Abstract
Three-dimensional (3D) maps have many potential applications, such as navigation and urban planning. In this article, we present the use of a 3D virtual world platform Meshmoon to create intelligent open data 3D maps. A processing method is developed to enable the generation of 3D virtual environments from the open data of the National Land Survey of Finland. The article combines the elements needed in contemporary smart city concepts, such as the connection between attribute information and 3D objects, and the creation of collaborative virtual worlds from open data. By using our 3D virtual world platform, it is possible to create up-to-date, collaborative 3D virtual models, which are automatically updated on all viewers. In the scenes, all users are able to interact with the model, and with each other. With the developed processing methods, the creation of virtual world scenes was partially automated for collaboration activities.
Highlights
Different types of three-dimensional (3D) representations of the environment have been a topic of research in the field of geo-information and surveying since the 1960s
The goal of our work is to develop a method that will make it possible to create 3D maps that can be viewed in a collaborative virtual world, based on open data and open source technology, with the intent of maintaining the attribute data related to map objects
We aim to develop a process where a virtual environment running in the Meshmoon system will be generated as automatically as possible from the open data sets provided by the National Land Survey of Finland (NLS), using ALS data, orthophotos, and data from the topographic database
Summary
Different types of three-dimensional (3D) representations of the environment have been a topic of research in the field of geo-information and surveying since the 1960s. Often, they have been called “3D maps” (e.g., [1,2]). The term “3D city model” has perhaps been used more so (e.g., [3]) Both 3D city models and 3D maps can contain other information in addition to the geometry of an environment, but neither of the terms is accurately defined. 3D maps of urban areas have been considered a potential tool for urban planning, decision making, and information visualization [6]. As the technology has advanced, 3D maps used for navigation and online purposes have become mainstream, with one of the examples being
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