Efficient Creation of 3D Models from Buildings’ Floor Plans

Abstract

Nowadays, there is a huge need for efficient tools to produce virtual models, mostly urban, in several areas such as architecture, movies, games, virtual worlds and commercial applications. These models may be either generated "fictional" models or reconstructed models representing real world structures. This last option is the motivation behind this paper and past experience has shown us that, usually, it is harder to recreate existing models than trying to create new ones. The purpose of the research here addressed is the definition of a method to efficiently produce 3D models of existing buildings. The method allows the 3D creation of buildings' structures (interior and exterior) and corresponding surrounding environments from existing information such as floor plans (in any format), photographs, etc. It also allows the application of different materials (textures and colours) to the buildings' structure and to place and distribute objects logically. The method is established through the development of a software prototype - AV3D (Ambientes Virtuais 3D - 3D Virtual Environments) - that allows the production of the realistic results shown in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]