Mapping 3D visibility in an urban street environment from mobile LiDAR point clouds |
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| Authors: | Yi Zhao Jianping Wu Song Shu Handong Liang Min Liu |
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| Institution: | 1. Key Laboratory of Geographic Information Science (Ministry of Education), East China Normal University , Shanghai, China;2. School of Geographic Sciences, East China Normal University , Shanghai, China;3. Department of Geography and Planning, Appalachian State University , Boone, NC, USA |
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| Abstract: | ABSTRACT Visibility determination is a key requirement in a wide range of national and urban applications, such as national security, landscape management, and urban design. Mobile LiDAR point clouds can depict the urban built environment with a high level of details and accuracy. However, few three-dimensional visibility approaches have been developed for the street-level point-cloud data. Accordingly, an approach based on mobile LiDAR point clouds has been developed to map the three-dimensional visibility at the street level. The method consists of five steps: voxelization of point-cloud data, construction of lines-of-sight, construction of sectors of sight, construction of three-dimensional visible space, and calculation of volume index. The proposed approach is able to automatically measure the volume of visible space and openness at any viewpoint along a street. This approach has been applied to three study areas. The results indicated that the proposed approach enables accurate simulation of visible space as well as high-resolution (1 m × 1 m) mapping of the visible volume index. The proposed approach can make a contribution to the improvement of urban planning and design processes that aim at developing more sustainable built environments. |
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| Keywords: | Mobile LiDAR urban streets visibility visual volume volume index |
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