UK, 10 July 2006: During the OGC Technical Committee in Edinburgh earlier this month, CityGML, serving 3D data over the Web was successfully demonstrated by a collaboration between Snowflake Software and the University of Bonn.
The schema translation software (GO Publisher WFS) from Snowflake Software could transform 3D geometry in Oracle to CityGML and stream it as a Web Feature Service to the Aristoteles viewer client developed by the Institute for Cartography and Geoinformation, University of Bonn. The ability to translate on-the-fly from the relational database to the 3D CityGML format enables visualisation of the live data across the internet.
“The benefits of being able to dynamically serve and view 3D data over the web are only just being recognised. Obviously, urban development issues such as managing noise pollution are prime applications but, going forward, the possibilities of using 3D for disaster recovery and emergency planning are now being considered,” explained Eddie Curtis, CTO of Snowflake Software.
CityGML is a major stride towards integrating the GIS and CAD worlds using a mainstream, standards-based web interface. The OGC has introduced a CAD/GIS/BIM working group, which is targeted to prove interoperability for the fourth OGC Web Services testbed (OWS-4) scheduled for the end of this year.
