Google Analytics is the most widely used web traffic analytics program in the world with a wide array of functionality which serve several different purposes for its users. However the cost of training employees in the usage of Google Analytics can be expensive and time consuming due to the generality of the software. The purpose of this thesis is to explore an alternative solution to hav- ing employees learn the default Google Analytics interface and thus possibly re- ducing training expenses. A prototype written in the Java programming lan- guage is developed which implements the MVC and facade software patterns for the purpose of making the development process more efficient. It contains a feature for retrieving custom reports from Google Analytics using Google’s Core Reporting API in addition to two web pages are integrated into the proto- type using the Google Embed API. In the result the prototype is used along with the software estimation method COCOMO to make an estimation of the amount of effort required to develop a similar program. This is done by counting the prototype’s source lines of code manually, following the guidelines given by the COCOMO manual, and then implementing the result in the COCOMO estima- tion formula. The count of lines of code for the entire prototype is 567 and the count which considers reused code is 466. The value retrieved from the formula is 1.61±0.14 person months for the estimation of the entire program and 1.31± 0.16 for a program with reused code. The conclusion of the thesis is that the res- ult from the estimation has several weaknesses and further research is necessary in order to improve the accuracy of the result.

Digitization and characterization of urban spaces are essential components as we move to an ever-growing ’always connected’ world. Accurate analysis of such digital urban spaces has become more important as we continue to get spatial and social context-aware feedback and recommendations in our daily activities. Modeling and reconstruction of urban environments have thus gained unprecedented importance in the last few years. Such analysis typically spans multiple disciplines, such as computer graphics, and computer vision as well as architecture, geoscience, and remote sensing. Reconstructing an urban environment usually requires an entire pipeline consisting of different tasks. In such a pipeline, data analysis plays a strong role in acquiring meaningful insights from the raw data. This dissertation primarily focuses on the analysis of various forms of urban data and proposes a set of techniques to extract useful information, which is then used for different applications. The first part of this dissertation presents a semi-automatic framework to analyze facade images to recover individual windows along with their functional configurations such as open or (partially) closed states. The main advantage of recovering both the repetition patterns of windows and their individual deformation parameters is to produce a factored facade representation. Such a factored representation enables a range of applications including interactive facade images, improved multi-view stereo reconstruction, facade-level change detection, and novel image editing possibilities. The second part of this dissertation demonstrates the importance of a layout configuration on its performance. As a specific application scenario, I investigate the interior layout of warehouses wherein the goal is to assign items to their storage locations while reducing flow congestion and enhancing the speed of order picking processes. The third part of the dissertation proposes a method to classify cities based on their functional behavior. Commonly used computational approaches concentrate on geometric descriptors, for both images and laser scans. Instead, I analyze street networks, both their topology (i.e., connectivity) and geometry (i.e., layout), in an attempt to understand the factors that play dominant roles in determining the characteristic of cities. A set of street network descriptors is proposed to capture the essence of city layouts and used, in a supervised setting, to classify and categorize various cities across the world. Each part of the dissertation shows the utility of the proposed methods through describing a variety of applications on different examples.

It was first stated 200 years ago, and reiterated numerous times since, that "architecture is frozen music". While this romantic analogy sufficiently satisfies many in the realm of architecture, it actually is a sad way of defining an idea so inherently lively. Goethe's quote conjures up the notion of a world that is silent, one in which we can see the notes but never hear the music because we are trapped by stasis in time. Like the note admired on a piece of paper, architecture in this world is static regardless of the changing conditions around it. What if the "frozen" part could be removed from this concept, and the element of time could play an active role in the built environment? An architecture that can exist in a sense of time is one in which the musical note can be played. Through the ability to change with time and be changed by time architecture can directly respond to its inhabitants, environment, and contextual factors. A rich melody of interaction can then be initiated in which the built world can talk back. Naturally, the first point of this contact would be the building's facade, and it is here that there is the greatest opportunity to reach the largest audience. The outer "face" of a building has always been a feature of significance for both designer and customer. For centuries the ornamental features of a building were what distinguished its purpose and place in society. From the elaborite pediments of the Greeks to the inticatly carved reliefs of the Itailians, the ornament of a structure told a static story about the creators and inhabitants of the structure. Now, the technology is available to make this aspect of architecture talk to us by becoming a dymanic, interactive, and kinetic component. In order for this facade system to transcend the boundries of conventional architecture it must utilize precocious architectural means, methods, and materials. These new communication systems include, but are not limited to, touch, light, sound, and electromagnictic fields. As any of these stimuli are precieved by the facade, it can have the ability to react proportional to the input. Esentially, the facade system will be able to customize itself depending on the conditions presented. Similar to a computer operating system, the new facade will provide a generic mass producible platform that can be individualized by it user. The users of this system may be the architect, client, occupant, viewer, environment, regional context, technologic connection, or global community, depending on the specific installation. And most importantly, both the user and the facade have the capacity to be changed or altered at any time, meaning that the fundamental characteristics of the project will never be frozen. In this manner, the new architectural ornament will go beyond the static nature of its predecessors and become one that the viewer can actively communicate with.