Rule-based 3d Modeling for Chinese Traditional Architecture

The Chinese traditional architecture called as DaMu structure, which wooden materials were used mainly. The work of historic heritage conservation needs the surveying maps and the 3D model of the building. Laser scanning techniques can provide the best potential for high efficient and more safety recording of the 3D data. Recently, Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) has been used in some architectural heritage maintaining projects in China. A Chinese traditional architectural element library has been built, which named wooden element templates. Each element of the library is represented as CSG (Constructive Solid Geometry) model .For converting the point cloud to CAD representation, the procedure of modelling is adopted, but the process is the most time consuming and costly during the reconstruction of any traditional architecture. Based on the inherent geometric and topological constraints in Chinese traditional architectures, six formations are used to express the rules. We develop a rule-based automatic modelling algorithm and apply it to extract the wooden structural elements.