Deciding where to direct limited renovation budgets is one of the hardest calls a municipality has to make. Traditional 2D maps and single-building audits show only part of the picture; they don’t easily reveal the shape, height and comparative energy performance of an entire building stock at once.

Developed as part of the ComActivate project, this guidebook sets out a practical methodology for building interactive 3D maps of a neighbourhood’s buildings, one that visualises potential energy savings, envelope parameters and other key indicators, building by building. The approach was used to model the residential stock in all four ComActivate pilot areas: Burgas, Budapest-Józsefváros, Kaišiadorys and Elektrėnai.

Unlike a purely descriptive account of the project’s own work, this is a self-contained, replicable guide. It walks a user with no prior GIS experience, such as a municipal planner or energy officer, through the full process: accessing the web map platform, editing existing building features, drawing and entering data for new buildings, and viewing the resulting extruded 3D models.

Once built, these models let municipalities compare buildings on shape and size, heating systems and energy needs, financial savings potential, environmental impact and insulation quality, both in their current state and after renovation. That makes it possible to proactively target the buildings and households most exposed to energy poverty, rather than relying on generic, first-come-first-served funding schemes.

Because the workflow relies on standard, widely available GIS software, it is designed to outlast the ComActivate project itself and to be picked up by any municipality looking to plan renovation at neighbourhood scale.

Download the guide for the full step-by-step instructions and platform screenshots.