电子沙盘作为可交互操作的实时的虚拟现实环境,是一种既具有传统沙盘的特点,又集成了多种高新技术的产品。本文应用ArcGIS的内置定制环境VBA对ArcGIS应用程序进行客户化,设计并实现重庆市区域规划电子沙盘系统。该系统中,通过对基础地理数据、数字正射影像数据、社会经济统计数据、各种专题规划数据以及一些目标模型数据等进行三维可视化实现实物沙盘的导航缩放等基本功能。此外,通过二次开发定制扩充了面向区域规划的实用功能,如空间分析、规划方案的设计与比选等辅助规划功能,从而开拓了电子沙盘应用的新领域,将对区域规划工作带来深刻影响。

This paper introduces the design and realization process of electronic sand table system for regional planning of Chongqing under the platform of ArcGIS by ESRI through secondary development by Visual Basic for Application (VBA). That it is called electronic sand table, sometimes digital sand table or virtual sand table, is contrast with traditional material sand table model. Unlike material sand tables, electric sand table is new high-tech product with integration of computer application, visual reality, Geographical Information System, virtual reality and multimedia. It can give users a real-time and interactive operation circumstance. Electronic sand tables break the limits of traditional sand tables such as large area, inconvenient for carrying, single content, and difficult to update. It has practical functions towards regional planning apart from the functions of traditional material sand table, such as assisting design planning scheme, managing spatio-temporal attribute of planning objects, analysing spatial affects and evaluating the planning blueprint, etc. In this paper, also, we analyse great significance of applying electronic sand table to regional planning and the profound effects that electronic sand table brings to regional planning. In the recent years, electronic sand table has been applied in many fields to a certain extent, such as military affairs, irrigation works, real estate, fire protection, but little in regional planning. From this article, we provide a new mode in which we carry on regional planning and we successfully test it through taking the Chongqing city as a case. This mode breaks the traditional idea, its vividness and third dimension can help geographers and regional policy decision-makers to gain a better understanding of the regions, and electronic sand table will become their right hand some time later.