Building modeling from multi-source geodata

The objective of this investigation is to establish building models from different data sources as well as different strategies. Three major works are included in this research: (1) building modeling, (2) texture mapping, and (3) visualization of a city model. In building modeling, we establish a 3-D Builder system to integrate various data sources, i.e. large scale topographic map, aerial images and Lidar point clouds, for building reconstruction. This system provides both datadriven and model-driven functions for different types of building. The system also includes texture mapping to generate photo-realistic building models. A 3-D Texturer that performs texture mapping from different data sources such as, ground-based camera and ground-based video are also developed. In order to visualize the city model, a 3-D Viewer with the techniques of level of detail is created to browse and query the 3-D objects. The test area, which is about 5000ha, is located in Taipei city. An area of 100ha is selected to generate photo-realistic models.