| KEYWORD |
Development of a Flexible Pipeline for Data Management and 3D City Modeling in Urban Energy System Analysis
Reference persons LUCA BARBIERATO, ELISABETTA COLUCCI, FRANCESCA MATRONE
Description The growing awareness of urban areas' responsibility in mitigating global greenhouse gas emissions and pollution has highlighted the need for comprehensive energy-saving strategies. As a result, the modelling and simulation of urban energy systems (UES) have become crucial for conducting analyses, demand forecasting, and management optimisation to support energy stakeholders in decision-making. This discipline is called Urban Energy System Modeling (UESM), and it encompasses the broader concept that includes detailed building descriptions.
In this research thesis, the student will develop a flexible and modular tool addressing the data management and creation of 3D city models for complex UES. The tools aim to create standardised models for the chosen case study area, independently of the kind of input quality the user gives.
The main objectives are to analyse the state-of-the-art existing technologies and tools in Geographic Information Systems (GIS), WebGIS, city models, and other related domains for UESM.
One of the objectives of this research thesis is the integration and harmonisation of 2D and 3D data, such as point clouds, Digital Elevation Models, and cartographic datasets from national and international geoportal, following standards like CityGML, GeoJSON, and Energy ADE. The thesis focuses on data conversion, data formats, and 3D visualisation. This study will be conducted within a GIS environment. [1-5]
Moreover, the proposed solution must also be able to retrieve missing data through automatic downloading, theoretical assumptions, and statistical estimations.
The focus will be on examining how these technologies can be utilised to visualise spatial data and models, specifically those related to the energy data of buildings. The expected outcome is to develop a generic pipeline to retrieve a 3D city model from sparse databases, data sources, and information and then integrate building energy data for comprehensive visualisation and analysis.
The milestones of the thesis to reach are the following:
1. Review the current state of the art in 3D GIS, WebGIS, and city modelling technologies, focusing on their capabilities, data requirements, and visualisation approaches for UES visualisation.
2. Investigate the existing tools and frameworks for integrating and visualising building energy data within 3D city models.
3. Develop a generic pipeline for generating 3D city models from various data sources, including cadastral data, 3D building models, data sources, databases, and sparse information.
4. Integrate building energy data, such as energy consumption, generation, storage, renewable energy sources, and relatives' physical equipment, into the generated 3D city models to create a comprehensive urban digital twin.
5. Evaluate the effectiveness and usability of the developed visualisation tools and urban digital twin for energy-related decision-making, urban planning, and sustainability analysis.
[1] Lata, K., Sood, A., Kaur, K., Benipal, A.K. and Pateriya, B., 2022. Web-GIS based Dashboard for Real-Time Data Visualization & Analysis using Open-Source Technologies. Journal of Geomatics, 16(2), pp.134-146.
[2] Li, B., Wu, J., Pan, M. and Huang, J., 2015. Application of 3D WebGIS and real-time technique in earthquake information publishing and visualization. Earthquake Science, 28, pp.223-231.
[3] Ciolli, M., Zatelli, P., Vitti, A. and Zottele, F., 2006. FOSS spatial DBMS and interoperability. Geomatics workbooks, 6, pp.1-9.
[4] CECCARELLI, M., Francesco, C. and Capua, M., 2006. Dynamic WEBGIS and tracking of mobile devices. FOSS4G–Free and Open-Source Software for Geoinformatics. Lausanne, Switzerlan.
[5] Biljecki, F., Ledoux, H., Stoter, J., & Zlatanova, S. (2015). Applications of 3D city models: State of the art review. ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 4(4), 2842-2889.
Required skills GIS AND 3D VISUALISATION, GEOMATICS KNOWLEDGE AND SPATIAL DATASET ANALYSIS, UESM
Notes This thesis could be conducted by 2 students jointly
Deadline 09/07/2025
PROPONI LA TUA CANDIDATURA