Eight 3D Geographic Design Functions That You May Want To Know

08 Jan,2018

Preview:

SuperMap has launched the GIS software platform - SuperMap GIS 9D at GIS Software Technology Conference 2017 to meet the demand for big data era.

Our team will post a series of articles about SuperMap GIS 9D to help you get a whole picture about its capabilities and achievements in aspects of technology, products, data and application. So, lets’s get started!

SuperMap iDesktop has been added new 3D geographic design module - 3D Designer, which supports the data structure, calculation and solutions for oblique photography, TIN terrain, geographical bodies and BIM. Supporting rapidly build large-scale 3D scene, history views and modification and 3D data model publishing and browsing, with which 3D Designer can be widely applied to transportation, water resources, real estate, architecture, electricity etc.

In real-world, more than just processing massive 3D data, you can build large-scale 3D scene with 3D Designer and work out many problems when dealing with GIS underlying data, which to some extent, shortens the program construction cycle.

For now, what you can expect for 3D Designer are as follow:
3D entity data model - spatial relation diagnosis, spatial calculation, and spatial analysis.
3D data modification of terrain, oblique photography, laser-point cloud and BIM, and modified history supervision.
3D section caches, KML data set and 3D printable STL 3D data model for high-efficiency publication and browsing.

1. 3D Entity Data Model

3D entity data model can also be defined as topological closed 3D model, which can be used for volume calculation, 3D printing and random section acquisition. Beyond that, spatial relations diagnosis, spatial analysis and Boolean calculation are also supported, and the results are topological for sure.

Shadow volume, skyline, view shed, tensile model, 3D geometry, convex hell, geographical bodies and BIM etc. are all 3D entity data model and can be constructed in 3D Designer, the Boolean calculation can be performed among the models.

3D geometry Boolean Calculation (difference)

2. Geographical Bodies construction and Analysis

On 3D Designer you can make analysis on geographical bodies section and borehole based on the geographical monitoring point data.

Geographical bodies section analysis demonstrates the geographical status of the section by having insight into the cutting plane at random aspects.Through geographical borehole analysis you can acquire the geographical status of selected position data, and the results of the analysis is topographical.

Geographical bodies construction

Geographical bodies section analysis (left) and borehole analysis (right)

3. 3D Spatial Analysis

3D spatial analysis results, for example, shadow ration analysis, skyline analysis, viewshed analysis and sunlight analysis, can be demonstrated in a visualised manner, and exported as 3D entity data model to display abstract 3D space. The results can bring more values as the spatial relation diagnosis and spatial calculation between the results and the objects (in aspect of doing ,line and plane) can achieve the second spatial analysis.

Let’s take one example to explain this. Assuming that you’re making the skyline analysis of the urban landscape, you can construct the geometry with existing skyline and current viewpoint to calculate that if the model can fit in the high limited body, which is more convincible for the planning approvals.

Lines from skyline analysis (left) and geometry(right)

Plane from viewshed analysis (left) and analytics from viewshed (right)

4. Construction of 3D Model

With the useful modelling tools in 3D Designer, you can construct tensile model and 3D geometry (sphere, cylinder and cone) by performing stretching, spinning and sampling with the extracted 2D image surface texture. Also you can detail the sloping roof for the 3D entity by spatial calculating, and rapidly finish your modelling.

Sloping roof construction

5. Terrain Management

You can use 3D Designer to optimise TIN terrain. You can do terrain tailoring, inlaying, digging with this function, the results and modified history data can be viewed and undone. The Boolean Calculation between the terrain and 3D entity model is supported.

For example, the Boolean Calculation results of terrain and tunnel model ( convex hull constructed ) help to dig perfect tunnel in the mountain model.

Tunnel digging in the mountain

6. Laser Point Cloud Render

Laser Point Cloud is a pile of discrete, including attributes of space resolution, position accuracy and surface vector.
Currently point cloud data is mainly acquired by scanning vehicle laser, Airborne laser and ground laser. The format of laser point cloud data varies with different sources.
3D Designer supports .las., .txt, .xyz, .ply and .laz, etc. The rendering effect of these 3D laser point cloud formats is dynamic and elegant.

Effects of 3D laser point cloud

7. BIM Model Processing

3D Designer are in-built with Revit, Bentley and CATIA. On 3D Designer you can:

generate LOD 3D entity data model with comprehensive information and multi-detail level and lightweight data structure;
instantiate drawing, high-efficiency rendering performance;
edit BIM sub-object and texture;
capture BIM cutting plane, and export 2D vector for floor plan making.
export the connected points and lines from BIM 3D pipeline to build network data set.
grouping the BIM layers.
BIM model 3D printing.

The 2D section exported from BIM section analysis

8. 3D Section Caches Exporting as KML and STL

You can use 3D Designer to generate 3D section caches ( as OSGB or S3M ) at a time with multiple model dataset, which improves the loading performance of large-scale 3D scene on different client-ends.
You can export the caches as KML and STL based on the topological closed 3D entity data model that constructed from the terrain, oblique photography and BIM model.