Voxelization algorithms for geospatial applications: Computational methods for voxelating spatial datasets of 3D city models containing 3D surface, curve and point data models

Abstract

Voxel representations have been used for years in scientific computation and medical imaging. The main focus of our research is to provide easy access to methods for making large-scale voxel models of built environment for environmental modelling studies while ensuring they are spatially correct, meaning they correctly represent topological and semantic relations among objects. In this article, we present algorithms that generate voxels (volumetric pixels) out of point cloud, curve, or surface objects. The algorithms for voxelization of surfaces and curves are a customization of the topological voxelization approach [1]; we additionally provide an extension of this method for voxelization of point clouds. The developed software has the following advantages:It provides easy management of connectivity levels in the resulting voxels.It is not dependant on any external library except for primitive types and constructs; therefore, it is easy to integrate them in any application.One of the algorithms is implemented in C++ and C for platform independence and efficiency.