Urban Planning Tools: Software for urban planning

In Bangladesh Urban Planning has become an increasingly popular topic of discussion with respect to the provision of efficient environments for urban development activity. The country, city planning and development agencies are preparing plans for urban development. In this technology based period it is essential to use an innovative technology which can assist any planning activity & helps any decision maker involved in urban development activity. "UPT (Urban Planning Tools)" is Software which is helpful for any decision making in planning activity.

UPT software is developed by Md. Shahriar Alam Bappy, a fourth year student of Urban & Rural Planning Discipline of Kulna University. The main Purpose of this software is to assist urban development activity. The main attraction of this software is that, user can use any ArcGIS shape file without installing Arc GIS Software. ArcGIS is world famous software for map digitizing of any area & its price is too high. The map created in ArcGIS software can also be used in this UPT software without using ArcGIS. UPT software also can calculate and analyze that, what should be the amount of a planned residential, industrial, road, commercial area included in a particular urban area.

This is the first software made in Bangladesh, which can open both ArcGIS shape file, Cad drawings, GRID, ESRI Coverage and Standard Image format files and not only open, it can also do various types of operation by using these types of files. ArcGIS is world famous software which used for map creation and also plays a vital role for planning activity. The file of this ArcGIS software is saved as .shp. "Urban Planning Tools (UPT)" software can read this Shape file; even it can replace shape file to .jpeg image easily. UPT also can create new shape file like ArcGIS even it can read the database of shape file, copy map from UPT to other program, can add new graphics and so on.

Here a new type of converter included in this software which is "One to many converter".

Normally we can see many types of converter, but those can convert from one unit to another only one unit in a moment such as inch to meter or inch to feet or meter to feet in one time. But UPT software can convert one unit to another many unit in a moment like inch to feet, meter, mile etc and acre to square meter, katha, bigha, etc many unit by one click. In our country it is too essential to forecasting future population for preparing a particular plan for a particular area development.

Population forecasting is also an important issue for any master plan preparation of an urban area.

The first objective of a town planner is to determine the future population of a particular urban area and then he or she has to done other objective based on this calculated population.

Here in UPT software a calculator included which can be used only for population forecasting, which will be helpful for any Decision maker, Town Planner in urban development activity. Anyone can easily determine future population of a particular area in a particular year by using this software. In Bangladesh many types of NGOs, GOs, Development organization, company have to Digitize map based on their different types of project and they also need area wise information from map.

But some organization have to faced such a problem like, they have no ArcGIS software because of its unavailability or its higher price, UPT software can be used as alternate of this. In this technology depended world many developed country used developed technology in urban development activity.

The technology used in a particular country indicates that how much this country is developing. UPT software can be used as Planning Support System (PSS), which can support the planning activity. This software can be helpful for Utility service planning of a particular area. User can calculate the future need of a particular utility service like parking facility, market, dustbin etc based on future population and capacity of a particular service by using this software. Here in UPT software there is a link with Microsoft word, Access, Excel program.

So in this way user can easily open any database or document file from this software and also open any web page if internet is connected. User can also convert any shape file as an image like .jpeg, .emf etc and directly copy these to any word document file or any image viewer program.

This software can calculate the camber of road to support Transportation planning activity. In a word this software can play a vital role for urban planning activity.

The future Plans of UPT software are- Web base Geographic Information System (GIS), Conversion of MapInfo's .tab file to Arcgis's .shp file, Use of GPS in this software, More option will be included which will be more helpful for urban planning activity. For more information about "UPT (Urban Planning Tools)" software.

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