CityGML – Interoperable semantic 3D city models

Abstract

CityGML is the international standard of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) for the representation and exchange of 3D city models. It defines the three-dimensional geometry, topology, semantics and appearance of the most relevant topographic objects in urban or regional contexts. These definitions are provided in different, well-defined Levels-of-Detail (multiresolution model). The focus of CityGML is on the semantical aspects of 3D city models, its structures, taxonomies and aggregations, allowing users to employ virtual 3D city models for advanced analysis and visualization tasks in a variety of application domains such as urban planning, indoor/outdoor pedestrian navigation, environmental simulations, cultural heritage, or facility management. This is in contrast to purely geometrical/graphical models such as KML, VRML, or X3D, which do not provide sufficient semantics. CityGML is based on the Geography Markup Language (GML), which provides a standardized geometry model. Due to this model and its well-defined semantics and structures, CityGML facilitates interoperable data exchange in the context of geo web services and spatial data infrastructures. Since its standardization in 2008, CityGML has become used on a worldwide scale: tools from notable companies in the geospatial field provide CityGML interfaces. Many applications and projects use this standard. CityGML is also having a strong impact on science: numerous approaches use CityGML, particularly its semantics, for disaster management, emergency responses, or energy-related applications as well as for visualizations, or they contribute to CityGML, improving its consistency and validity, or use CityGML, particularly its different Levels-of-Detail, as a source or target for generalizations.This paper gives an overview of CityGML, its underlying concepts, its Levels-of-Detail, how to extend it, its applications, its likely future development, and the role it plays in scientific research. Furthermore, its relationship to other standards from the fields of computer graphics and computer-aided architectural design and to the prospective INSPIRE model are discussed, as well as the impact CityGML has and is having on the software industry, on applications of 3D city models, and on science generally.