Best Urban Planning Software with a Free Trial

Orbital Stack is an AI and CFD web-based software that provides earlier qualitative guidance, comparing a large number of design options while highlighting any potential wind and thermal comfort red flags. It allows for the realization of a variety of climate-conscious, high-performance developments not previously feasible due to cost and/or time constraints associated with traditional studies. Orbital Stack is the first digital climate-analysis tool built by global leaders in wind and microclimate engineering using real wind tunnel data. It is truly a game-changer for the architecture and building design sector, offering our clients direct access to wind comfort and safety analysis, thermal comfort and shadowing analysis, and cladding pressure simulations. This means architects can run their own wind simulations and quickly understand the climate impacts of their proposed building designs from the start, making decisions that result in higher performing and more resilient projects.

Design delightfully, collaborate clearly, and build better buildings. The joy of drawing by hand. The ease of super-smart 3D modeling software. Make sustainable buildings. Change the world, hundreds of professionally-developed extensions at your fingertips. Design in 3D. Document in 2D. Make work easier, bring efficiency to your team and the 3D community. A great idea can be its best with the right technology. Draw in 3D, analyze and improve your building’s performance, and creatively document and share your ideas with your class. Integrated with Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive. Works on Chromebooks or any Internet-connected computer. Students have access to free and intuitive 3D modeling tools. Positioning-centric information is changing the way people, businesses and governments work throughout the world. By applying Trimble's advanced positioning solutions, productivity increases and safety improvements are being realized.

Graphisoft Archicad - Design and deliver great buildings. Design: Unleash your creativity with the leading BIM software developed by architects like you. Focus on what you do best — designing great architecture — thanks to powerful algorithmic design tools and large model support. Visualize: Archicad’s professional architectural visualization tools translate your conceptual designs into compelling imagery of future buildings. Bring your models to life, inspire the audience, and invite stakeholders to engage with your designs. Collaborate: Work with your team and other disciplines around the corner or around the world on projects of any size and complexity. Open standards and workflows mean collaboration is guaranteed — regardless of what software other team members are using. Document: Complete, out-of-the-box documentation tools combined with a powerful publishing workflow that complies with local BIM requirements means you can focus on your designs, not the paperwork.

Accelerate your ability to scale by conducting site analysis in real time with your design. Allowing you to focus on what's important: making a lasting impact on your communities. Quickly get a 360-degree view of your idea. Follow your instincts, draw an idea and let Giraffe do the heavy lifting: overlaying data, querying and automatically calculating your proof of concept. Utilize data discovery to see your site's most up-to-date local mapping data. Giraffe combines maps from any source and treats them like layers. Allowing you to analyze, sort and group them for ease of use. Engage your stakeholders with an immersive view of the potential you see for a site. Provide viewer level access to the plan for increased community engagement that includes context and images. With Giraffe, you create something you're confident in and share it when you're ready. Interrogate plans rapidly from a shared space.

The collaborative building design for‍ architects. Snaptrude helps design better buildings faster, by bringing project teams together. Snaptrude is used by designers from some of the world’s leading companies. Planned, designed, and visualize with the entire project team from concept to construction. Share models and document communication in real time. Whether you're designing a house or a city, get it done faster with intelligent automation and parametric modeling. Being fast doesn't have to mean sacrificing creativity or quality. Leverage BIM data to control costs & design sustainably. Gather real-time insights from automated BoQs, site topography, daylight simulation, and more. Import from AutoCAD, SketchUp, Rhino, or Revit & Export directly into Revit, with complete parametric family information, without any data loss. Create flawless architecture that satisfies the client's brief. Brainstorm ideas with your team & rapidly turn them into detailed BIM models.

VU.CITY is transforming cities through greater understanding, collaboration, and trust to help you turn possibilities into realities.‍ Test ideas instantly and visualize schemes in an accurate, up-to-date context, with functionality and data that helps you make better decisions, faster. Project teams can better collaborate and expedite decision-making, and communicate the compelling story of proposals to win over stakeholders. VU.CITY means that architects, developers, planning consultants, and local authorities share a clear path in mapping out a city’s future. Now everyone can work together to deliver the best possible city for all. VU.CITY helps you visualize, organize and analyze data clearly and easily so that everyone involved can make better and quicker decisions. Quickly identify and appraise sites. VU.CITY's visualization, design functionality, and planning data allow you to optimize your designs.

Urban (re)development projects can be complex. Besides the engineering complexity, projects involve many stakeholders and experts, often with conflicting interests. This leads to long decision making processes with a suboptimal outcome. The 3D Cityplanner improves cooperation and avoids sub-optimal decision-making. A lot of data is available nowadays, but it is challenging to bring it together. We can ensure that all required data comes together in the system for any location. It is also possible to automatically gather all data of all underlying datasets. 3D Cityplanner is the best tool for quick 3D location analysis. With all the relevant location-specific data at your fingertips, the 3D Cityplanner is the best start for creating a masterplan. The drawing tools and auto-generating options help you make the best plan in no time.

ENVI-met is a 3D microclimate simulation software. The software is used for a wide range of applications, including urban planning, building design, and energy efficiency, considering not only one single climate parameter, but all of them. ENVI-met can simulate a variety of climate conditions, including day- and night-time temperatures, humidity, wind speed, and solar radiation in cities. The software can also simulate the effects of different building materials, such as glass and stone, on the climate of the surrounding environments. The program is used to predict the effects of urban design changes on the microclimate environment and human thermal comfort for people in cities worldwide. As climate change is having a major impact on our planet, it is essential, that more healthier and resilient cities are developed. To support these goals ENVI-met can be used to assess the potential of new buildings, green spaces, and urban planning and to make informed decisions.

