Coupling of CityGML-based Semantic City Models with Energy Simulation Tools: some Experiences

More and more cities are creating and adopting three-dimensional virtual city models as a means for data integration, harmonisation and storage, often based on CityGML, which is an international standard conceived specifically as information and data model for semantic city models at urban and territorial scale. A centralised database can thus foster the development of new integrated applications profiting from such an harmonised data source, in that detailed information is retrieved about building characteristics or any other relevant entities needed for urban planning (infrastructures, hydrography and terrain models, etc.). This paper focuses on the adoption of a CityGML-based semantic 3D virtual city model to perform energy simulations. It deals primarily with the demand side, and concentrated particularly on the spatial and temporal evaluation of the net energy demand for space heating of buildings in a city. Two approaches are presented: the first one deals with the estimation of the heating energy demand of buildings adopting a standard-based approach, which allow obtaining monthly values of heating energy demand. The second approach describes the first results as how a dynamic simulation tool can be connected to a CityGML-based city model in order to benefit from the amount of harmonised data stored therein and further refine the results, e.g. in terms of time resolution. As test area, a part of the city of Trento (Italy) was chosen

Open-source geospatial tools and technologies for urban and environmental studies

AbstractOpen geospatial data and tools are an increasingly important paradigm offering the opportunity to promote the democratization of geographical information, the transparency of governments and institutions, as well as social, economic and environmental opportunities. During the past decade, developments in the area of open geospatial data and open-source geospatial software have greatly improved. Many parts of the research community believe that combining free and open software, open data, as well as open standards, leads to the creation of a sustainable ecosystem to accelerate new discoveries to help solve global cross-disciplinary societal challenges, from climate change mitigation to sustainable cities. The consistent prevalence of open source GIS studies motivated this thematic collection. The contributions are divided into two main categories. In the first category, seven concrete studies on open-source tools and technologies for urban and environmental studies are briefly presented. Each one has been implemented for and applied to a certain use case, and at the same time it may be applied to other use cases due to the reproducibility nature of open source software. The second category presents and discusses the usability of open source geospatial solutions for laser scanning technology and its applications

The Etruscans in 3D: From Space to Underground

eomatics and Geoinformatics deal with spatial and geographic information, 3D surveying and modeling as well as information science infrastructures. Geomatics and Geoinformatics are thus involved in cartography, mapping, photogrammetry, remote sensing, laser scanning, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), geo-visualisation, geospatial data analysis and Cultural Heritage documentation. In particular the Cultural Heritage field can largely benefit from different Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) tools to make digital heritage information more informative for documentation and conservation issues, archaeological analyses or virtual museums. This work presents the 3D surveying and modeling of different Etruscan heritage sites with their underground frescoed tombs dating back to VII-IV century B.C.. The recorded and processed 3D data are used, beside digital conservation, preservation, transmission to future generations and studies purposes, to create digital contents for virtual visits, museum exhibitions, better access and communication of the heritage information, etc

Linking interactive optimization for urban planning with a semantic 3D city model

The cities in which we live are constantly evolving. The active management of this evolution is referred to as urban planning. The according development process could go in many directions resulting in a large number of potential future scenarios of a city. The planning support system URBio adopts interactive optimization to assist urban planners in generating and exploring those various scenarios. As a computer-based system it needs to be able to efficiently handle all underlying data of this exploration process, which includes both methodology-specific and context-specific information. This article describes the work carried out to link URBio with a semantic city model. Therefore, two key requirements were identified and implemented: (a) the extension of the CityGML data model to cope with many scenarios by the proposition of the Scenario Application Domain Extension (ADE) and (b) the definition of a data model for interactive optimization. Classes and features of the developed data models are motivated, depicted and explained. Their usability is demonstrated by walking through a typical workflow of URBio and laying out the induced data flows. The article is concluded with stating further potential applications of both the Scenario ADE and the data model for interactive optimization

QUERYARCH3D: QUERYING AND VISUALISING 3D MODELS OF A MAYA ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE IN A WEB-BASED INTERFACE

Constant improvements in the field of surveying, computing and distribution of digital-content are reshaping the way Cultural Heritage can be digitised and virtually accessed, even remotely via web. A traditional 2D approach for data access, exploration, retrieval and exploration may generally suffice, however more complex analyses concerning spatial and temporal features require 3D tools, which, in some cases, have not yet been implemented or are not yet generally commercially available. Efficient organisation and integration strategies applicable to the wide array of heterogeneous data in the field of Cultural Heritage represent a hot research topic nowadays. This article presents a visualisation and query tool (QueryArch3D) conceived to deal with multi-resolution 3D models. Geometric data are organised in successive levels of detail (LoD), provided with geometric and semantic hierarchies and enriched with attributes coming from external data sources. The visualisation and query front-end enables the 3D navigation of the models in a virtual environment, as well as the interaction with the objects by means of queries based on attributes or on geometries. The tool can be used as a standalone application, or served through the web. The characteristics of the research work, along with some implementation issues and the developed QueryArch3D tool will be discussed and presented

The Etruscans in 3D: From Space to Underground

eomatics and Geoinformatics deal with spatial and geographic information, 3D surveying and modeling as well as information science infrastructures. Geomatics and Geoinformatics are thus involved in cartography, mapping, photogrammetry, remote sensing, laser scanning, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), geo-visualisation, geospatial data analysis and Cultural Heritage documentation. In particular the Cultural Heritage field can largely benefit from different Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) tools to make digital heritage information more informative for documentation and conservation issues, archaeological analyses or virtual museums. This work presents the 3D surveying and modeling of different Etruscan heritage sites with their underground frescoed tombs dating back to VII-IV century B.C.. The recorded and processed 3D data are used, beside digital conservation, preservation, transmission to future generations and studies purposes, to create digital contents for virtual visits, museum exhibitions, better access and communication of the heritage information, etc

