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Automated 3D building reconstruction from point clouds

3D model from point cloud

A tool for reconstructing 3D building models from point clouds, fully automated, with high-detail. Free and open-source.

TLDR;

Install and run from your terminal

lod22-reconstruct --input_footprint=my_footprint.gpkg --input_pointcloud=my_pointcloud.las

and enjoy the output files that are created.

What does it do?

  • Takes the point cloud and the 2D polygon of a single building and generates a 3D model of the building. It is a fully automated process, there is no manual intervention.
  • It is possible to tweak the reconstruction parameters to adjust it a little to different input data qualities.
  • Outputs a model as a simple extrusion, in LoD1.2, LoD1.3, LoD2.2. See the refined Levef of Details by the 3D geoinformation research group .
  • For LoD2.2, it generates the model with as much detail in the roof structure as there is in the point cloud.
  • It generates the required Semantics for the surfaces.
  • It outputs to formats like Wavefront OBJ, GeoPackage, CityJSON or a PostgreSQL database.

Requirements on the input data

Point cloud

  • Acquired through aerial scanning, either Lidar or Dense Image Matching. But Lidar is preferred, because it is often of higher quality. Thus point clouds with only building facades eg. mobile mapping surveys are not supported.
  • The fewer outliers the better.
  • Classified, with at least ground and building classes.
  • Has sufficient point density. We achieve good results with 8-10 pts/m2 in the 3D BAG.
  • Well aligned with the 2D building polygon.
  • Do include some ground points around the building so that the software can determine the ground floor elevation.
  • Pointcloud is automatically cropped to the extent of the 2D building polygon.
  • In .LAS or .LAZ format.

2D building polygon

  • A simple 2D polygon of a single building.
  • Preferably roofprint, since the input point cloud was also acquired from the air.
  • Well aligned with the point cloud.
  • In GeoPackage or ESRI Shapefile format, or a PostGIS database connection.

Installation

Using the binary packages

It will probably be easiest to use one of the binary packages on the Release page (docker, windows installer) as explained below. In case you are on windows, the cli version is recommended.

Building from source

In case you can not or do not want to use the binary packages, you can also build everything from source. This is only recommended if you know what you are doing, ie. have experience in compiling software.

Note: macOS is currently untested

So only in case you want to compile the software from scratch you need to clone this repository with all of its submodules, eg:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/geoflow3d/geoflow-bundle.git
mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
cmake --build . --config Release --parallel 4
cmake --install .

Before compiling this software you will need to install the various dependencies. Please refer to the README's of the respective submodules in this repository for more information.

Usage

Two things are needed for running the reconstruction on some input data.

  1. A flowchart that contains the logic of the reconstruction and describes how the various components (plugins and nodes) connect. The flowchart is a JSON file.
  2. The geoflow executable (geof), which executes the logic in flowchart.
geof flowchart.json

Use geof --help to see the detailed help.

Usage: 
   geof [-v|-p|-n|-h]
   geof <flowchart_file> [-V] [-g] [-w] [-c <file>] [--GLOBAL1=A --GLOBAL2=B ...]

Options:
   -v, --version                Print version information
   -p, --list-plugins           List available plugins
   -n, --list-nodes             List available nodes for plugins that are loaded
   -h, --help                   Print this help message

   <flowchart_file>             JSON flowchart file
   -V, --verbose                Print verbose messages during flowchart execution
   -g, --list-globals           List available flowchart globals. Cancels flowchart execution
   -w, --workdir                Set working directory to folder containing flowchart file
   -c <file>, --config <file>   Read globals from TOML config file
   --GLOBAL1=A --GLOBAL2=B ...  Specify globals for flowchart (list availale globals with -g)

Globals

A flowchart can contain some parameters that are set for the whole flowchart. These are called globals To see the global parameters of a flowchart and their explanation pass the --list-globals option.

geof flowchart.json --verbose --list-globals

An example of the flowchart globals printed by --list-globals:

Available globals:
 > building_identifier [Unique identifier attribute present in input footprint source]
   default value: "fid"
 > input_footprint [Input 2D vector file with building footprint(s)]
   default value: ""
 > input_footprint_select_sql ["OGR SQL statement to select one input footprint from the input_footprint file, eg \"fid=47\"]
   default value: "fid=47\"
...

