Real-Time Visualization of 3D City Models
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REAL-TIME VISUALIZATION OF 3D CITY MODELS DISSERTATION ZUR ERLANGUNG DES AKADEMISCHEN GRADES DOCTOR RERUM NATURALIUM (DR. RER. NAT.) IN DER WISSENSCHAFTSDISZIPLIN INFORMATIK EINGEREICHT AN DER MATHEMATISCH-NATURWISSENSCHAFTLICHEN FAKULTÄT DER UNIVERSITÄT POTSDAM VON HENRIK BUCHHOLZ GEBOREN AM 22.11.1976 IN MÜNSTER POTSDAM, DEN 29. SEPTEMBER 2006 ABSTRACT An increasing number of applications requires user interfaces that facilitate the handling of large geodata sets. Using virtual 3D city models, complex geospatial information can be communicated visually in an intuitive way. Therefore, real-time visualization of virtual 3D city models represents a key functionality for interactive exploration, presentation, analysis, and manipulation of geospatial data. This thesis concentrates on the development and implementation of concepts and techniques for real-time city model visualization. It discusses rendering algorithms as well as complementary modeling concepts and interaction techniques. Particularly, the work introduces a new real-time rendering technique to handle city models of high complexity concerning texture size and number of textures. Such models are difficult to handle by current technology, primarily due to two problems: Limited texture memory: The amount of simultaneously usable texture data is limited by the memory of the graphics hardware. Limited number of textures: Using several thousand different textures simultaneously causes significant performance problems due to texture switch operations during rendering. The multiresolution texture atlases approach, introduced in this thesis, overcomes both problems. During rendering, it permanently maintains a small set of textures that are sufficient for the current view and the screen resolution available. The efficiency of multiresolution texture atlases is evaluated in performance tests. To summarize, the results demonstrate that the following goals have been achieved: Real-time rendering becomes possible for 3D scenes whose amount of texture data exceeds the main memory capacity. Overhead due to texture switches is kept permanently low, so that the number of different textures has no significant effect on the rendering frame rate. Furthermore, this thesis introduces two new approaches for real-time city model visualization that use textures as core visualization elements: An approach for visualization of thematic information. An approach for illustrative visualization of 3D city models. Both techniques demonstrate that multiresolution texture atlases provide a core functionality for the development of new applications and systems in the domain of city model visualization. iii ZUSAMMENFASSUNG Eine zunehmende Anzahl von Anwendungen benötigt Benutzungsschnittstellen, um den Umgang mit großen Geodatenmengen zu ermöglichen. Virtuelle 3D-Stadtmodelle bieten eine Möglichkeit, komplexe raumbezogene Informationen auf intuitive Art und Weise visuell erfassbar zu machen. Echtzeit-Visualisierung virtueller Stadtmodelle bildet daher eine Grundlage für die interaktive Exploration, Präsentation, Analyse und Bearbeitung raumbezogener Daten. Diese Arbeit befasst sich mit der Entwicklung und Implementierung von Konzepten und Techniken für die Echtzeit-Visualisierung virtueller 3D-Stadtmodelle. Diese umfassen sowohl Rendering-Algorithmen als auch dazu komplementäre Modellierungskonzepte und Interaktionstechniken. Insbesondere wird in dieser Arbeit eine neue Echtzeit-Rendering-Technik für Stadtmodelle hoher Komplexität hinsichtlich Texturgröße und Texturanzahl vorgestellt. Solche Modelle sind durch die derzeit zur Verfügung stehende Technologie schwierig zu bewältigen, vor allem aus zwei Gründen: Begrenzter Textur-Speicher: Die Menge an gleichzeitig nutzbaren Texturdaten ist beschränkt durch den Speicher der Grafik-Hardware. Begrenzte Textur-Anzahl: Die gleichzeitige Verwendung mehrerer tausend Texturen verursacht erhebliche Performance-Probleme aufgrund von Textur-Umschaltungs- Operationen während des Renderings. Das in dieser Arbeit vorgestellte Verfahren, das Rendering mit Multiresolutions-Texturatlanten löst beide Probleme. Während der Darstellung wird dazu permanent eine kleine Textur-Menge verwaltet, die für die aktuelle Sichtperspektive und die zur Verfügung stehende Bildschirmauflösung hinreichend ist. Die Effizienz des Verfahrens wird in Performance-Tests untersucht. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die folgenden Ziele erreicht werden: Echtzeit-Darstellung wird für Modelle möglich, deren Texturdaten-Menge die Kapazität des Hauptspeichers übersteigt. Der Overhead durch Textur-Umschaltungs-Operationen wird permanent niedrig gehalten, so dass die Anzahl der unterschiedlichen Texturen keinen wesentlichen Einfluss auf die Bildrate der Darstellung hat. Die Arbeit stellt außerdem zwei neue Ansätze zur 3D-Stadtmodell-Visualisierung vor, in denen Texturen als zentrale Visualisierungselemente eingesetzt werden: Ein Verfahren zur Visualisierung thematischer Informationen. Ein Verfahren zur illustrativen Visualisierung von 3D-Stadtmodellen. Beide Ansätze zeigen, dass Rendering mit Multiresolutions-Texturatlanten eine Grundlage für die Entwicklung neuer Anwendungen und Systeme im Bereich der 3D-Stadtmodell- Visualisierung bietet. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my advisor, Prof. Dr. Jürgen Döllner, for encouraging me to start my doctorate and for affording me the opportunity. His research impulses and innumerous pieces of valuable advice formed a steady stimulus for my work. I would also like to thank Prof. Dr. Hartmut Asche, Prof. Dr. Klaus Hinrichs, and Prof. Dr. Klaus Rebensburg for reviewing this thesis. I am grateful to all public authorities and companies that provided their geodata for testing and illustrating purposes, particularly to the RSS GmbH for the city models of Munich and Berlin and to the IMK Automotive GmbH for the city model of Chemnitz. I would also like to express my gratitude to the Berlin Senate Department of Urban Development, particularly Takis Sgouros and Peter Jürgens, for the opportunity to obtain insights into visualization problems in urban planning and redevelopment in common visualization projects. In addition, I would like to thank the 3DGeo GmbH for their collaboration and for increasing the practical relevance of my work. Thanks are also due to the German environmental foundation Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt for supporting the Lenné3D research project on interactive landscape visualization, and the Lenné3D GmbH for providing their 3D tree models. Furthermore, I would like to express my gratitude to all collaborators in the work on automatic construction of urban terrain models, particularly to Lutz Ross and Birgit Kleinschmit for their collaboration in the concept development and for providing motivation and knowledge from the domain of landscape planning, and to the students Manuel Wellmann, Anselm Kegel, and Oleg Dedkow for their contributions to the editor implementation. In addition, I would like to thank Alexander Klimetschek, Tassilo Glander, Florian Brodersen, and Sascha Jütterschenke for the implementation of the CLOQ building editor. My special thanks are due to Marc Nienhaus for the joint work on projects for non- photorealistic city model visualization and for developing the fragment shader for illustrative tree rendering. I am also grateful to Johannes Bohnet for the collaboration in the development of smart navigation-strategies, to my former colleague Florian Kirsch for providing his fading technique for the Spittelmarkt visualization project, and to Haik Lorenz for supporting the implementation of lighting-texture calculation in the CityGML tool. I would also like to express my gratitude to Konstantin Baumann for numerous inspiring discussions. For the helpfulness and the permanently positive working athmosphere in our workgroup, I would also like to thank Oliver Kersting, Stefan Maass, Benjamin Hagedorn, Sabine Biewendt, and Katrin Heinrich. I would like to express my sincere thanks to my parents Eckhard and Ulrike Buchholz for always supporting me in my personal decisions, to my brother Rüdiger and my sister Angela for motivating comments, and to my brother Harald for frequent reports on technological advances in current computer games. Most of all, I would like to thank my wife Karin for her support in difficult times of my research period, for her helpful technical and linguistic remarks to my publications, and for her never-tiring patience in those ‘Sorry, dear, it will take longer again’ situations. vii CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION..........................................................................................2 1.1 Virtual 3D City Models ...................................................................................... 2 1.2 Real-Time Visualization .................................................................................... 2 1.3 Graphics Representations of City Models ........................................................ 2 1.4 Role of Textures in City Models........................................................................ 2 1.5 Contribution ...................................................................................................... 2 1.6 Structure of the Dissertation ............................................................................. 2 2. RELATED WORK .......................................................................................2 2.1 Texture Atlases................................................................................................. 2 2.2 Multiresolution