A tetrahedronized irregular network based DBMS approach for 3D topographic data modeling

Abstract

Topographic features such as physical objects become more complex due to increasing multiple land use. Increasing awareness of the importance of sustainable (urban) development leads to the need for 3D planning and analysis. As a result, topographic products need to be extended into the third dimension. In this paper, we developed a new topological 3D data model that relies on Poincaré algebra. The internal structure is based on a network of simplexes, which are well defined, and very suitable for keeping the 3D data set consistent. More complex 3D features are based on this simple structure and computed when needed. We describe an implementation of this 3D model on a commercial DBMS. We also show how a 2D visualizer can be extended to visualize these 3D objects. © 2006 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.