DILAS - The Digital Landscape Server for the Generation and Management of Large 3D City Models

The generation and visualisation of large 3D landscape and city models have received significant attention over the last few years – both in the scientific and the commercial community. Recent progress in 3D data capturing and web-based visualisation technologies are opening up new possibilities for a wide-spread use of these 3D models as a basis for new and exciting geoinformation applications. However, with the rapidly increasing size and complexity of the 3D models being acquired, a pressing need for suitable data management solutions has become apparent. The Digital Landscape Server DILASTM presented in this paper is one of the first commercial 3D GIS solutions. It is the result of a joint research project of GEONOVA AG and the Basel University of Applied Sciences (FHBB). DILAS combines object-relational database and XML technologies for the integrated management of very large 3D landscape and city models. The system provides a comprehensive support for colour, transparency, texture as well as animation and view control. This support for reality-based 3D models within a 3D GIS environment enables the automated generation of web-based 3D scenes with user-defined contents and appearance. The paper concludes with the presentation of projects from various application areas illustrating the potential of the DILAS 3D GIS technology.