3D Reconstruction of Large Scale City Models as a Support to Sustainable Development

No part of the economic community can now escape from the urgent issues related to global warming, carbon footprint and reducing energy consumption. Nevertheless, the construction sector is particularly under pressure. Indeed, it is one of the biggest consumers of energy. It also largely contributes to the massive use of some critical resources (such as energy, water, materials and space...) and is responsible for a large portion of greenhouse gas emissions. In that context, the paper explores new approaches for urban planning by combining Virtual Environments and Simulations to address sustainability issues. These approaches are based on the possibilities of reconstructing 3D models of the built environment using standard photographs taken with off-the shelf handheld digital cameras. The 3D models can then be combined with simulations in order to address sustainable urban development issues.