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This paper presents a method to improve the interoperability of 3D geospatial features from the perspective of data representation, with an emphasis on the interoperability of advanced functions associated with 3D models, such as thematic functions, interaction capabilities, and dynamics. The central concept of the proposed method is to express geospatial features in the form of managed objects, which carry both functions and data of 3D geospatial features in an object oriented and platform-independent manner with the support from virtual machine mechanism. Unlike any conventional data representation method that maintains the data and functionality separately; this method allows the features to carry their own executable functions by themselves in order to achieve the interoperability on a feature’s level. A use case is also provided in this paper to demonstrate the presented method. In this use case, different applications can simply fetch the 3D features and run their functions without the need to know what they can do beforehand.

This paper introduces a generic method for representing geospatial features in an object oriented paradigm, and further applies this method for the representation of interactive and dynamic objects in 3D city models. The idea of the proposed method is to represent every geospatial feature as a managed object, which refers to an object-oriented and platformindependent binary representation that carries both the executable behaviors and attribute data regarding a feature. Aiming to be used for large-scale representation and implementation of geospatial data, a conceptual pattern is proposed to structure an interoperable while freely customizable depiction of the spatiotemporal properties, visual properties, thematic properties, and behaviors of geospatial features. A framework that enables the suggested method in a 3D platform is also elaborated. This framework defines the most essential components that support the associations between managed objects and the platform for fulfilling dynamic and interactive visualization tasks. The presented method is implemented in an energy project as a solution for representing energy features that support numerical calculation, dynamic visualization and user interaction.

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