ENABLING “ENERGY-AWARENESS” IN THE SEMANTIC 3D CITY MODEL OF VIENNA

This paper presents and discusses the first results regarding selection, analysis, preparation and eventual integration of a number of energy-related datasets, chosen in order to enrich a CityGML-based semantic 3D city model of Vienna. CityGML is an international standard conceived specifically as information and data model for semantic city models at urban and territorial scale. The still-in-development Energy Application Domain Extension (ADE) is a CityGML extension conceived to specifically model, manage and store energy-related features and attributes for buildings. <br><br> The work presented in this paper is embedded within the European Marie-Curie ITN project “CINERGY, Smart cities with sustainable energy systems”, which aims, among the rest, at developing urban decision making and operational optimisation software tools to minimise non-renewable energy use in cities. Given the scope and scale of the project, it is therefore vital to set up a common, unique and spatio-semantically coherent urban data model to be used as information hub for all applications being developed. This paper reports about the experiences done so far, it describes the test area in Vienna, Austria, and the available data sources, it shows and exemplifies the main data integration issues, the strategies developed to solve them in order to obtain the enriched 3D city model. The first results as well as some comments about their quality and limitations are presented, together with the discussion regarding the next steps and some planned improvements

How to pinpoint energy-inefficient Buildings? An Approach based on the 3D City model of Vienna

This paper describes a methodology to assess the energy performance of residential buildings starting from the semantic 3D city model of Vienna. Space heating, domestic hot water and electricity demand are taken into account. The paper deals with aspects related to urban data modelling, with particular attention to the energy-related topics, and with issues related to interactive data exploration/visualisation and management from a plugin-free web-browser, e.g. based on Cesium, a WebGL virtual globe and map engine. While providing references to existing previous works, only some general and introductory information is given about the data collection, harmonisation and integration process necessary to create the CityGML-based 3D city model, which serves as the central information hub for the different applications developed and described more in detail in this paper. The work aims, among the rest, at developing urban decision making and operational optimisation software tools to minimise non-renewable energy use in cities. The results obtained so far, as well as some comments about their quality and limitations, are presented, together with the discussion regarding the next steps and some planned improvements

NETWORK MODELLING AND SEMANTIC 3D CITY MODELS: TESTING THE MATURITY OF THE UTILITY NETWORK ADE FOR CITYGML WITH A WATER NETWORK TEST CASE

Recent advances in semantic 3D city modelling and a demand from utility network operators for multi-utility data models integration have contributed to the emergence of an open Application Domain Extension (ADE) of the CityGML data model tailored to multiple types of utility networks. This extension, called the Utility Network ADE, is still in active development. However, work is already well underway to create data samples and to develop methods of modelling thereupon. In this paper, a mapping of the Utility Network ADE data model to a relational database schema is introduced. A sample of a freshwater network using the Utility Network ADE and based on data from the city of Nanaimo, Canada, is also presented. This sample has also been imported into a relational database schema built upon the 3DCityDB (a database implementation of CityGML) extended with a schema of the Utility Network ADE. Further to this, a series of basic network analysis functions have been defined and implemented in SQL to interact with the database so as to carry out sample atomic processes involved in network modelling, such as reading semantic properties of elements, calculating composite physical parameters of the network as a whole, and performing simple topological routing to serve as a guiding example for further and more complex development. A brief outlook is also presented, suggesting areas with high potential for future research and development of this nascent data model

DEFINITION OF A TRANSITION SURFACE WITH THE PURPOSE OF INTEGRATION BETWEEN A LASER SCANNER 3D MODEL AND A LOW RESOLUTION DTM

