The use of geographical information systems for 3D urban models reconstruction from aerial lidar data [Elektronische Ressource] / by Ahmad Abdallah Yousef

Ahmad Yousef

Informations

• Publié par: albert-ludwigs-universitat_freiburg
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 121
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 10 Mo

Extrait

The Use of Geographi cal Informati on Sy stems
for 3 D Urban M odel s R econstructi on from
A eri al Li dar Data



Th e si s submi t t ed i n pa rt i al ful fil ment o f t he
r equi r em ent s o f t he d e gr ee Do ct o r re r. nat .
o f t h e Fac ul t y o f Fo r e st and Env i ro nment al
S ci en c es , Al b ert -Ludw i gs -U niv er si t ät
F rei bur g i m Br ei s gau, G erma ny


By
Ahmad Abdallah Yousef
Frei burg i m B rei sgau , Germany
2 01 0

















Dean: Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Gero Becker

Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Barbara Koch

Second Reviewer: Prof. Dr. Helmut Mayer

Disputation: December 2010






To my parents Acknowledgement
Acknowledgement
This thesis arose in part out of years of research. Since I came to Freiburg University, I have
worked with a great number of people whose diverse contributions to the research and the
making of this thesis deserve special mention. It is a pleasure to convey my gratitude to
them all herein.
I would like to express my gratitude to my professors, Dr. Barbra Koch and Dr. Helmut
Mayer, for their supervision, advice, and guidance from the very earliest stages of this
research as well as the extraordinary experience I gained throughout my work. Above all,
they provided unflinching encouragement and support in various ways. Their intuition
created for me a constant oasis of ideas and source of passion for science that have
inspired and enriched my growth as the student I am and the researcher and scientist I want
to be. I am indebted to them more than they know.
This research project would not have been possible without the support of Deutscher
Akademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD). I am deeply grateful for DAAD’s providing financial
support to me. I particularly wish to express my gratitude to Birgit Klaes, who was
abundantly helpful and offered invaluable assistance, support, and guidance.
Special thanks go out to all my friends, especially Alicia Woynowski, Hooman Latifi, and
Juan Lopez. I shall never forget my friends’ always being there for me. I am grateful to
Mohammed Ghadiry for his constructive help. I wish to express my heart felt appreciation to
my beloved family for their understanding and endless love through the duration of my
studies and in the midst of tremendous activity. Collective and individual acknowledgments
are also owed to my colleagues at remote sensing and landscape information systems
department (FeLIS), whose assistance was remarkably and perpetually refreshing, helpful,
and memorable. Thanks go to Roswitha Lange and Markus Quinten for their charm and their
lending a helpful hand.
I would like to express my gratitude to those who kindly assisted me in completing this
thesis. I am extremely grateful to ESRI in Redlands, California, for offering me an internship
to improve my knowledge working with ArcObjects. Many thanks go in particular Annie
L'Heureux and Lois Stuart. I am indebted to Annie for her invaluable help and time during my
internship in Redlands. I have also benefited from advice and guidance from Lois who kindly
devoted herself to proofreading this thesis. I also sincerely thank Clayton Crawford for his
ArcObjects programming help in 3D building reconstruction models. My special thanks go to
Nobbir Ahmed for his discussion, suggestions, and encouragement. Deepest gratitude is
Page | 1 Acknowledgement
also due to Ahmed Abukhater, Barbara Bicking, Wolfgang Bitterlich, and Lauren Scott. I
would also like to acknowledge Patty Turner and Colleen Conner for their advice and
inspiration, which proved fruitful in shaping some of my ideas and research.
Also, it is a pleasure to pay tribute to the sample collaborators: To Ehab Shatnawi and
Tamer Anton. I would like to thank Diya Azzam, Robin Gosney, Tore Borvik, Toni Mikkola,
and Deborah Febres Urdaneta, with whom it was a pleasure to collaborate. I am thankful for
their helping me enjoy my time in the United States.
Finally, for the successful realization of thesis, I would like express my appreciation of the
assistance I received from people too numerous for me to list individually.

