A Method for the Automated Construction of 3D Models of Cities and Neighborhoods from Official Cadaster Data for Solar Analysis

Carlos Beltran-Velamazan, Marta Monzón-Chavarrías and Belinda López-Mesa
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Carlos Beltran-Velamazan: Department of Architecture, University of Zaragoza, 50 108 Zaragoza, Spain
Marta Monzón-Chavarrías: Department of Architecture, University of Zaragoza, 50 108 Zaragoza, Spain
Belinda López-Mesa: Department of Architecture, University of Zaragoza, 50 108 Zaragoza, Spain

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 11, 1-19

Abstract: 3D city models are a useful tool to analyze the solar potential of neighborhoods and cities. These models are built from buildings footprints and elevation measurements. Footprints are widely available, but elevation datasets remain expensive and time-consuming to acquire. Our hypothesis is that the GIS cadastral data can be used to build a 3D model automatically, so that generating complete cities 3D models can be done in a short time with already available data. We propose a method for the automatic construction of 3D models of cities and neighborhoods from 2D cadastral data and study their usefulness for solar analysis by comparing the results with those from a hand-built model. The results show that the accuracy in evaluating solar access on pedestrian areas and solar potential on rooftops with the automatic method is close to that from the hand-built model with slight differences of 3.4% and 2.2%, respectively. On the other hand, time saving with the automatic models is significant. A neighborhood of 400,000 m 2 can be built up in 30 min, 50 times faster than by hand, and an entire city of 967 km 2 can be built in 8.5 h.

Keywords: city 3D models; AutoLISP algorithm; GIS cadaster data; INSPIRE cadaster; rooftop solar potential; pedestrian areas solar access (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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