Welcome to BlocksNet documentation!

BlocksNet is an open-source library that includes methods of modeling urbanized areas for the generation of value-oriented master planning requirements. The library is provided for generating a universal information city model based on the accessibility of urban blocks. The library also provides tools for working with the information city model, which allow: to generate a layer of urban blocks, to calculate provisioning based on regulatory requirements, to obtain optimal requirements for master planning of territories.

Documentation:

• BlocksNet
  • Quickstart
  • Contributing
  • FAQ
• Examples
  • Pipeline
  • City blocks layer generating
  • Generating intermodal graph and calculating adjacency matrix
  • City initialization and methods
  • Methods
• API documentation
  • blocksnet.preprocessing
  • blocksnet.models
  • blocksnet.method
  • blocksnet.utils
• About us
  • Contacts
  • Publications

Features:

BlocksNet — a library for modeling urban development scenarios (e.g. creating a master plan), supporting the following tools:

1. Method for generating a layer of urban blocks is the division of the territory into the smallest elements for the analysis of the urban area - blocks. The method of generating a layer of urban blocks is based on clustering algorithms taking into account additional data on land use.

2. Method for generating an intermodal city graph based on open-data. The intermodal graph includes the information about public transport and pedestrian routes to better analyze city mobility.

3. The Universal Information City Model is used to further analyze urban areas and to obtain information on the accessibility of urban blocks. The City Model includes aggregated information on services and buildings, intermodal accessibility, service types hierarchy, and urban blocks.

4. Method for accessing the connectivity of the blocks based on intermodal accessibility.

5. Methods for assessing urban provision of different types of services with regard to normative requirements and value attitudes of the population. The estimation of provisioning is performed by iterative algorithm on graphs, as well as by solving linear optimization problem.

6. Method for computing the function for evaluating the optimality of master planning projects based on the value attitudes of the population and systems of external limitations. The method is based on solving an optimization problem: it is necessary to find an optimal development to increase the provision. The problem is solved with the help of genetic algorithm, user scenarios support is added.

7. Method for identifying vacant areas based on open-data.

Main differences from existing solutions:

• The method of generating a layer of urban blocks considers the type of land use, which makes it possible to define limitations for the development of the territory in the context of master planning.

• The universal information city model can be built on open data; the smallest spatial unit for analysis is a block, which makes it possible to analyze on a city scale.

• Not only normative documents are taken into account when assessing provision, but also the value attitudes of the population.

• Genetic algorithm for optimization of development supports user-defined scenarios.

• Support for different regulatory requirements.

Acknowledgements

The library was developed as the main part of the ITMO University project #622280 “Machine learning algorithms library for the tasks of generating value-oriented requirements for urban areas master planning”