Abstract

The increasing number of digital data sources, which allow for semi-automatic collection and storage of information regarding various aspects of life has recently granted a considerable rise in popularity to the term “Big data”. As far as geospatial data is concerned, one of the major sources of Big data are Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) scanners, which produce high resolution three-dimensional data on a local scale. The recent introduction of relatively low-cost LIDAR scanners has sparked a revolution in photogrammetry, as the technology offers data quality and cost-effectiveness which greatly outmatch traditional techniques. As a result, the volume and density of collected three-dimensional terrain data is growing rapidly, which in turn increases the pressure on development of new solutions dedicated to processing this data. This paper presents a concept system for web-based storage, processing and dissemination of LiDAR data in a geographic context. Processing and dissemination of LiDAR data in a web environment requires the data to be converted into a format which is fit for processing via DHTML. Because of this the presented system uses the emerging 3D Tiles open standard for serving LiDAR point clouds alongside reconstructed 3D models of buildings to remote users. The system provides remote presentation of LiDAR data in a web environment by means of Cesium, an open source GIS library for 3D visualization of geospatial data. The concept system has been tested using large volumes of LiDAR data collected in the Pomeranian region in Poland, with particular focus on the area of the Tricity, which is a large agglomeration consisting of Gdansk, Sopot and Gdynia. Presented results indicate that the combination of Cesium and 3D Tiles constitute a promising set of open standards for dissemination and visualization of LiDAR data in a web environment.

Citations

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