Integration of Movement Data into 3D GIS

Abstract

With the rise in usage of digital twins in the field of urban planning, the integration of data sources such as sensor data in 3D city models is a challenge that is often brought up. This is even more so with movement data, as they contain a geographical or geometrical aspect that is often overlooked. This paper looks at existing methods to integrate sensor data with 3D city models, and especially at the Dynamizer module in CityGML that supports the integration of dynamic data into the models directly. We look at how the Dynamizer module works with movement data and compare it with another method, SensorThings API. The comprehensive investigation we conduct involved different types of movement data, at different spatial and temporal scales, e.g. origin-destination public transport data in Singapore and London, migration routes in the USA, and highly detailed customer movement in a supermarket in China. While the Dynamizer is more flexible in representing data, it has less support and it is more restrictive when accessing the data. On the other hand, the FROST-Server implementation of the SensorThings API is more restrictive in representing data, however, accessing the data is more flexible.