Hektar is a cloud-based generative design software tailored for early-stage urban planning, pre-design, and schematic design. Developed by Parametric, it assists architects and urban planners in creating better projects by handling the inherent complexity of critical design phases. The platform utilizes evolutionary algorithms and artificial generative intelligence to produce feasible concepts and well-grounded estimates, methodically refining user inputs from rough frameworks to nuanced details. Hektar's toolset offers geometrical and geographical awareness, allowing users to define crucial aspects such as site access points, non-buildable zones, and user-defined streets. Additionally, it provides numerical inputs for further control over project parameters, including building depth, greenery, and parking. The software processes complex information, such as light and sun, from the beginning of the geometry pipeline, generating proposals.

​PlanMan is a cloud-based project management software designed specifically for architects and town planners. It offers a comprehensive suite of features to streamline administrative tasks and enhance productivity. Users can manage unlimited clients, projects, quotes, and invoices, all stored securely in one place. It includes built-in cloud storage for all project documentation, eliminating the need for shared network drives. Each project has a built-in chat room for instant communication, and client emails are stored against the relevant project for easy access. PlanMan's client portal allows clients to log in and view their enquiries, quotes, projects, documents, and invoices 24/7. Clients can also pay invoices online through Stripe or GoCardless integrations. The software supports managing co-consultants, creating and sending quotes from project templates, and generating invoices for clients and suppliers.

A building doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The setting, its environment, the subtle details — they all matter to bring your design to life. To create atmosphere. To give spaces a sense of scale and possibility. Lumion makes it refreshingly easy to transform any CAD model into an experience you can feel. You can shape entire landscapes and add a world of context to your designs. Make spaces feel real with fine-detailed nature, detailed skies and high-quality materials. Convey atmosphere and emotion with stunning lighting, weather and animation effects. Lumion is architectural rendering software that makes it easy to convey how your projects will translate into real-life experiences and emotions. Fast, intuitive and reliable, Lumion fits seamlessly in any design workflow, making rendering a more satisfying and enjoyable experience. Atmospheric spotlights. Realism-inducing decals. A scene-building experience that’s faster than ever.

Spend less time searching for data and working with fragmented tools. Import your site proposal and access all relevant data sets in one space. From feasibility to site acquisition, Autodesk Forma (formerly Spacemaker) empowers you to make confident data and insight-driven decisions. Work digitally from day one. Improve the quality and speed of the early planning phase. Never compromise! Discover ways to optimize for density and living qualities. You shouldn’t have to wait weeks every time you want to assess the living quality of your site. With Autodesk Forma you can improve your site proposal at any time, and instantly understand the impact of the changes made. Don’t settle for second best when it comes to your creativity. With Autodesk Forma you can discover and compare more options for your site than ever before. Autodesk Forma offers a single space where architects, developers, consultants, and municipalities can work together effectively and efficiently.

Issues like housing availability, sustainability goals, and economic changes are compelling cities to better plan for the future. ArcGIS Urban enables planners and design professionals to collaborate across teams with a web-based 3D application that supports scenario planning and impact assessment. ArcGIS Urban enables the digital transformation of city and regional planning to encourage collaboration with community stakeholders and help all groups work toward a more sustainable future. Create, track, and review development projects with a digital twin of your city. Incorporating building information modeling (BIM) and other types of 3D information throughout the project review process gives planners and developers a common view of urban development guidelines and reduces the time required for building applications. ArcGIS Urban makes creating, editing, and managing land-use and zoning plans simple with an interactive 3D environment built with planners in mind.

​Spacemaker is an intuitive, collaborative, cloud-based AI software that empowers architects, urban planners, and real estate developers to design high-quality site proposals. It enables users to create 3D massing models of their site and its surroundings using automatic data sets, test site proposals, and receive accurate analyses for over 100 criteria such as noise, wind, sun, and microclimate. Spacemaker streamlines early-stage planning and design workflows with intuitive tools and generative design, allowing for comprehensive feasibility studies and concept design. It offers ready-to-use data sets, smart design tools for fluid 2D and 3D drawing with real-time floor area tallying, and analyses for noise, wind, solar panels, sun, and parking design. Additional features include import and export capabilities with IFC and OBJ formats, automatic area calculations, microclimate analysis, visualization of differences between proposals, apartment generation, view analysis, etc.

SuperGIS Desktop 10 is the series of SuperGIS desktop geographical information system, it provides surface location with functions such as editing, storing, checking, integrating, processing, analyzing and displaying data. By using SuperGIS, you can conduct accurate and efficient analysis, management and research in various fields including market analysis, environmental monitoring, engineering development, urban planning and business management etc. SuperGIS Toolkit has variety of tools that allow you to easily connect different functions and create batch processing automation procedures. These customized processes can be publised on the websites by SuperGIS Server, which enables everyone to access.

Unlike other CAD and GIS software, it was created for urban planners from the beginning, and makes it easy to create 3D models using tried and tested building types and urban typologies. CityCAD offers a quick and easy way of sketching urban masterplans in 3D. Junctions with simple kerb radii are automatically created where routes intersect. If you move roads, then adjacent urban blocks are automatically re-sized. CityCAD offers a range of sophisticated analysis features, giving you quantitative insights into your masterplan from the earliest conceptual design stages. You can create a custom library of land use types and apply these to building floors. You can enter assumptions for electrical and other energy consumption, water use and refuse generation rates (per person, dwelling unit or unit of area) and total values are instantaneously calculated as you build and evolve your design.