Digital Documentation and Reconstruction of an Ancient Maya Temple and Prototype of Internet GIS Database of Maya Architectur

This is a request for Level II Start-Up funding for an international project to develop and test a working prototype for a new platform for an online, searchable database that can bring together GIS maps, 3D models, and virtual environments for teaching and research. (The planning phase was funded by a Level I Start-Up Grant in 2009.) The prototype will employ existing digital collections on Maya architecture at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Copan, Honduras and a highly-accurate, hybrid 3D model being developed by the project that will test and demonstrate the platform???s capabilities. Art historians and archaeologists from the University of New Mexico (UNM) and the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History will work with computer experts from ETH Zurich, FBK Trento, and the University of California to design this online tool

Kinect and 3D GIS in Archaeology

Abstract -This paper explores the potential of using Microsoft's Kinect to create a low-cost and portable system to virtually navigate, through a prototype 3D GIS, the digitally reconstructed ancient Maya city and UNESCO World Heritage Site of Copan in Honduras. The 3D GIS, named QueryArch3D, was developed as part of the MayaArch3D project (http://mayaarch3d.unm.edu), which explores the possibilities of integrating databases and 3D digital tools for research and teaching on ancient architectures and landscapes. The developed system, based on the Flexible Action and Articulated Skeleton Toolkit (FAAST), controls in a remote and touchless mode the movements in the 3D environment in order to create a sense of spatial awareness and embodiment. A user can thus use gestures to interact with information stored in the spatial database, calling up photos, videos, textual descriptions as he/she moves through the virtual space of the ancient Maya city

Advanced methodologies for acquisition, integration, analysis, management, visualisation and distribution of data in the framework of archaeological and architectonical heritage

Use of high resolution sensors like laser scanners is becoming more and more common for surveying tasks. Nearly every single application field is in fact gaining benefits from these booming methodologies. Production of high detailed models is therefore becoming part of the standard workflow in many disciplines (architecture, cultural heritage, urban planning, etc.). At the same time, new related problems have emerged concerning the management of the resulting large quantities of data and the integration of data coming from different sources. Reasons for integration inconsistencies are multiple: there could be geometric, topological or semantic incompatibilities, or “similar” datasets could originate from different sensors and therefore have different resolutions and accuracies. Finally, data could have been acquired at different times. Of course, a combination of the above mentioned reasons is also possible. In this thesis a new deterministic approach is presented, which allows for integration between a laser-scanner acquired, high resolution model and a lower resolution digital terrain model by means of a transition surface. Using extra data around a laser scanner acquired model, which represents a sort of “collar”, the aim is to create a transition surface between the two models, which connects them smoothly without modifications to the actual high resolution object and which permits a transition also in terms of point density. Some experimental results, which have been obtained from real datasets coming from archaeological and cultural heritage sources, are presented. They show that the developed approach is suitable for integration between two datasets although little information about their quality and accuracy is known a priori. Open issues and possible improvements are finally discussed.La possibilità di poter acquisire velocemente e a costi sempre inferiori grandi quantità di dati geometrico-geografici e, di conseguenza, di poter disporre di modelli ad alto livello di dettaglio sta caratterizzando sempre più il “normale” flusso di lavoro di ogni disciplina (architettura, archeologia, urbanistica, ecc.) grazie alla diffusione sempre più capillare, in anni recenti, di nuove metodologie di rilievo ad alta precisione come il GPS e la scansione laser aerea o terrestre. Di solito, se un’applicazione è sviluppata specificatamente per un certo problema, può essere sufficiente servirsi di un solo modello ad una determinata risoluzione. Tuttavia, se l’analisi e la modellazione di un fenomeno richiedono l’uso di molteplici set di dati, è necessario definire dei criteri che ne permettano l’integrazione. Quando due o più modelli diversi vengono integrati si possono infatti verificare errori di vario genere, dovuti ad una vasta gamma di fattori: vi possono essere incompatibilità di tipo geometrico, topologico o semantico, oppure dati “simili” posso provenire da sensori diversi e avere pertanto precisione e risoluzione diverse. Può accadere di dover trattare dati acquisiti in periodi di tempo diversi, o – nel caso più generale – le ragioni che portano ad incompatibilità possono essere una combinazione dei suddetti ed altri problemi ancora. In questa tesi viene descritta una metodologia che permette l’integrazione di un modello ad alta risoluzione in un modello digitale del terreno a risoluzione inferiore per mezzo di una opportuna superficie di transizione. La superficie ottenuta permette non solo di congiungere i due modelli, ma garantisce anche una transizione graduale tra alta e bassa risoluzione. Le caratteristiche di entrambi i modelli quali la geometria, la topologia, la densità di informazioni sono messe in relazioni evitando brusche discontinuità. L’idea alla base della metodologia presentata consiste nell’utilizzare dati “aggiuntivi” attorno all’oggetto rappresentato nel modello ad alta risoluzione. Tali dati sono comunemente presenti nei modelli acquisiti con laser scanner e, anziché venire eliminati – come di solito avviene – nella fase di editing, possono essere utilizzati per modellare la superficie di transizione. I risultati dei test eseguiti su dati sperimentali dimostrano che l’approccio deterministico proposto si presta all’integrazione di dati di cui non sono note informazioni a priori sulla qualità o sulla precisione