Three US cities are joining a platform that will allow city planners to see their locality in 5D. Chicago, San Francisco and Washington D.C. have all signed on to use the CityZenith Internet of Things (IoT) platform which offers data visualizations and systems management in 5D. The technology will be previewed at the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona from November 17-19, 2015.
So how is 5D different from 3D? On a visual basis, it’s not really. The visualizations look a lot like a video game rendering of a city. However, the technology offers real-time data visualization, cross-referencing, and other information from within the city view adding new layers for users to work with.
The CityZenith platform has three overlays – energy, infrastructure, and security. The overlays will allow city officials to track emissions, public safety incidents and manage critical infrastructure. The platform itself runs on Windows Azure.
CityZenith recently worked with Accenture to launch Chicago’s CityZenith pilot this year.
“As evidenced with our work in Chicago, we believe that the proliferation of technologies available to us through the Internet of Things now enables us to help cities decide not just what they can do, but rather what they fundamentally should do based on the needs of their constituents,” Salomon Salinas, Accenture’s Global Smart Cities Lead said of the partnership.
In addition to the dashboard for public sector workers, an enterprise version is also available with similar capabilities for utility companies, real estate developers, and other industries that rely on data sources like emissions, zoning, and critical infrastructure locations.
Vendors are scrambling to take advantage of the IoT opportunity set with projects large and small. IBM and Siemens were some of the first movers here but as CivSource reported last month, Verizon has also released an updated IoT strategy and product offerings aimed at capturing more market share.