[OSGeo-Discuss] Open Source Viewer for 3D Maps

[Christian Willmes]

Hi Landon,

If you "just" want to share a visualization of some 3D model you maybe 
can go with 3D-PDF (see example [1]). There is an opensource toolchain 
using meshlab [2] and LaTEX to compile those 3D PDFs from 3D models 
(from all formats which you can load into meshlab).

If you want to share 3D geometries, there is for example KML and 
GML/CityGML as a format for more complex models. For those model you 
need a "viewer" or some sort of client which procecsses the information 
suitable for you, there are several out there for KML you would most 
probably choose Google Earth for viewing. For CityGML, ok here it is 
expensive or not that easy with OS or free software (for now), so it is 
not suitable for just showing some people who are not familar with that 
kind of technology, but in CityGML there are some OS applications out 
there (for example the deegree framework[3]) you can store all kind of 
information, which you can't with KML... So, you have to know what you 
want to do/provide with/from the data...

There are also more sophisticated possibilities to share 3D GISdata over 
the web. One of those possibilities would be for example the open 
standards based technology of GDI3D [4].

best regards,
Christian

[1] 
http://www.epromod.de/images/stories/-bilder-/showroom/3d-pdf/hohe-munde-3d.pdf
[2] http://meshlab.sourceforge.net/
[3] http://www.deegree.org/
[4] http://www.geographie.uni-bonn.de/karto/gdi-3d/technologie.en.htm

Am 29.03.2010 22:20, schrieb Landon Blake:
> I'm curious if anyone knows of a decent open source viewer for 3D maps.
> Does such a viewer exist? How widespread is its adoption?
>
>
>
> I know that Adobe PDF has become a fairly common way to share 2D maps
> digitally, but I didn't see a lot on the web about a PDF solution for 3D
> maps. If you build 3D maps and models as part of your work, how do you
> share them with your clients and the wider public?
>
>
>
> Thank you for your thoughts.
>
>
>
> Landon
>
>
>
> P.S. - Here are a couple of links I ran across for what appear to be
> open file formats for 3D models. I'm not sure how applicable they would
> be to 3D maps:
>
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COLLADA
>
> http://www.web3d.org/about/overview
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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>
>
>
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-- 
Christian Willmes
AG GIS & Fernerkundung      | GIS & RS Group
Geographisches Institut     | Institute of Geography
Universität zu Köln         | University of Cologne
Tel.: +49 (0)221 470 6234
Fax.: +49 (0)221 470 2280
http://www.geographie.uni-koeln.de/gis
http://www.sfb806.de