IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/urbpla/v2y2017i1p19-30.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sky View Factors from Synthetic Fisheye Photos for Thermal Comfort Routing—A Case Study in Phoenix, Arizona

Author

Listed:
  • Ariane Middel

    (School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, Arizona State University, USA)

  • Jonas Lukasczyk

    (Department of Computer Science, University of Kaiserslautern, Germany)

  • Ross Maciejewski

    (School of Computing, Informatics & Decision Systems Engineering, Arizona State University, USA)

Abstract

The Sky View Factor (SVF) is a dimension-reduced representation of urban form and one of the major variables in radiation models that estimate outdoor thermal comfort. Common ways of retrieving SVFs in urban environments include capturing fisheye photographs or creating a digital 3D city or elevation model of the environment. Such techniques have previously been limited due to a lack of imagery or lack of full scale detailed models of urban areas. We developed a web based tool that automatically generates synthetic hemispherical fisheye views from Google Earth at arbitrary spatial resolution and calculates the corresponding SVFs through equiangular projection. SVF results were validated using Google Maps Street View and compared to results from other SVF calculation tools. We generated 5-meter resolution SVF maps for two neighborhoods in Phoenix, Arizona to illustrate fine-scale variations of intra-urban horizon limitations due to urban form and vegetation. To demonstrate the utility of our synthetic fisheye approach for heat stress applications, we automated a radiation model to generate outdoor thermal comfort maps for Arizona State University’s Tempe campus for a hot summer day using synthetic fisheye photos and on-site meteorological data. Model output was tested against mobile transect measurements of the six-directional radiant flux density. Based on the thermal comfort maps, we implemented a pedestrian routing algorithm that is optimized for distance and thermal comfort preferences. Our synthetic fisheye approach can help planners assess urban design and tree planting strategies to maximize thermal comfort outcomes and can support heat hazard mitigation in urban areas.

Suggested Citation

  • Ariane Middel & Jonas Lukasczyk & Ross Maciejewski, 2017. "Sky View Factors from Synthetic Fisheye Photos for Thermal Comfort Routing—A Case Study in Phoenix, Arizona," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 2(1), pages 19-30.
    • Handle: RePEc:cog:urbpla:v2:y:2017:i:1:p:19-30
    DOI: 10.17645/up.v2i1.855
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/urbanplanning/article/view/855
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17645/up.v2i1.855?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bryan Jones & Brian C. O’Neill & Larry McDaniel & Seth McGinnis & Linda O. Mearns & Claudia Tebaldi, 2015. "Future population exposure to US heat extremes," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 5(7), pages 652-655, July.
    2. Marcus White & Youpei Hu & Nano Langenheim & Wowo Ding & Mark Burry, 2016. "Cool City Design: Integrating Real-Time Urban Canyon Assessment into the Design Process for Chinese and Australian Cities," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 1(3), pages 25-37.
    3. Marcus White & Youpei Hu & Nano Langenheim & Wowo Ding & Mark Burry, 2016. "Cool City Design: Integrating Real-Time Urban Canyon Assessment into the Design Process for Chinese and Australian Cities," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 1(3), pages 25-37.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. repec:plo:pone00:0214474 is not listed on IDEAS

