3D Visualization for Urban Earthquake Risk

Visualization is the graphical presentation of information, with the goal of improving the viewer’s understanding of the information contents. As today’s world is getting richer in information, visualization of the information is important for effective communication and decision making. In this study, generation of a 3D city model in CAD environment and its use in a spatial decision support system for earthquake risk in an urban area is presented. As CAD products’ quality is more enhanced than the other tools the 3D city model is generated in CAD environment. In CAD environment, a 2D building foot print vector layer is used. After extrude operations, real building textures are obtained by taking pictures from the study area. Texture mapping tools are used to cover extruded buildings with acquired building texture images. The 3D city model is used to visualize each building’s earthquake risk level. The model also serves for querying and scenario analyses in a spatial decision support system.