ABSTRACT: Thanks to quickly spreading technologies like laser scanning, which are becoming a quite common means of data acquisition for architectural objects or cultural heritage sites (but not only!), integration between datasets of different origin and resolution is still an open problem. This paper describes an approach whose goal is to define a surface which models a proper transition between a high resolution, laser-scanner-acquired model and a low resolution digital terrain model (DTM), by means of some &quot;extra&quot; information around the high resolution object as sort of &quot;collar&quot;. This information is generally present in laser scanner models and instead of pruning it during point cloud editing, we use it for our modelling purposes. We present a (so far) deterministic approach, some initial results and discuss still unresolved issues and future improvements. KURZFASSUNG: Dank der schnellen Verbreitung von Technologien wie z.B. Laser-Scannen, die zur Vermessung architektonischer Objekte oder Kulturgüter immer häufiger Anwendung finden, bleibt die Integration von Datensätzen unterschiedlichen Ursprungs und verschiedener Auflösung ein noch ungelöstes Problem. In diesem Artikel wird ein Ansatz beschrieben, dessen Ziel die Definition einer Übergangsfläche zwischen einem hoch aufgelösten, durch Laser-Scanner aufgenommenen Model und einem gröberen digitalen Geländemodell (DGM) ist, indem einige zusätzliche Informationen um das hoch aufgelöste Objekt so wie ein &quot;Kragen&quot; verwendet werden. Diese weiteren Daten sind im Allgemeinen in den Laser-Scanner-Datensätzen bereits vorhanden und werden hiermit zum Zweck der Oberflächenmodellierung genutzt, statt -wie sonst üblich -in der Editierungsphase eliminiert zu werden. Ein deterministischer Ansatz wird, zusammen mit den ersten Test-Ergebnissen, vorgestellt. Offene Probleme und künftige Aufbesserungen werden angesprochen

GeoBIM Benchmark 2019: Intermediate results

An investigation into the implementation state of open standards in software is currently ongoing through the ISPRS/EuroSDR 'GeoBIM benchmark 2019' initiative, which kicked off earlier this year. The benchmark activity provides a way of assessing and comparing the functionality of different software packages in GIS and BIM in terms of their ability to handle standardised data (IFC and CityGML) and undertake various tasks using this data. Approximately 65 people have registered to participate so far, with participants from a wide range of backgrounds and proposing to test a variety of software packages. This confirms that the issues under investigation are of interest, and also meets the wider benchmark aim of having a variety of participants, since the project is conceived as using a bottom-up approach with cross-disciplinary and cross-expertise participation. While full benchmark results are not due to be submitted until later this year, interim results have highlighted a number of common issues across multiple software packages, and a web meeting for participants held in July 2019 also led to some improvements in how the benchmark results are being captured

A WEB-BASED INTERACTIVE TOOL FOR MULTI-RESOLUTION 3D MODELS OF A MAYA ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE

Continuous technological advances in surveying, computing and digital-content delivery are strongly contributing to a change in the way Cultural Heritage is “perceived”: new tools and methodologies for documentation, reconstruction and research are being created to assist not only scholars, but also to reach more potential users (e.g. students and tourists) willing to access more detailed information about art history and archaeology. 3D computer-simulated models, sometimes set in virtual landscapes, offer for example the chance to explore possible hypothetical reconstructions, while on-line GIS resources can help interactive analyses of relationships and change over space and time. While for some research purposes a traditional 2D approach may suffice, this is not the case for more complex analyses concerning spatial and temporal features of architecture, like for example the relationship of architecture and landscape, visibility studies etc. The project aims therefore at creating a tool, called “QueryArch3D” tool, which enables the web-based visualisation and queries of an interactive, multi-resolution 3D model in the framework of Cultural Heritage. More specifically, a complete Maya archaeological site, located in Copan (Honduras), has been chosen as case study to test and demonstrate the platform’s capabilities. Much of the site has been surveyed and modelled at different levels of detail (LoD) and the geometric model has been semantically segmented and integrated with attribute data gathered from several external data sources. The paper describes the characteristics of the research work, along with its implementation issues and the initial results of the developed prototype

