Project
As part of a smart city vision, the city of Rotterdam retained Avineon India Pvt. Ltd. to develop a textured 3D model of its buildings and assets. The project required the team to model Rotterdam’s 205,000 buildings, a historical hotel boat, and six landmark bridges to fit within the large-scale base map of the city in a CityGML 2.0 format. To create the 3D model, the team needed to incorporate large amounts of LiDAR point cloud data and integrate data from various sources while maintaining geometrical, topological, semantic, and appearance attributes. Faced with these challenges and the complex alignment of the roof and wall building surfaces, Avineon required flexible, interoperable modeling and visualization technology.
Solution
Avineon used MicroStation to create the 3D building and bridge models from LiDAR point clouds and building footprints in accordance with the CityGML 2.0 standards and the city of Rotterdam’s modeling guidelines. Capable of handling the large LiDAR point cloud data, MicroStation automated the model extraction as well as the attribute export to the open data model. The flexibility and interoperability of Bentley’s comprehensive modeling and visualization application facilitated seamless data capture, loading, and processing from the different sources. MicroStation’s open modeling environment helped the team adjust and accurately align the complex roof structures with other building surfaces.
Image: Courtesy of Avineon India Pvt. Ltd
Outcome
Using MicroStation, Avineon quickly, accurately, and economically delivered the data from different sources in compliance with CityGML 2.0 format. Bentley’s application enabled the team to capture models for 205,000 buildings in one-fifth the time compared to traditional methods, improving modeling efficiencies and resource utilization by six times. Automating previously manual processes accelerated integrated modeling and facilitated creation of realistic virtual representations of the complex roof and wall surfaces. The 3D city models generated with MicroStation are part of a reliable, accessible, and interdisciplinary concept that can be used for planning purposes, energy consumption analysis, and development of Rotterdam as a digital city.
Software
Bentley’s interoperable modeling and visualization software enabled seamless integration of large LiDAR point clouds with multi-sourced data to deliver comprehensive, data rich 3D models. Using MicroStation significantly reduced time and cost creating the 3D building and bridge models to fit within Rotterdam’s open-source CityGML base map. The application optimized modeling accuracy and efficiency. The automated functions developed using MicroStation helped ensure semantic, geometric, and topological attributes were maintained for the complex building surfaces.
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Facts
- Avineon used MicroStation to deliver 3D models for 205,000 buildings and six bridges in open-source City-GML 2.0 format as part of Rotterdam’s digital city initiative.
- The flexibility and interoperability of MicroStation facilitated seamless integration of large point cloud data with building footprints and information from various data sources to deliver accurate virtual representations of the city infrastructure.
- Using the software to automate previously manual processes reduced modeling time by 20% and increased efficiencies by six times.
"The Bentley suite gave us a solid base to process the data while also giving the possibility to develop automation tools.”
Govardhan Julia
Senior Management, Photogrammetry
Avineon India Pvt. Ltd.