Autodesk to Play Key Role in South Korea's Tomorrow City

November 4, 2008

Autodesk is working with South Korea's Incheon Free Economic Zone (IFEZ) and the Incheon Urban Development Corporation (IUDC) on the creation of their Tomorrow City in Song-do City, within Incheon.

Autodesk has designated Incheon as the second pilot city of its Digital City initiative, after announcing Salzburg, Austria in July. The Digital City initiative is designed to provide government, business, and public users a collaborative environment for visualizing, analyzing, and simulating the future impact of urban design and development at a city-wide scale, according to Autodesk.

Autodesk, IFEZ, and IUDC will work together to develop the Tomorrow City/Digital City, which will be built around a detailed 3D city model. The objective of the announcement is to help the Tomorrow City builders research a state-of-the-art city management system, according to Autodesk

Another goal of this pilot program is for Incheon to be able to bring together 3D models of above and below ground features in an open technology platform that supports the integration of CAD; a building information modeling (BIM); and geospatial, civil engineering, and infrastructure data over a wide geographic area. By combining that data with Autodesk's visualization and simulation tools, the city of Incheon would reportedly be able to deliver a way for its citizens to experience and understand the design and management of a city's construction, environment, and traffic.

The IFEZ and the IUDC will collaborate with Autodesk to explore the full potential of ubiquitous GIS. At the same time, the parties expect that the Digital City project will help promote Incheon City as a city of ubiquitous information technology (u-city), according to Autodesk. The Korean government's goal for its u-cities initiative is reportedly to establish a repeatable way to plan, build, and manage large urban development projects that incorporate innovative technology and design. Incheon City can then serve as a future model for subsequent urban development programs in Korea and abroad.

"Partnering with Autodesk will help us realize our vision to build a Digital City and transform Incheon into an international business hub of the Northeast Asian region that will lead in education, finance, commerce and retail," said Lee Heon-Seok, CEO of IFEZ. "Autodesk's technology will also help us in our planning and hosting of important upcoming events, such as the 2009 World City Expo and the 2014 Asian Games."

For the initial phase of the Digital City initiative, Tomorrow City – a 100-billion-won invested mini city, located in New Song-do City, off the coast of Incheon – has been selected as the pilot project. Scheduled to be opened in August 2009, it is a six-story, mini u-city urban development project with a total plot area of 31,697 square miles that will reportedly feature diverse, futuristic services, including ubiquitous-technology-based traffic and shopping. In this pilot program, the IFEZ will examine every potential benefit of the new 3D city management system, which will cover the whole process of the city development project ranging from design, construction, and operation to maintenance of the city after the construction, according to Autodesk.

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