A Practice of City-scale 3D Geographic Entity Representation and Application in China: The Smart Chongqing City Centre

Abstract

The Chinese photogrammetry industry is currently experiencing a significant revolution driven by digital intelligence technologies. Traditional city-scale 3D modelling, typically reconstructed from oblique photogrammetry or laser points, is facing increasing limitations in refined expression, real-time rendering, machine recognition, data sharing, and interoperability due to its large data volume and mesh structure. These limitations make it difficult to meet the substantial demands of spatial analysis, simulation, and prediction. The concept of geographic entities, which are machine-recognizable spatial data structures, is anticipated to provide a competitive solution for these challenges. This work employs 3D scene modelling and geographic knowledge graphs to construct geographic entities with semantic relationships at city-scale, addressing the limitations encountered in the application of traditional mesh/point-based 3D models. A case study in Chongqing city centre demonstrates the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed approach and its potential applications in simulation, prediction, early warning, and feedback for urban planning and smart city management.