Unified Representation of Three Dimensional City Models

Three-dimensional (3D) representation and visualization of city environments are employed in an increasing number of applications from the areas of urban planning, city marketing, tourism, facility management and emergency response. Presently, existing 3D city models are scattered over different public and private sections in different models, different data formats, and different levels of detail. Because of these heterogeneous condition, the integrated management and public application become more difficult. This paper briefly present a conceptual description of unified 3D city models based on classification of various applications and analysis of common requirements. It facilitates the immediate data access, integration of different 3D geoinformation with different levels of detail and further 3D visualization, spatial query and analysis. * Corresponding author: LI Fengchun, [email protected].