Technologies for interactive visualization of 3D spatial data
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2013 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | This paper aims at the description of concepts suitable for rich publication of 3D spatial data on the Web. There are the main approaches described in the theoretical level as well as use case demonstration to achieve these goals. The theoretical level comprises of WebGL (Web Graphics Library), which serves for rendering interactive 3D graphics within any compatible web browser without the use of plug-ins, and X3DOM library that simplifies the notation of graphical elements. X3DOM have been used for sample 3D visualization. The main motivation for utilization of this library is its connectivity with other HTML (HyperText Markup Language) elements, 2D graphics declared in SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) and JavaScript mapping libraries like OpenLayers. Proposed solution integrates different methods of spatial data presentation (3D model, 2D map, graphs, text description). Use case is based on free spatial data (digital terrain model from SRTM – Shuttle Radar Topography Mission), WMS (Web Mapping Service) and other online data sources (e. g. RSS – Really Simple Syndication). Input XML (eXtensible Markup Language) data were transformed through the XSLT (eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformations) into 3D graphical elements. 3D modelling software (both commercial and freely available) and tools for editing Web pages have been used for development of the use case. Resulting 3D visualization has been tested in different web browsers. There are also discussions on limitations and benefits of X3DOM visualization. Methods for optimizing large 3D datasets and further extensions of proposed visualization techniques have been mentioned too. X3DOM will be probably one of the client technologies used for 3D portrayal service, which is currently processed in OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium). |
| Related projects: |