Automated Generation of Large-Scale Dynamic Terrain in 3D Animation of Simulated Construction Processes

The presented work extends the state-of-the-art in scientific simulation-driven 3D construction process visualization. We present a tool, ViTerra that engineers can use to automatically generate photorealistic, digital, 3D terrain CAD databases to represent construction jobsites in visualizations of discrete-event construction simulations. The work capitalizes on the availability of detailed topographical and aerial imagery data that is readily available in digital format from several government and private organizations. In addition to automated 3D terrain generation techniques, ViTerra implements animation methods to describe the evolution of virtual jobsites by depicting deformations to the loaded terrains in response to common construction operations such as earthmoving and trenching. Our first contribution alleviates the need to manually create 3D terrain models for use in animations as has been the case hitherto. Our second contribution 1) enhances realism in the visualization of several common construction operations, and 2) allows the visualization of several other construction processes that were hitherto impossible to describe in 3D virtual worlds.