ARTICLES
GUO Yingqi, QI Qingwen, JIANG Lili, ZHANG An, REN Jianshun, WANG Xiaoshan
City is a complicated macro-system whose boundary geometry was formed by a number of interactional causes. Research methods on urban form can be summarized into two groups, i.e. quantitive approach and qualitative approach, but, there hasn’t been a theoretical frame of urban form methodology which can be agree on till now. In this paper, the characteristics, hierarchical structure and driving mechanism of urban form are firstly studied, then, the epistemology of urban form is expounded, and, by comparing all the methodology on urban form research, the Geo-Info-TUPU methodology is considered to be the best one based on its special thinking modeling which integrates imagery thinking, mathematical thinking and deduce thinking together. Geo-Info-TUPU is a kind of methodology by which the spatial form and structure, the spatial and temporal variation rule of the earth system phenomenon are displayed after the process of the imagery thinking and the abstract summary, and using the computer multi-dimensional and dynamic visualization technology. It supplies a new method in the urban form research field. After defining the conception of the urban form information TUPU, the normal thinking rule and the technique process are summarized and the theoretical frame of urban form information TUPU is built. Then, based on integrating the spatial data with the statistic figure, the urban form classification TUPU of China is built by using the indices of the compactness and fractal dimension to identify different categories, and, cities of China are roughly divided into six categories, i.e. centralized form, ribbon form, radioactive form, two cities form, ribbon group form and centralized group form. And then, the normal process of the Geo-Info-TUPU guiding city planning is put forward: calculating the quantitative indexes; making sure the urban form; analyzing the impact factors; finding out the city development period; and putting forward the suggestions of planning. At the end, the advantages and disadvantages of the urban form information TUPU are summarized. The advantages include vividness, accuracy and practicalness, whereas the disadvantage is that, the basic knowledge of the city should be know because the TUPU analysis is based on empirical hypothesis. The Geo-Info-TUPU supplies a new method in the urban form research field, and it can be used to diagnose the regular discipline and predict the future.
