Streamlining 3D City Modeling for Urban Flow Simulations by Automatic Integration of Multisource Topography

In the workflow of computational fluid dynamics, geometry preparation is commonly the most time-consuming step. For a fast CFD simulation, automatic surface reconstruction to obtain 3D city models for a chosen area is essential. To address this need, a literature study was conducted to map available data suitable for 3D city models. The properties investigated included geographical coverage, resolution, accuracy and licensing. A surface reconstruction using different topographical data was conducted using the 3D finite element mesh generator Gmsh and various GIS analysis tools. The findings of the literature study found no global data enabling a fully automatic solution with sufficient results. However, the open geographic database OpenStreetMap has potential for future work. Today, the method developed in this project is restricted to country-by-country applications and uses a terrain model, LiDAR data and building footprints as input data. The generated 3D city model has a level of detail 1.2, consisting of valid geometries without self-intersection, overlapping or gaps. The method is a semi-automatic workflow with a time consumption of less than one hour, from the extraction of data to a simulation-ready 3D city model. The model shows satisfactory agreement with the reference material but needs improvements regarding the detail of height setting, for more accurate airflow simulations. The method contributes to the field of automatic 3D city model reconstruction. Future work includes improvement regarding level of detail and automation of data attainment.