Photo: COWI A/S

3D city models 

COWI has the experience, know-how and capacity to perform large-area 3D city model projects. Applications and markets vary a lot from urban and master planning to car navigation, use in geographic information systems (GIS), homeland security and web-applications within tourism.

By using reality-based 3D city models you are able to present the urban environment to any user the way they are familiar to see the world which is not a synthesized 2D map, but in 3 dimensions. 3D city models are derived in different level-of-details (LODs) with different types of façade textures from various input data like stereo aerial imagery (standard or oblique), laserscanner data and 2D building footprints.

 

Urban planning

Using the virtual copy of an urban area in a 3D visualization (still images, videos or interactive walk-throughs) helps to present and evaluate the visual impact of planned constructions during the planning process. In many cases virtual 3D city models help to avoid costly planning errors.


Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
Accurate 3D city models are used to perform GIS analysis like line-of-sight (LOS) and viewshed, flood modelling, solar panel optimization and volumetric calculation etc. and can be linked to further building information coming from 2D maps. 

Photo: COWI A/S

Safety & Security

First responder within emergency management centres (e.g. fire, police, rescue teams) can evaluate the location of incidents faster and more accurate, which results in a detailed situation awareness to safe and rescue more lives. Virtual 3D city models and real-time visualization allow the user to freely navigate through an urban environment and to calculate secure paths using line-of-sight analysis or to use augmented reality by draping live video streams of surveillance cameras onto the virtual 3D model. 

 

Tourism

Web-based visualization of large 3D terrain and city model datasets combined with tourism-relevant data (e.g. hotel and restaurant information, shops etc.) help the potential visitors in their decision process and increases the occupancy within the tourist region.

 

Car navigation

Textured 3D city models and highly detailed 3D landmarks increase the visual recognition of the urban surrounding within a car navigation system.

 

Further applications of 3D city models are within real estate, entertainment (e.g. game, movie, TV), civil and military simulation, facility management and insurance.