You can set the value of one or more flowchart global parameters from the commandline. For instance, set the building_identifier and input_footprint parameters.

geof flowchart.json --input_footprint=/some/path/file.gpkg --building_identifier=gid

In addition to the command line, you can also set the global parameters in a TOML configuration file.

# contents of config.toml
input_footprint="/bla/file.gpkg"
building_identifier="gid"
geof flowchart.json --config config.toml

Order of priority

It is possible to set the global parameters in three different places and their order of priority is as follows:

  1. parameters passed in the command line
  2. parameters set in a TOML configuration file
  3. parameters stored in the flowchart

Thus, a parameter set in the command line has the highest priority and overrides the value set in any other location.

Building reconstruction

The flowchart of the building reconstruction is in flowcharts/gfc-brecon/single/reconstruction.json. You need to use this flowchart to generate the 3D building models. However for you convenience we automatically install this flowchart and the script lod22-reconstruct to easily run it. The command lod22-reconstruct (lod22-reconstruct.bat on windows) is an alias for geof long/path/reconstruction.json.

Download the test data and unzip into a test-data directory. Then run:

lod22-reconstruct \
  --input_footprint=test-data/wippolder.gpkg \
  --input_pointcloud=test-data/wippolder.las \
  --config test-data/config.toml

Here we override the default values that are set in the flowchart. The input_footprint and input_pointcloud are passed directly in the command line. In addition, the input_footprint_select_sql='fid=47' (to select the 47th feature from the input footprint file) is read from the config file config.toml.

Combining the command line parameters and the config file allows you to keep the parameters that don't change with each model in the configuration file, while passing input and output parameters in the command line.

By default the output is saved to the output directory. By default the output is generated in CityJSON, Wavefront OBJ and GeoPackage formats. To omit an output format leave the corresponding output parameter empty (see lod22-reconstruct -g).

It is possible to save the model to a PostgreSQL database instead of a GeoPackage. To write to a database, you need to pass a GDAL-style database connection string and set the output format to PostgreSQL.

geof single/reconstruct.json --output_ogr="PG:dbname=test" --output_ogr_format="PostgreSQL"

model

To run the reconstruction with your own data, set the global parameters as explained above. Make sure that you have prepared your input data according to the Requirements on the input data.

Running the building reconstruction with Docker

Download the and load the docker image from the Releases page.

The flowcharts that are needed for the building reconstruction are packaged into the docker images for convenience. Thus, you only need to update the global parameters when running a container so that the correct input and output paths are set.

If you write the results back to the docker host, make sure that the target directory is writable by all. For instance in Linux you would do:

mkdir output_docker
chmod a+w output_docker

All LoD-s

The following is an example for running the building reconstruction on the test data. No need to pass the flowchart, because the image already contains it.

docker run \
  --rm \
  --network=host \
  -v "flowcharts/gfc-brecon:/data" \
  geoflow3d/lod22-reconstruct:latest \
  --input_footprint=/data/test-data/wippolder.gpkg \
  --input_pointcloud=/data/test-data/wippolder.las \
  --output_cityjson=/data/output_docker/model.json \
  --output_ogr=/data/output_docker/model_2d.gpkg \
  --output_obj_lod12=/data/output_docker/model_lod12.obj \
  --output_obj_lod13=/data/output_docker/model_lod13.obj \
  --output_obj_lod22=/data/output_docker/model_lod22.obj

LoD1.3 only

The building reconstruction tool for LoD1.3 models is packaged into a docker image, geoflow3d/lod13tool. An example command to run the reconstruction in a new container from the image and write the results to a database on the host:

NOTE: the flowchart underpinning lod13tool works very different from the standard one. It is not recommended to use unless you know what you are doing.

docker run \
  --rm \
  --network=host \
  -v /my/dir/data:/data/in_out_data \
  geoflow3d/lod13tool:latest \
  --config config.toml

Citation

If you use the software in scientific publications, please see CITATION.bib

About Geoflow

This software was mostly developed by Ravi Peters, and now also by Balazs Dukai. Geoflow was originally developed during our time at the 3D geoinformation research group at the Delft University of Technology. We are currently working on this software from the company 3DGI, a spin-off of said research group.

In case you have the need for professional support (SLA), consultancy, or the implementation of custom features don't hesitate to drop us a line at [email protected]