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I have a couple of las files for a city and I need to make a 3D model of the buildings, which should display info about the building when clicked on. I am pretty new to ArcGIS so I don't have the best idea to go about this. I have already downloaded LAStools and can use it to view the lidar data.

I have a point cloud set up but I am not sure how to make the model from this point. Would I need different software? (Sketchup, Meshlab, etc..)

dhamlin1
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  • Do you have a 2d building layer available? – AnserGIS Jul 07 '16 at 13:48
  • I have a 2d shapefile with all of the buildings and their attributes, but I am not sure how to implement that into it. So far I have just created DEMs, raster files, terrain, and multipoint files from the point cloud data. – dhamlin1 Jul 07 '16 at 14:15
  • The absolutely easiest would probably be to 1. convert your building polygons to centerpoints. 2. Sample your DEM (with building heights) at those points. 3. Spatial join to get the height information back to the building polygons --> Store as Z coordinate (Feature to 3D). But this will only create building roofs, completely flat ones. Is that enough? I think ArcScene should be able to get you some nice 3D views, at least resembling those in Sketchup. – Martin Jul 07 '16 at 14:22
  • I would not (personally) take a centre point sample. I would spatial join the building polygons to the multipoint data and take the average height, but its a judgement call. Once you have the height data as an attribute for the 2D polygons then use Extrude in ArcScene to convert them to simple 3D blocks. If you want more complex geometry for the roofs, or multiple floors inside the building it get a good deal more complicated. – AnserGIS Jul 07 '16 at 14:26
  • Martin - the problem is that I need to have all of the geometry represented in the 3D model. Would you know a way to go about that? Anser - I have been able to extrude the buildings in the shapefile and make 3D blocks but it won't do sadly. It seems pretty complicated to do what I need to get done and I'm just not sure how to go about it. – dhamlin1 Jul 07 '16 at 14:36
  • It is pretty complicated Im afraid! Before going to a full 3D model, do you really need the objects, or could you work with a single raster surface. ArcGIS allows rasters to attach attribute tables. So you could just attach the building attributes to the DEM? Or you could drape an areal photo of the image over the DEM to get something that looks realistic but use the building "boxes" you now have as approximate (invisible) objects for click based query? .. Otherwise its going to be allot of semi manual clipping and digitising to correct and split a 3D surface into separate objects. – AnserGIS Jul 08 '16 at 09:05

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