CityGML: Interoperable Access to 3D City Models

Abstract

Virtual 3D city models provide important information for different aspects of disaster management. In this context, up-to-dateness of and flexible access to 3D city models are of utmost importance. Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI) provide the appropriate framework to cover both aspects, integrating distributed data sources on demand. In this paper we present CityGML, a multi-purpose and multi-scale representation for the storage of and interoperable access to 3D city models in SDIs. CityGML is based on the standard GML3 of the Open Geospatial Consortium and covers the geometrical, topological, and semantic aspects of 3D city models. The class taxonomy distinguishes between buildings and other man-made artifacts, vegetation objects, waterbodies, and transportation facilities like streets and railways. Spatial as well as semantic properties are structured in five consecutive levels of detail. Throughout the paper, special focus is on the utilization of model concepts with respect to different tasks in disaster management.

The effect of acquisition error and level of detail on the accuracy of spatial analyses

“…The standard defines LODs that progress in geometric detail and semantic information: LOD1 is a block model, LOD2 is a generalized model containing basic roof shapes, and LOD3 is an architecturally detailed model containing openings and facade detail (Kolbe, Gröger, & Plümer, 2005). These LODs roughly reflect the different outcomes of different acquisition techniques (Biljecki, Ledoux, & Stoter, 2016b).…”

Integration of BIM and GIS: The Development of the CityGML GeoBIM Extension

“…We have decided to use CityGML for this [26]. It is not possible to integrate IFC semantics into CityGML by default.…”

“…They use different technology, standards and syntax de-scriptions. Previous attempts to integrate BIM and GIS [18,21,26] seem to focus on either BIM or GIS. The two options seen so far are (1) integrating BIM data in the GIS world by using GIS technology, GIS standards and is done by 'GIS people' that look at buildings as information in a geospatial context [4,23,25].…”

Advances in 3D Geoinformation Systems

“…'QUASY' (Benner et al, 2005) and 'Smart Buildings' (Döllner, 2005). CityGML 1 (Kolbe and Gröger, 2003;Kolbe et al, 2005;Groger et al, 2006) is an attempt to create a useable and formal standard for the exchange of city models, using this approach. It recognises that many existing 3D city models are rather ad hoc creations which neglect semantic and topological modelling aspects.…”

“…by storey). Kolbe et al's (2005) paper on applying CityGML to various disaster management applications, shows how the connectivity between rooms for pedestrian access can be extracted using the shared openings (doors) between rooms. However, this is both a by-product of the geometrical modelling (to reduce the duplication of geometrical description and optional (Groger et al 2006).…”