Virtual cities management and organisation

This paper presents a recent overview of the increasing use of Virtual Reality (VR) technologies for the simulation of urban environments. It builds on previous research conducted on the identification of three-dimensional (3D) city models and offers an analysis of the development, utilization and construction of VR city models. Issues pertaining to advantages, barriers and ownership are identified. The paper describes a case study of the development of a VR model for the city of Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK and outlines the role that academic institutions can play in both the creation and utilization of urban models. The study offers a new approach for the creation, management and update of urban models and reflects on issues which are emerging. Areas for future research are discussed

Determining geometric primitives for a 3D GIS : easy as 1D, 2D, 3D?

Acquisition techniques such as photo modelling, using SfM-MVS algorithms, are being applied increasingly in several fields of research and render highly realistic and accurate 3D models. Nowadays, these 3D models are mainly deployed for documentation purposes. As these data generally encompass spatial data, the development of a 3D GIS would allow researchers to use these 3D models to their full extent. Such a GIS would allow a more elaborate analysis of these 3D models and thus support the comprehension of the objects that the features in the model represent. One of the first issues that has to be tackled in order to make the resulting 3D models compatible for implementation in a 3D GIS is the choice of a certain geometric primitive to spatially represent the input data. The chosen geometric primitive will not only influence the visualisation of the data, but also the way in which the data can be stored, exchanged, manipulated, queried and understood. Geometric primitives can be one-, two- and three-dimensional. By adding an extra dimension, the complexity of the data increases, but the user is allowed to understand the original situation more intuitively. This research paper tries to give an initial analysis of 1D, 2D and 3D primitives in the framework of the integration of SfM-MVS based 3D models in a 3D GIS