Academic
- Author: Michael Batty
- URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23998083251332093?mi=ehikzz
- Author: Anil Madhavapeddy (anil@recoil.org)
- URL: anil.recoil.org/notes/for…
- Author: sciencedirect.com
- Category: article
- Document Tags: paper
- URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264275125001544?via%3Dihub
Headed to GISRUK’25. Not presenting, chairing, paneling or anything official, just taking it all in as a consumer this time. Hit me up if you want to talk Imago, satellites, cities… or just say hi! 👋
🔗 Generative AI
Metadata
Highlights
new technologies are now invented so quickly that it is no longer useful to separate them out from one another. They crowd into each other, disrupting what already exists, only for many of them to come back to regenerate and rekindle what has already been invented.
These systems are moving science from being theory-led to data-led, from deduction to induction, although this does not mean that theory is being dispensed with, only that new ideas can emerge and converge from any or both of these directions.
generative AI is uniquely suited to designing solutions which improve the human condition, in our own case the quality of life, the sustainability and the prosperity associated with cities. In a previous editorial (Batty, 2024b), I sketched out how generative AI was an early theme in the development of configurational statistics, shape grammars, design methods, pattern languages, and related optimisation models which we published in this journal. In fact, this is likely to herald a revival in ideas about design coming from this area in the next decade.
🔗 Satellites are getting too good for forest carbon?
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Highlights
There’s a letter in Science today from a bunch of well known remote sensing researchers that make the unusual point that modern satellite resolution is getting too good to be accurate for forest carbon estimation.
but this resolution (0.3-5m) is too high for mapping forest carbon. Forest carbon has a natural resolution constraint: the size of an individual tree.
This is a great reminder that, sometimes, good spatial thinking trumps “better” technology. The insight applies much more widely than forest carbon estimation.
🔗 Formalising the urban pattern language: A morphological paradigm towards understanding the multi-scalar spatial structure of cities
Metadata
Highlights
urban patterns, the recurring configurations or arrangements of urban elements (Marshall, 2004), to reduce complexity and summarise the characters of the urban form.
pattern language represents a set of guidelines or solutions for reoccurring design problems derived from historic and contemporary urban environments.
urban landscape as a series of patterns of different urban elements at varying scales
The urban pattern language conceptual framework is built upon two fundamental hypotheses
firstly, that distinct patterns of different urban elements exist at various scales are not arbitrary but follow specific rules,
and secondly, the rule or relationship between the diverse patterns is unique with potential as a reflection to the cities' particular background and needs.
it is important to identify the scales of these patterns, whether the focus is on an overarching city blueprint or the intricate design of a specific neighbourhood
The language could be interpreted as the rule or the relationship between the patterns coming together to form the solution.
Note: This is an interesting way of summarizing the information on metrics across scales and the two cities.
The quest to correlate urban form with emergent dynamic data has taken centre stage over the past decade.
[Note: Good set of references of papers linking urban form with other phenomena to follow.]
New episode of the #GLaD podcast just dropped, Time (mis)management. Everything you always wanting to know (or not) about why we’re always late, and maybe that’s OK…
Headed to Detroit for the #AAG2025. Excited to spend a week with fellow Geography nerds in one of the most interesting urban stories of the XXth Century! Catch me at the sessions (image via Rachel, thanks!) we’re organising w/ Rachel Franklin, Elizabeth Delmelle and Isabelle Nilsson. Come say hi!
Imago the SDR-UK Imagery Data Service, is looking for a lead Research Software Engineer to help us design, build and run the tech platform that’ll power the service. Join us to make satellite data more useful, usable and used! https://jobs.ncl.ac.uk/job/Newcastle-Senior-Software-Engineer/1182366701/
🔗 The Guardian reviews Nord
www.theguardian.com/food/2025…
It’s part Austin Powers shag palace, part Mos Eisley Cantina from Star Wars. It really is groovy, baby.
🔗 JupyterGIS
Baking a bit of geo right on top of Jupyter “ is a great idea for both the Jupyter and geo worlds. Plenty of room to leverage the geo data science py-stack!
🗞️ Making Satellite Data Mainstream: Gaps, challenges, and opportunities for remote sensing experts [Industry Profiles and Activities] URL
By Aravind Ravichandran on IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine (11 December 2024).
Plenty of interesting points here. My favorite one is the focus on the boring but necessary aspects required to push adoption beyond the “usual suspects”. Very much an Imago theme.