3D CITYGML BUILDING MODELLING FROM LIDAR POINT CLOUD DATA

Abstract. With recent government initiatives for smart cities, 3D virtual city models are in demand for managing and monitoring the urban infrastructure. 3D building models forms an important component of 3D virtual city model. LiDAR remote sensing has revolutionized the way the third dimension can be precisely mapped and proved to be an important source of data for 3D models. The model thus generated should be in an open data format to be used across various applications. CityGML is an open data model framework that enables storage and exchange of 3D models which can be used for diversified applications. The main objective of this research is to develop a methodological workflow to create 3D building models in CityGML standard from airborne LiDAR point cloud. Initially building points were isolated from the airborne LiDAR data using point cloud processing algorithms. 3D building models with levels of detail (LoD1 and LoD2) were generated from the building points in CityGML standard using commercial (ArcGISPro) well as open source packages (3dfier, Citygml4j). Results prove that the models developed using open source packages are comparable to that provided by commercial packages.