3D City Models

In a steady shift from traditional 2D-GIS toward 3D-GIS, a great amount of accurate 3D city models has become necessary to be produced in a short period of time and provided widely to architects, engineers and environmentalists. A 3D city model is basically a computerized or digital model of a city, normally delivering a true representation and a real scene of an urban area and all its surface elements in 3D scale.

The need for 3D city data is growing and expanding rapidly in many fields. With more than half of the world’s population now living in cities, urban planning is extremely important for the development of cities. Planning and development of complex urban projects require the assessment of factors, such as historical development, topography, vegetation, land use patterns, transportation networks, and buildings. These models can be used from planners and designers to visualize and interact with design alternatives and scenario plans, large urban data sets, and 3D information more effectively. A complete and accurate 3D city model is a basic requirement and supports simulation, exploration, analysis, correction and management tasks in a large number of different application domains such as:

Town planning
Architecture
Municipal asset management
Security and defense
Emergency evacuation planning
Accident and catastrophe risk assessment
Locationing & information services
Noise propagation simulation & emission evaluation
Virtual reality
Telecommunications
Visualizations, fly-through animations, commercial visual effects and advertisements

By using dense airborne laser data, true-color (ortho and oblique) images and advanced photogrammetric techniques AeroPhoto Co Ltd can produce detailed and accurate 3D models of urban environment, including vectorized buildings and images draped over the terrain or used as textures for walls and roofs. 3D building models are geographically accurate, coming in various model types, level of detail and formats compatible with CAD, GIS and other 3D software. The level of detail (LOD) varies depending on the application in hand – from a point cloud to a simple surface model, to a complex building model that includes the texture. They are specifically designed to support engineers, architects and urban planners in making efficient, cost effective and informed decisions about the urban environment.

3d urban modelling lidar imagery