the data directory, and this is also where the output file will be written.
generate_urban_fabric -i out_cell_dph.asc -o out_ufg.asc -t tiles
-i - path to dph raster
-o - path to output urban fabric raster. Default = <dph_raster_directory>/out_uf.asc
-t - path to directory containing tiles. Default = openudm/Tiles
OpenUDM has been developed by researchers at Newcastle University and the University of Oxford in the UK. This work has been funded by EPSRC through the ITRC MISTRAL project, the UK Climate Resilience Programme through the OpenCLIM project, and the Alan Turing Institute.