Plan.City London is a set of site evaluation & presentation tools for Architects, Urban Planners and Developers in London. The application includes large, accurate and up-to date 3D model of London and even the Future Skyline Layer to better understand the proposed changes in planned built environment. Customers are able to manipulate the dataset with sets of tools, build or import a 3D model, overlay the city model with 3rd party databases, run a set of urban planning studies and export results and visuals.

This introduction details the two control systems available for navigating the 3D environment, something a user will want to do immediately after launching the application. The two available control systems are the drone mode and the orbit pan zoom control scheme. The drone mode is likely the default method and allows for movement as if the user were a drone, offering almost unlimited freedom. The Orbit/Pan/Zoom method operates differently, as it does not use the escape key to toggle between controlling the UI and the character; the mouse and UI are accessible at all times.

This video guide, part of the Plan City London how-to series, explains how to customize the time, day, and weather settings that govern the application’s appearance. Upon launching Plan.City London defaults to a vibrant setting often characterized as a typical spring day, but the app offers full control over the visual environment.

This video tutorial focuses on working with the various data layers available within the application. Data layers are different data sets that can be overlaid on top of the 3D model of London, providing greater insight and visualization in context. Five initial data layers were released alongside Plan City 2.0: London Boroughs, Future Skyline, Protected Views, Viewing Corridors, and St Paul’s Height Grid.

The primary function of the Import Models Tool is to enable users to bring external 3D assets into Plan City. This is done with the intention of viewing them in context, conducting detailed studies, and performing analyses. Plan.City currently supports five file formats: OBJ, FBX, STL, GLTF, and GLB.

This video details the use of the Building Sketch Tool, a highly interactive feature that allows for the creation of new 3D models directly within the Plan City application. This capability is a simple and powerful method for testing design hypotheses and exploring urban design options without the need to switch to external software. The tool enables the user to start drawing the building’s footprint directly on the map. The floor plan is defined by left-clicking to mark each corner.

This video introduces users to the ZTV Tool, a powerful analytical feature designed to assess a building’s visibility from its surroundings and, consequently, its visual impact within the city environment.

This video introduces the Viewshed Tool, a powerful visibility analysis feature designed to determine which parts of the environment are visible from one or more specific observation points, called emitters. This tool is essential for understanding how views are experienced from key locations like viewpoints, balconies, or observation decks within an urban environment.

This video provides a detailed guide on using the Quick Screenshot Tool within the Plan.City application. This essential feature is designed to help users capture high-quality images directly from their viewports, while also managing and reusing custom camera setups for consistent visual documentation. It is described as perfect for documenting progress, capturing specific views, and creating uniform shots for presentations.

Goto option allows for fast travel to curated landmarks distributed across a playable area. Clicking on any of them will instantly move you near that location, making it much easier to quickly traverse the model without manually flying there. The panel also allows us to search for locations directly. We can type the names of buildings, bridges, museums, or other landmarks into the search box at the bottom of the panel.

The updated PTAL (public transport accessibility levels) data layer takes several factors into account such as the walking distance to nearby transport stops, the frequency of the available services, and the availability of different transport modes. All of this combines into a rating that helps quantify how accessible public transport is from a given area. The panel now displays a list of the nearby stations and stops contributing to the score.

The tube lines data layer allows us to visualize London’s rail and underground transport infrastructure directly on top of the 3D city model. The system includes London underground services, overground lines, national rail services, and other systems such as the DLR, Elizabeth line, and tram services. One specially useful workflow is combining the tube lines with a PTAL data layer.

Here are the different measurement tools available inside Plan City London which allow us to quickly evaluate areas, direct and path distances as well as radial distances directly within the 3D city model. You can measure total XYZ distance, the X and Y planar distance, and the height difference between segments. This means we can measure not only for horizontal urban measurements, but also for analyzing terrain elevation and vertical relationships.

One of the most advanced analytical tools currently available inside Plan City London is the Vertical Sky Component Tool, also known as VSC. This functionality allows us to evaluate the amount of visible sky available from specific points on a building facade. In practical terms, this helps us understand how nearby buildings and urban obstructions affect daylight access.