Integrating airborne LiDAR dataset and photographic images towards the construction of 3D building model

Abstract

A 3D building model of man-made objects is an important tool for various applications such as urban planning, flood mapping and telecommunication. The reconstruction of 3D building models remains difficult. No universal algorithms exist that can extract all objects in an image successfully. At present, advances in remote sensing such as airborne LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) technology have changed the conventional method of topographic mapping and increased the interest of these valued datasets towards 3D building model construction. Airborne LiDAR has proven accordingly that it can provide three dimensional (3D) information of the Earth surface with high accuracy. In this study, with the availability of open source software such as Sketch Up, LiDAR datasets and photographic images could be integrated towards the construction of a 3D building model. In order to realize the work an area comprising residential areas situated at Putrajaya in the Klang Valley region, Malaysia, covering an area of two square kilometer was chosen. The accuracy of the derived 3D building model is assessed quantitatively. It is found that the difference between the vertical height (z) of the 3D building models derived from LiDAR dataset and ground survey is approximately ± 0.09 centimeter (cm). For the horizontal component (RMSExy), the accuracy estimates derived for the 3D building models were ± 0.31m. The result also shows that the qualitative assessment of the 3D building models constructed seems feasible for the depiction in the standard of LOD 3 (Level of details).