City Maker: Reconstruction of Cities from OpenStreetMap Data for Environmental Visualization and Simulations

Abstract

Recent innovations in 3D processing and availability of geospatial data have contributed largely to more comprehensive solutions to data visualization. As various data formats are utilized to describe the data, a combination of layers from different sources allow us to represent 3D urban areas, contributing to ideas of emergency management and smart cities. This work focuses on 3D urban environment reconstruction using crowdsourced OpenStreetMap data. Once the data are extracted, the visualization pipeline draws features using coloring for added context. Moreover, by structuring the layers and entities through the addition of simulation parameters, the generated environment is made simulation ready for further use. Results show that urban areas can be properly visualized in 3D using OpenStreetMap data given data availability. The simulation-ready environment was tested using hypothetical flooding scenarios, which demonstrated that the added parameters can be utilized in environmental simulations. Furthermore, an efficient restructuring of data was implemented for viewing the city information once the data are parsed.

FloodSim: Flood Simulation and Visualization Framework Using Position-Based Fluids

“…As indicated earlier, City Maker [42] is used to provide the digital environment model for the simulation environment. By parsing OpenStreetMap (OSM) data and extracting significant features, City Maker is flexible enough to provide the required GIS layers to the environment.…”

“…Utilizing these values with the surface information coming from the flood visualization framework, coefficients are provided. As we focused on extracting the environment from OpenStreetMap data using City Maker [42], environmental information comes automatically. Nevertheless, if a user chooses to import a manually defined environment, then an appropriate file carrying contextual information must be provided.…”

“…As the particle removal is a vital factor for efficiency purposes, leaving this mechanic out is not an option to run the simulation for longer times. With the data of storm drainage information acquired from the city of Corpus Christi, City Maker [42] was utilized to parse the information into environmental data. The absorption tests were performed upon parsing this data.…”

“…By utilizing an efficient flood simulation framework using position-based fluids, real-time performance is provided in a variety of scenarios. An urban environment reconstruction tool called City Maker [42], which was developed to be utilized alongside FloodSim, is used to generate 3D digital environment models. Through implementation of a local friction model, rainfall and cloud mechanics, and soil absorption mechanics, dynamic behavior to the environment is implemented, and an approximate description of the study area showing the extent of flooding is acquired.…”

Exploiting the Potential of VGI Metadata to Develop A Data-Driven Framework for Predicting User’s Proficiency in OpenStreetMap Context

“…The use of VGI data for productive research in the fields of routing [1], three-dimensional (3D) modeling [2], land-cover and land-use analysis [3,4], disaster monitoring [5], urban modeling [6,7], and environmental visualization [8] was widely documented in recent years. Assessing the trust and reliability of diverse user-generated OSM data is equally important to support these investigations.…”