Automatic 3D building reconstruction by integration of digital map and stereo imagery for urban area

Abstract

Three dimensional model of urban areas is useful in several applications. In urban administration, perspective views derived from three dimensional model are used by city planners for landscape analysis. Three dimensional models are also used in modeling telecommunication environment. Building heights are important in searching for the optimal locations of transmission antennas especially in mobile telecommunication for cell planning. Furthermore, reconstructed 3D buildings are also essential in generating ‘true’ digital orthophotos where occlusion areas caused by tall buildings are eliminated. This paper introduces an automated method of building height and eventually 3D building reconstruction which involves the integration of existing 2D vector geodata (i.e., digital maps) and stereo aerial imagery. Accurate 2D vector geodata of major cities in Korea are available at the scale of 1/1,000. The vertical line locus method has been deployed to recover building heights. Building footprint in the 2D vector geodata is used in locating the vertical guideline along the building edges formed by building sides. Digital elevation model (DEM) was also generated from the contour layer which is included in the vector geodata. DEM values at the foot of the buildings were used as initial searching locations. At a preset incremental value of height along the vertical guideline, evaluation based on the cross correlation image matching technique was carried out to test if the top of the building has been reached. Buildings are reconstructed with flat roof surfaces that are typical shape of the buildings in the study site.