Overview
ISO/IEC TS 5147:2023 - "Information technology - Computer graphics, image processing and environmental data representation - Guidelines for representation and visualization of smart cities" provides practical guidance for digitally representing and visualizing smart cities. The technical specification defines core concepts (smart city, smart city object, smart city data), categorizes urban data types, and recommends representation and visualization approaches - including mapping data categories to appropriate standards and techniques. It also contains use cases illustrating how standards can be applied for analysis, simulation and stakeholder communication.
Key topics and technical guidance
- Concepts and terminology: Definitions for 3D city model, spatiotemporal data, analytical data, semantic and physical properties, smart city object and smart city data.
- Standards overview: Discussion of representation and visualization standards and relevant technologies (e.g., BIM, GIS, SEDRIS, image/video formats, AR/VR and mixed reality).
- Representation guidance: How to model built and natural environment, networks, sensors, dynamic entities and semantic properties in digital form.
- Visualization guidance: Best practices for rendering spatiotemporal data, imagery, video, audio, haptics and multidimensional datasets; guidance for selecting charts, 2D/3D views, and immersive displays.
- Data-category mapping: Methods for mapping data categories (natural environment, built environment, sensors, weather, social media, analytics) to presentation and visualization techniques.
- Interoperability & standards application: Advice on selecting standards-based formats and protocols to support integration, simulation, digital twins and analysis.
- Use cases: Practical examples demonstrating application of representation and visualization standards for smart city scenarios.
Practical applications
ISO/IEC TS 5147:2023 is applicable to:
- Urban and regional planning - visualizing redevelopment, land use and scenario analysis.
- Digital twins and simulation - integrating sensor feeds, spatiotemporal models and analytics.
- Infrastructure and asset management - representing networks, built environment and condition data.
- Emergency management and operations - visual situational awareness using live data streams.
- Public engagement and policy - communicating plans through 2D/3D visualizations, AR/VR and dashboards.
Who should use this standard
- City planners and local government ICT teams
- GIS and BIM professionals
- Smart city solution architects and IoT integrators
- Simulation, visualization and UX designers
- Software developers building visualization platforms and digital twins
Related standards and interoperability
While ISO/IEC TS 5147:2023 does not contain normative references, it frames the use of established domain standards (BIM, GIS, SEDRIS, OGC, MPEG and common image/video/3D formats) to achieve interoperable, standards-based smart city representations.
Keywords: ISO/IEC TS 5147:2023, smart cities, representation, visualization, 3D city model, digital twin, GIS, BIM, IoT, spatiotemporal data, sensors, AR/VR.
