Important News about the 3D City Database

Update Release: 3DCityDB v4.1.0, Importer/Exporter v4.3.0, WFS v4.3.0, and 3D Webclient v1.9.0

01.05.2021: While this is considered just an update release, it brings a huge list of new features. The database schema is updated to version 4.1.0 (with only one small change), but the Importer/Exporter as well as the WFS and the 3D Webmap Client received major refactorizations and feature upgrades.
Importer/Exporter: new command line interface for batch processing (makes it much easier to run imports, exports e.g. within Docker containers); new Look&Feel in the GUI (works better with HiDPI displays); support for CityJSON; visualization export can now generate binary glTF (glb) and can use Draco compression; more feature and LOD filter options for the CityGML, CityJSON as well as KML/COLLADA/glTF exporters; new support for the export of ADE data in KML/COLLADA/glTF; performance improvements (10-15 times faster, if the database and the Importer/Exporter are running on machines in different networks).
3D Webmap Client: support for the latest Google Spreadsheet API to connect 3D models with entries in Google Spreadsheets; if KML files are added as layers, the thematic data of clicked objects will be shown; KML files can be loaded via proxy in order to resolve CORS issues with KML data hosted on machines in the Web that do not support CORS; support for PostgREST to connect 3D models with tables in a PostgreSQL/PostGIS database; thematic data tables connected via PostgREST or Google Spreadsheets can now come in two styles: horizontal or vertical (vertical mode is new and means that for a 3D object there exist multiple rows of attribute/value pairs – this allows to support a different number of attributes per 3D object).
Docker images were moved from the github repository of TUM into the 3DCityDB repository. Preconfigured Docker images are available for different PostGIS/PostgreSQL, Oracle, and Linux versions. There are Docker images for the 3DCityDB, the Importer/Exporter, the WFS, and the 3D Webmap Client.
Documentation is now accessible as an online document.
ADE support: software packages to support reading and writing for the two CityGML Application Domain Extensions Energy ADE and i-Urban Revitalization (i-UR) ADE were released as Open Source.

Update Release: Importer/Exporter v4.2.0

13.02.2019: This release extends the Plugin API of the Importer/Exporter by support for non-GUI plugins. Such plugins are just hooked into internal processes such as CityGML imports and exports. A new CityGMLExportExtension has been added as a first extension point for non-GUI plugins. Using this extension, a plugin receives and can process all CityGML features before they are written to the output file. See the change log for all updates & bug fixes.

Update Release: 3DCityDB v4.0.1 and Importer/Exporter v4.1.0

09.01.2019: This release brings significant improvements for the Importer/Exporter: support for importing gzip & zip compressed 3D city models; zip files can also contain the texture images. Exporting of gzip or zip compressed city models is also facilitated. We added support for using SQL queries and XML-based filter expressions in CityGML exports. Please refer to the documentation to learn more about the new filter capabilities. See the change log for all updates & bug fixes.

New Major Release: 3DCityDB v4.0

18.09.2018: The 3DCityDB team is happy to announce that the new major version 4.0 of the 3D City Database is now available for download. During the last two years, we have worked hard to implement support for CityGML Application Domain Extensions (ADEs). The ADE mechanism is a built-in feature of CityGML allowing users to extend the CityGML data model with additional types, attributes and relations, which carry information required for specific applications and which are integrated with the predefined 3D city objects. When loading an ADE, 3DCityDB’s table structure will be dynamically extended by new tables. The transformation of the ADE XML schema to the relational model employs a completely new transformation framework, which allows to generate very compact and efficient relational representations. For further details, please refer to this paper. The list of popular ADEs supported by the 3DCityDB v4.0 includes the Energy ADE for energy assessment and simulation, the UtilityNetwork ADE for modelling of utility networks, etc. We provide a so-called Test ADE in order to demonstrate the steps to generate support for your own CityGML ADEs in the 3DCityDB. A non-exhaustive list of further CityGML ADE developments is available here.
Release 4.0.0 also comes with Docker support, i.e. all software modules can be operated from within Docker containers. Downloading 3DCityDB including PostGIS/PostgreSQL and setting up an empty database can be performed with just a single command! See instructions here.

Bugfix Release 3.3.2

27.11.2017: A new bug fix release v3.3.2 of the Importer/Exporter for Oracle and PostGIS is available. For a complete list of changes compared to the previous release please check our release notes.

3DViz 2016 workshop at TU Delft

27.09.2016: Zhihang Yao and Kanishk Chaturvedi, two researchers from the Chair of Geoinformatics at Technical University of Munich, held a two-day course on the 3DCityDB and the browser-based 3D geovisualization in the 3DViz 2016 workshop at TU Delft. The course materials have been published under the Creative Commons License and are freely available.

New Major Release

01.09.2016: Along with our newly introduced Cesium-based 3D web Viewer, the 3D City Database v3.3 and Importer/Exporter v3.3 for Oracle and PostGIS is available now! We migrated the entire project from LGPL to Apache 2.0 license for easier inclusion with 3rd party software systems.

3DCityDB Webclient in Oracle JET

13.06.2016: Oracle posted instructions on how to include the new 3DCityDB Webclient within Oracle JET applications (Javascript Toolkit).

Referenced by Cesium WebGL

02.09.2015 : The 3DCityDB and its new 3D web client is now included in the list of demos of the Cesium WebGL Virtual Globe..

Winner in the 3D City Model Visualization Competition

23.06.2015: 3DCityDB Webclient wins first prize of Web3D city modeling competition under students category at Web3D Conference 2015.

Excellent!

23.05.2012: The 3D City Database won the Oracle Spatial Excellence Award.