Semantic 3D Modeling Based on CityGML for Ancient Chinese-Style Architectural Roofs of Digital Heritage

Abstract

Ancient Chinese-style architecture has received increased attention during the last century as a segment of cultural heritage and is of great significance, specifically in regard to the process of digitizing and modeling these buildings to preserve and protect this heritage. Because the roof form reflects the age of the structure, the structural character and the historical culture of the ancient building, constructing a refined model for the roof is a primary aspect of the 3D modeling procedure. To avoid cumbersome traditional modeling approaches that use geometry units, such as points, lines and triangles, a flexible semantic method is proposed in this study to improve modeling efficiency and reduce the professional requirements. In this method, a two-level semantic decomposition of the roof is presented according to the characteristics of ancient Chinese-style architecture. The structural level reveals the basic components that determine its structural shape, and the decorative level refers to the attached components that influence the exterior appearance. The assembly validity of the decomposed elements and the combined diversity of the integrated entities are ensured by topological constraints and derived transformations of the semantic components. This proposed method was implemented by utilizing CityGML (City Geography Markup Language) via the ADE (Application Domain Extension) mechanism and was tested by modeling the principal buildings included in the Palace Museum.

Urban 3d Modelling Methods: A State-of-the-Art Review

“…Topological modelling methods maintain topological relationships between geometries and provide information about the adjacent. Geometric modelling methods record geographical coordinates directly (Li et al, 2017). Based on recent literature, there is a trend to combine different methods to overcome individual shortcomings and improve overall modelling efficiencies, such as B-rep + CSG (Ming et al, 2016) and BIM + CityGML (Kang and Hong, 2018).…”

“…Data volume & data composition complexity: The majority of the 3D models need large amounts of 3D data support from various sources for analytical capability and visualisation effects, such as vector data, raster data, socio-economic data, census data, and other domain-specific data (Wate and Coors, 2015). In general, the input data can be categorised into semantic, geometric, and topological information (Li et al, 2017). However, the specific data volume depends on the research scale and purpose.…”

CityGML Application Domain Extension (ADE): overview of developments

“…Adapting the CityGML data model to a local context is not exclusive to national standards and efforts of government agencies. For example, Li et al [68] extend CityGML for modelling ancient Chinese-style architecture. Specifically, the RoofSurface feature of Building has been extended in the ACRoofADE entertaining Chinese-style roofs, e.g.…”

A Method for 3D Reconstruction of the Ming and Qing Official-Style Roof Using a Decorative Components Template Library

“…Therefore, it is mostly impossible to adopt any one of the aforementioned methods to generate an accurate 3D model for historic architecture. Thus, integrated methods are proposed in order to overcome the limitations [16][17][18]. In [19], two types of Milan Cathedral's main spire structure were individually reconstructed using different methods.…”