How 2D and 3D Built Environment Impact Urban Vitality: Evidence from Overhead-Level to Eye-Level Urban Form Metrics

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1) The term built environment generally refers to man-made surroundings that facilitate human activities, encompassing factors like building performance and occupant behavior. In your text, please clarify how you use this term or consider using an alternative if it better aligns with your context.

2) The abstract currently contains too many abbreviations, which can overwhelm readers. Limit abbreviations to those that are absolutely necessary, and ensure that each abbreviation is fully expanded and clearly explained.

3) You mention the GWR model in line 87 of the Introduction. Please expand the abbreviation and explain why GWR is crucial for your research. Clarify its role and significance in the context of your study.

3) In Chapter 2.2, you discuss research on urban areas using street-view data, but there is a broader body of literature available. Some studies focus on analyzing building characteristics and extracting information (e.g., “Automated detection of exterior cladding material in urban areas from street view images using deep learning” and “Effectiveness of Image Augmentation Techniques on Detection of Building Characteristics from Street View Images Using Deep Learning”). You should highlight how your research differs from or builds upon these works. Currently, your literature review includes relatively few references; it would benefit from discussion of additional relevant studies.

4) Metrics such as POI and the GVI are important. Please discuss their significance and explain why they are included in your context.

5) Several abbreviations (e.g., OLS for Ordinary Least Squares, NDVI for Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) are not expanded. Readers may be unfamiliar with these terms, so ensure each abbreviation is spelled out and defined.

6) The text in Figure 8 is difficult to read. Consider increasing the DPI or otherwise enhancing the figure’s resolution to make all text visible and clear. Appendix is same. They should be improved in the visual quality.

7) Additionally, there is a high level of textual duplication between your manuscript and other publications. Please rephrase and paraphrase these sections thoroughly to ensure originality and clarity.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The quality of English requires significant improvement

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The reviewed paper presented an interesting proposal. The paper was well-written, and most explanations were clear.

All the acronyms must be explained in the first usage. In the abstract, please include numerical information regarding the proposal's effectiveness. Be careful when using adjectives. All the adjectives must be supported with scientific evidence.

Please explain the overhead level and the eye level better. Please include the contributions in a list. Please insert a paragraph at the beginning of section 2 to explain the section's organization. Please erase the big blank space on page 4.

Be careful about the quality of images. Please insert more details regarding the methodology. Please insert an introductory paragraph at the beginning of section 4.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Land-3504511

The focus of this paper was said to be examining the 2D and 3D environment to urban vitality. However, throughout this paper, the experiment designing was not proper for such purpose and the results were not convincing.

The results part showing temporal changes between weekday/weekends, and during different times during a day. However, the built environment can’t change during different times of the day or switch between weekday/weekends. The physical building structures are there for multiple years. Therefore, the correlation between urban vitality and the 2D/3D physical environment during different times of a day is not convincing. Simply using business hours and working hours may capture the hourly and daily changes of urban vitality.

In addition, urban vitality is an important measurement for this study. In the data section it was mentioned that it is based on Baidu heat map. However, more detailed description for this is required. How was the urban vitality measurement developed based on the heat map?

Analyzing the eye-views of city is an interesting topic and it is important for urban planning. However, for the specific research objective claimed in this study, this study design and results were not convincing.  

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The following concerns should be solved for the publication:

1. You did not solve the comment 3. Clearly articulate the significance of analyzing building characteristics using street-view images. Revisit previous comments carefully, especially Comment 3, and consider developing a dedicated chapter that reviews existing research leveraging street-view images to extract meaningful information. This will significantly enhance the contextual depth and relevance of your study.
2. Your plagiarism rate remains at 24%, which is notably high and unacceptable. Additionally, some paragraphs closely match existing literature; for example, lines 277 to 288 appear highly similar to content from the paper titled "Measuring the Non-Linear Relationship between Three-Dimensional Built Environment and Urban Vitality Based on a Random Forest Model." Conduct a comprehensive self-plagiarism check and revise these sections rigorously to ensure original content and proper citation.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

English is fine.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for your reply. However, you did not address one of my main concern. Your research mainly focused on using the physical existing buildings and aimed to understand how the physical building structures are associated with urban vitality. While weekday/weekend activities vary a lot, the buildings do not change - building on Monday is the same as the same building on Sunday. What changes the urban vitality is not about the physical building but more about the activities and the social perspective about the space-time. This leads to my question about the temporal unit - when the urban activity and urban vitality change on a daily-basis, the buildings remain the same for years. They how much do the physical built environment and its visual influence impact the urban vitality? 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Concerns remain unresolved. The author has not adequately addressed most of the provided comments. It appears that the author may not have carefully reviewed or fully understood the feedback, as the revisions lack meaningful reflection of the suggested improvements

Author Response

Thanks for your suggestion. Please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have addressed my questions.

Author Response

Thanks.