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ariane Middel & Jonas Lukasczyk & Ross Maciejewski, 2017. "Sky View Factors from Synthetic Fisheye Photos for Thermal Comfort Routing—A Case Study in Phoenix, Arizona," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 2(1), pages 19-30.
    2. Zhang, Yitong & Hao, Zengchao & Zhang, Yu, 2023. "Agricultural risk assessment of compound dry and hot events in China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 277(C).
    3. Wang, Xinzhi & Lin, Qingxia & Wu, Zhiyong & Zhang, Yuliang & Li, Changwen & Liu, Ji & Zhang, Shinan & Li, Songyu, 2025. "Agricultural GDP exposure to drought and its machine learning-based prediction in the Jialing River Basin, China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 307(C).
    4. Guiyu Chen & Chaosu Li, 2023. "The changing dynamics of population exposure to extreme heat in the contiguous United States from 2001 to 2020," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 50(7), pages 1998-2001, September.
    5. Sri Hasnawati & Mustofa Usman & Ahmad Faisol & Faiz A. M. Elfaki, 2023. "Analysis and Modeling Gross Domestic Product, Carbon Dioxide Emission, Population Growth, and Life Expectancy at Birth: Case Study in Qatar," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 13(2), pages 467-483, March.
    6. Zhou, Long & Li, Yixin & Cheng, Jialin & Qin, Yu & Shen, Guoqiang & Li, Bin & Yang, Huajie & Li, Sihong, 2023. "Understanding the aesthetic perceptions and image impressions experienced by tourists walking along tourism trails through continuous cityscapes in Macau," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    7. Yuqing Zhang & Guangxiong Mao & Changchun Chen & Liucheng Shen & Binyu Xiao, 2021. "Population Exposure to Compound Droughts and Heatwaves in the Observations and ERA5 Reanalysis Data in the Gan River Basin, China," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-28, September.
    8. Salvi Asefi-Najafabady & Karen L Vandecar & Anton Seimon & Peter Lawrence & Deborah Lawrence, 2018. "Climate change, population, and poverty: vulnerability and exposure to heat stress in countries bordering the Great Lakes of Africa," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 148(4), pages 561-573, June.
    9. Binita KC & J. M. Shepherd & Anthony W. King & Cassandra Johnson Gaither, 2021. "Multi-hazard climate risk projections for the United States," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 105(2), pages 1963-1976, January.
    10. K. Shuvo Bakar & Huidong Jin, 2018. "Spatio-temporal quantitative links between climatic extremes and population flows: a case study in the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 148(1), pages 139-153, May.
    11. Hamidreza Zoraghein & Brian C. O'Neill, 2020. "A spatial population downscaling model for integrated human-environment analysis in the United States," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 43(54), pages 1563-1606.
    12. Mathew E. Hauer & Carl P. Schmertmann, 2020. "Population Pyramids Yield Accurate Estimates of Total Fertility Rates," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(1), pages 221-241, February.
    13. Frankovic, Ivan, 2017. "The impact of climate change on health expenditures," ECON WPS - Working Papers in Economic Theory and Policy 02/2017, TU Wien, Institute of Statistics and Mathematical Methods in Economics, Economics Research Unit.
    14. Elisabeth Tschumi & Jakob Zscheischler, 2020. "Countrywide climate features during recorded climate-related disasters," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 158(3), pages 593-609, February.
    15. Anna Marandi & Kelly Leilani Main, 2021. "Vulnerable City, recipient city, or climate destination? Towards a typology of domestic climate migration impacts in US cities," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 11(3), pages 465-480, September.
    16. Franz Schug & David Frantz & Sebastian van der Linden & Patrick Hostert, 2021. "Gridded population mapping for Germany based on building density, height and type from Earth Observation data using census disaggregation and bottom-up estimates," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(3), pages 1-23, March.
    17. Sijia Wu & Ming Luo & Gabriel Ngar-Cheung Lau & Wei Zhang & Lin Wang & Zhen Liu & Lijie Lin & Yijing Wang & Erjia Ge & Jianfeng Li & Yuanchao Fan & Yimin Chen & Weilin Liao & Xiaoyu Wang & Xiaocong Xu, 2025. "Rapid flips between warm and cold extremes in a warming world," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 16(1), pages 1-12, December.
    18. Dan Wanyama & Erin L. Bunting & Nicholas Weil & David Keellings, 2023. "Delineating and characterizing changes in heat wave events across the United States climate regions," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 176(2), pages 1-23, February.
    19. Flavio Lehner & Clara Deser & Benjamin M. Sanderson, 2018. "Future risk of record-breaking summer temperatures and its mitigation," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 146(3), pages 363-375, February.
    20. Bryan Jones & Claudia Tebaldi & Brian C. O’Neill & Keith Oleson & Jing Gao, 2018. "Avoiding population exposure to heat-related extremes: demographic change vs climate change," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 146(3), pages 423-437, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:urbpla:v2:y:2017:i:1:p:19-30. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira or IT Department (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.