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.