The World is facing serious challenges including global climate change, aging infrastructure, a shrinking workforce, and lagging productivity.   To enable architects, engineers, construction companies,and  owners and operators of buildings and infrastructure to address these challenges, new technologies are being developed and applied including model-driven design, geospatial-enabling, new acquisition technologies such as high resolution photogrammetry and laser scanning, and 3D visualization and simulation.  These new technologies provide the foundation for convergence, the integration of architectural and engineering design, geospatial, and 3D simulation technologies.  The business drivers for this transformative technology advance are productivity and efficiency in the construction and facilities management industry, and improving the performance of facilities over their full life-cycle.  But these new technologies are not only changing how we design, manage, and operate buildings and infrastructure, but enable intelligent 3D precision simulation of urban environments.  For people and organizations involved in the planning, design, construction and operations lifecycle of our cities, the ability to model a city with engineering precision including inside and outside of buildings and network infrastructure such as utility, telecommunications, and transportation networks will enable city governments to better involve citizens in making collective decisions in the areas of urban planning, economic development, emergency planning, and security. 

In the past 3D urban modeling was generally difficult, requiring sophisticated modeling skills, as well as being expensive and was undertaken only by the largest urban municipalities.  Technical advances are now making 3D urban modeling available to a much broader market including small to medium sized municipalities who may have felt that in the past that 3D urban modeling was out of reach. As part of this industry initiative Autodesk has announced the release of Autodesk LandXplorer Studio 2009 / LandXplorer Studio Professional 2009
in English, German and French. This release enables users to create digital cities from various geospatial data sources, visualize and explore urban environments and analyze urban design projects before they’re built.