Towards Urban Digital Twins: A Workflow for Procedural Visualization Using Geospatial DataShow others and affiliations
2024 (English)In: Remote Sensing, E-ISSN 2072-4292, Vol. 16, no 11
Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
A key feature for urban digital twins (DTs) is an automatically generated detailed 3D representation of the built and unbuilt environment from aerial imagery, footprints, LiDAR, or a fusion of these. Such 3D models have applications in architecture, civil engineering, urban planning, construction, real estate, Geographical Information Systems (GIS), and many other areas. While the visualization of large-scale data in conjunction with the generated 3D models is often a recurring and resource-intensive task, an automated workflow is complex, requiring many steps to achieve a high-quality visualization. Methods for building reconstruction approaches have come a long way, from previously manual approaches to semi-automatic or automatic approaches. This paper aims to complement existing methods of 3D building generation. First, we present a literature review covering different options for procedural context generation and visualization methods, focusing on workflows and data pipelines. Next, we present a semi-automated workflow that extends the building reconstruction pipeline to include procedural context generation using Python and Unreal Engine. Finally, we propose a workflow for integrating various types of large-scale urban analysis data for visualization. We conclude with a series of challenges faced in achieving such pipelines and the limitations of the current approach. However, the steps for a complete, end-to-end solution involve further developing robust systems for building detection, rooftop recognition, and geometry generation and importing and visualizing data in the same 3D environment, highlighting a need for further research and development in this field.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI) , 2024. Vol. 16, no 11
Keywords [en]
Aerial photography; Antennas; Automation; Data visualization; Image reconstruction; Optical radar; Pipelines; Three dimensional computer graphics; 3D models; 3D reconstruction; 3d-modeling; Automated workflow; Geospatial visualization; LiDAR integration; Procedural generation; Spatial data analysis; Urban simulations; Work-flows; Visualization
National Category
Computer Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hv:diva-22296DOI: 10.3390/rs16111939ISI: 001245286400001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85195860627OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hv-22296DiVA, id: diva2:1927771
Funder
Vinnova, 2019-00041
Note
CC-BY 4.0
2025-01-152025-01-152025-09-30