Case study on emerging trends in geospatial technologies for study of urban form

GIS has been an effective tool to study urban form. However, as its own field, GIS has evolved in a rapid pace over the past decades. Recent developments in geospatial analytics and visualization technologies offer new tools and applications for the researchers in the field This paper traces recent major trends in GIS and discusses their implications to the field of urban form research. These trends include the following: 1) increase in dimensions with 3D GIS; 2) integration with LiDAR remote sensing; 3) cloud-based GIS; 4) integration with virtual reality. This paper identifies best practices from two recent projects in the United States. It then discusses a class project and demonstrates the potentials of these new emerging GIS technologies for the study of urban form.