PREFACE

The annual 3D GeoInfo Conference aims at bringing together international state-of-the-art research and facilitating dialogue on emerging topics in the field of 3D geoinformation. On the 1st and 2nd of October 2018, the 13th 3D GeoInfo conference was organised at the Delft University of Technology. On this occasion, the topics included 3D data collection and modelling, reconstruction methods for 3D representation, data management for maintenance of 3D geoinformation or 3D data, applications of 3D geoinformation, and visualisation.This volume of the ISPRS Archives is composed of 9 full papers that received positive double-blind peer reviews, as well as the 24 papers that received positive double-blind reviews as abstracts and were then extended into papers. The 12 full papers with the most positive reviews were instead published in the ISPRS Annals. We hope that the papers in this special issue will inspire decision-makers, academics, engineers, computer scientists, land surveyors, urban planners, and students interested in the 3D geoinformation domain. We would like to thank all the authors, the reviewers, and the organising committee for their valuable contribution towards this publication. We would like to acknowledge that we have received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 677312 UMnD: Urban modelling in higher dimensions).</p

The Energy Application Domain Extension for CityGML: enhancing interoperability for urban energy simulations

The road towards achievement of the climate protection goals requires, among the rest, a thorough rethinking of the energy planning tools (and policies) at all levels, from local to global. Nevertheless, it is in the cities where the largest part of energy is produced and consumed, and therefore it makes sense to focus the attention particularly on the cities as they yield great potentials in terms of energy consumption reduction and efficiency increase. As a direct consequence, a comprehensive knowledge of the demand and supply of energy resources, including their spatial distribution within urban areas, is therefore of utmost importance. Precise, integrated knowledge about 3D urban space, i.e. all urban (above and underground) features, infrastructures, their functional and semantic characteristics, and their mutual dependencies and interrelations play a relevant role for advanced simulation and analyses. As a matter of fact, what in the last years has proven to be an emerging and effective approach is the adoption of standard-based, integrated semantic 3D virtual city models, which represent an information hub for most of the abovementioned needs. In particular, being based on open standards (e.g. on the CityGML standard by the Open Geospatial Consortium), virtual city models firstly reduce the effort in terms of data preparation and provision. Secondly, they offer clear data structures, ontologies and semantics to facilitate data exchange between different domains and applications. However, a standardised and omni-comprehensive urban data model covering also the energy domain is still missing at the time of writing (January 2018). Even CityGML falls partially short when it comes to the definition of specific entities and attributes for energy-related applications. Nevertheless, and starting from the current version of CityGML (i.e. 2.0), this article describes the conception and the definition of an Energy Application Domain Extension (ADE) for CityGML. The Energy ADE is meant to offer a unique and standard-based data model to fill, on one hand, the above-mentioned gap, and, on the other hand, to allow for both detailed single-building energy simulation (based on sophisticated models for building physics and occupant behaviour) and city-wide, bottom-up energy assessments, with particular focus on the buildings sector. The overall goal is to tackle the existing data interoperability issues when dealing with energy-related applications at urban scale. The article presents the rationale behind the Energy ADE, it describes its main characteristics, the relation to other standards, and provides some examples of current applications and case studies already adopting it

PREFACE

The annual 3D GeoInfo Conference aims at bringing together international state-of-the-art research and facilitating dialogue on emerging topics in the field of 3D geoinformation. On the 1st and 2nd of October 2018, the 13th 3D GeoInfo conference was organised at the Delft University of Technology. On this occasion, the topics included 3D data collection and modelling, reconstruction methods for 3D representation, data management for maintenance of 3D geoinformation or 3D data, applications of 3D geoinformation, and visualisation.This volume of the ISPRS Annals contains the 12 full papers that received the most positive double-blind peer reviews from the Scientific Committee of the 3D GeoInfo Conference. The other 33 presented papers are published in the ISPRS Archives.We hope that the papers in this special issue will inspire decision-makers, academics, engineers, computer scientists, land surveyors, urban planners, and students interested in the 3D geoinformation domain. We would like to thank all the authors, the reviewers, and the organising committee for their valuable contribution towards this publication.We would like to acknowledge that we have received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 677312 UMnD: Urban modelling in higher dimensions).</p