Developing Metrics for Quantifying Buildings’ 3D Compactness and Visualizing Point Cloud Data on a Web-Based App and Dashboard
Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 147, Issue 3
Abstract
Measuring three-dimensional (3D) building expansion and quantifying both horizontal and vertical dimensions in a nonautomated manner may not be possible for big data sets. This paper aims to present novel metrics for measuring both vertical and horizontal developments and to develop a web-based app and a dashboard workflow which identifies differences in the form and scale of buildings. The novel 3D metrics are developed based on the concepts of contact surface and 3D discrete compactness. A workflow was developed exploiting the potential of advanced geographic information system (GIS) functions, along with airborne lidar data processing, to apply the metrics on both a simulation of big data sets and digital building models from point clouds. The database system, including a geo-web-based app, is developed for visualizing 3D compactness computations on a dashboard and sharing the outcome with practitioners using their own smartphones. In the simulation experiment, nine 3D building block types were created, and the computation results were compared with the same size building blocks, which were derived from lidar point cloud data sets. The computation results of both the simulation and airborne lidar data, which included 123 and 127,407 data points, respectively, show that the novel metrics are able to identify differences among the typologies and intermediate 3D patterns. The presented workflow also enables online visualization of the computation output.
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Data Availability Statement
All data generated or analyzed during the study are included in the published paper. Information about the Journal’s data-sharing policy can be found here: http://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0001263.
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Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 147 • Issue 3 • March 2021
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© 2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Sep 23, 2019
Accepted: Aug 24, 2020
Published online: Dec 22, 2020
Published in print: Mar 1, 2021
Discussion open until: May 22, 2021
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