stJuly 1 , 2010

Ahmad Yousef

Page | 2 Abstract
Abstract
Urban models are highly useful in city planning and 3D visualization. These models include
different items such as bare earth, buildings, trees, roads, and other nonterrain objects. In
recent years, the demand of the urban model has increased, and the three dimensional
models that have been generated by different methods can be transferred into geographic
information systems (GIS) easily and used as a base for GIS applications including urban
planning, architecture, and environmental modeling. Light detection and ranging (lidar)
technology has continued to draw great attention from researchers. Because large volumes
of lidar data can be produced, studies have been made toward the goal of handling lidar
data in GIS software for classification or object extraction. This research makes the attempt
to propose methods and develop tools for bare earth extraction, 3D building reconstruction
models by intergrating lidar points.
The main objective of this research is to develop a practical GIS tools for GIS users and
urban planners to help them working with lidar data, extract objects, visualize, model 3D
urban, and to demonstrate how these models can be used for envirnmental modelling. In
order to achieve this objective, mainly four issues are addressed in this thesis: bare earth
extraction from lidar data, 3D building models recostruction, sky view factor estimation and
using the 3D data for microclimate modelling.
Digital Terrain Model (DTM) is a digital representation of a portion of the bare earth's surface
without objects like buildings and vegetation. It is also known as bare earth digital elevation
model (DEM). DEM has been produced by survey methods or by stereo photogrammetry.
Nowadays, the airborne light detection and ranging technology is used to capture data of the
topography over a large area. DTM is a pre-request for much decision support for planning,
3D visualization and environmental modeling. Several algorithms have been developed to
automatically extract the bare earth digital elevation models from lidar point clouds. The
process of point classification is known as lidar filtering. The minimum block classification
(MBC) model is implemented in ArcGIS, and the framework of ESRI terrain technology is
explained to identify a process flow for bare earth digital model extraction.
After bare earth generation, object lidar points can be extracted. Many photogrammetry and
computer science researchers have worked intensely on the development of algorithms to
extract and reconstruct 3D objects from lidar data. The creation of 3D building reconstruction
models has become an important issue and plays a central role in many applications. In this
thesis, a new approach to estimating the normal vector is presented, and 3D building
reconstruction models from lidar data and 2D geographic information system building
Page | 3 Abstract
footprints is discussed. A tool for creating 3D building reconstruction models from lidar data
is developed and implemented in ArcGIS.
Building models as well as bare earth data can be utilized in urban planning. Using an urban
3D model is important for performing a microclimate studies. The sky view factor (SVF) is
important for determining the microclimate in urban studies. Due to the rapid development of
technological and GIS-based techniques for computing sky view factor, software methods
have increasingly been used and computer programs and algorithms have been developed.
In this thesis, existing SVF computation methods are summarized and a new approach is
presented and embedded using ArcGIS and ArcObjects. The SVF was calculated using
different methods and compared with the SVF result calculated using photographs taken
with a fisheye lens. The advantages and disadvantages of each method are discussed.
For cities experiencing growth, urban climate simulation models simulate a city
environment’s atmospheric processes, including the surroundings and the morphological
data (i.e., buildings, roads, trees). The simulation results provide the ability to understand
and predict the impact of various building configurations and surface materials on the urban
atmosphere. Since the simulation process is based on input parameters representing the
structural and surface characteristics of the urban model, the accuracy of the simulation
mainly depends on the quality of input data. ENVI-met – a free microclimate modeling
software – is an example of widely used urban climate simulation program. ENVI-met does
not support data exchange format (.dxf) or shapefiles (.shp), which makes data entry more
difficult for the user. Building locations, plants, and surface types are examples of manual
work done by digitizing the graphic background. Since architects and urban planners usually
work with very precise vector-based data, tools that help users enhance the quality of input
data entry are required. Th