Cave Chamber Data Modeling and 3D Web Visualization

Abstract

Underground caves and its specific structures are important for geomorphological studies. In this paper we present tools to identify and map speleothems by surveying cave chambers interiors.The cave chamber was surveyed using Terrestrial Laser Scanning to acquire point clouds with high level of detail for 3D model generation. This data with 45 million points is useful for either reconstruction, geomorphological studies or virtual visits of caves.With this point cloud we generated a 3D-mesh to represent the surface model of the cave chamber, which is important to study its geomorphological features. A topological structure of the 3D-mesh was also implemented to get an efficient algorithm to help identifying stalactites.The possibility to publish 3D data on the Web is of particular interest for the geospatial field. For this reason, it was decided to make the cave model available in the Web by developing a 3D graphical interface where users can navigate and interact with the three-dimensional models of the cave. For this Web3D framework it was used X3D, WebGL and X3DOM. Such solution does not require any additional plug-ins or components.

Characterization of Macro- and Micro-Geomorphology of Cave Channel from High-Resolution 3D Laser Scanning Survey: Case Study of Gomantong Cave in Sabah, Malaysia

“…The gradient of indicator function was derived by computing normals for the point sets using 10-point neighbourhood kernel. The procedure converts the point normal into a solid 3D surface by defining a scalar function that best matches the vector field to build a fitting isosurface [22,23]. The 3D meshed surface was achieved with octree depth of 10 comprising 825,451 vertices and 1,650,604 faces.…”

Terrestrial Laser Scanning in the Age of Sensing

“…TLS data were captured at a natural heritage site, then processed, and finally simplified to be suitable for web visualization using X3D, WebGL, and X3DOM standards (Silvestre et al 2013).…”

Facial Modeling for Interactive 3D Reconstruction in Web Applications

“…Currently, the main 3D reconstruction techniques based on point clouds and depth images that have been developed are the Voronoi diagrams [1], the Delaunay triangulation, [2] and the Convex Hull [3]. One interesting approach for reconstruction of 3D objects are the algorithms based on Computational Geometry, such as the convex hull method, because these can generate polygonal mesh models instead of using large number of points of the object surface, as described in [4]. Depth cameras, e.g.…”

“…Also, Kinect has four microphones that permits environmental audio capturing. It is possible to generate a 3D-mesh that represents a surface model by using a point cloud data set [4]. The ability to present 3D contents to the Web is of particular interest to allow Internet users to navigate and interact with the three-dimensional models.…”