Abstract
Abstract. In parallel with the technological developments, the conventional ways of mapping and the presentation of the geospatial data have changed significantly. 3D city models including the digital terrain models (DTMs) have become important for many application fields, such as simulation and visualization tasks for navigation, urban planning, environmental monitoring, disaster management, etc. Although currently most 3D city models are employed for visualization purposes, their application areas are increasing continuously. The presentation of these models on the web is also becoming more common than before while overcoming the performance issues with newer data types and functionalities. The biggest advantage of using web browsers is that they can be accessed everywhere without any additional software requirements. Therefore, the tools for web-based implementations of virtual globes, which allow users to navigate their data in 3D, have been available with greater numbers of functionality they offer. Online virtual web globes provide a good base for the 3D Geographical Information System (GIS) applications as well. 3D city models have also become virtual environments where different spatial queries and analysis can be performed. As a part of a 3D WebGIS, a city model enriched with semantic information provides a virtual platform for decision makers and allows realistic simulations for planning. The main aims of this study are to develop a prototype of a 3D GIS environment for Hacettepe University Beytepe campus, including 3D building geometries enriched with semantic information and a high resolution DTM; and to design a web interface using an open source virtual globe.
Highlights
Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are inevitable platforms for the efficient management of cities, and modelling and visualization in 3D have become a crucial component of GIS (Buyukdemircioglu et al, 2018)
The main advantage of using web browsers for GIS, WebGIS, is that they can be accessed everywhere and do not require specific geospatial software knowledge. Another reason for their success is mainly due to their support for different types of geospatial data types such as high-resolution images, terrains and 3D objects (Zhu et al, 2018). 3D Terrain visualization and topography plays an important part in 3D city models and many application areas (Doneus, 2013)
This paper describes the processing steps and issues while producing a 3D City models of the campus using the images acquired from a large-format digital aerial camera and discusses the possibilities and the state of the art in visualization of the campus data using two different open source virtual globes
Summary
Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are inevitable platforms for the efficient management of cities, and modelling and visualization in 3D have become a crucial component of GIS (Buyukdemircioglu et al, 2018). With the recent technological developments in computer graphics and web, visualizing geospatial data on web browsers, on virtual globes has become more common. The main advantage of using web browsers for GIS, WebGIS, is that they can be accessed everywhere and do not require specific geospatial software knowledge. Another reason for their success is mainly due to their support for different types of geospatial data types such as high-resolution images, terrains and 3D objects (Zhu et al, 2018). Without a high-resolution terrain underlying the model, the data would be incomplete and lead to misleading results. If the digital terrain model or the city model are not coherent with each other or accurate, this may lead to visual deformations
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