From point clouds to 3D isovists in indoor environments

Journal Article (2018)
Author(s)

L. Dìaz-Vilariño (TU Delft - OLD Department of GIS Technology, University of Vigo)

L. González-De Santos (University of Vigo)

E. Verbree (TU Delft - OLD Department of GIS Technology)

G. Michailidou (Student TU Delft)

S. Zlatanova (University of New South Wales)

Research Group
OLD Department of GIS Technology
Copyright
© 2018 L. Díaz-Vilarino, L. González-De Santos, E. Verbree, G. Michailidou, S. Zlatanova
DOI related publication
https://doi.org/10.5194/isprs-archives-XLII-4-149-2018
More Info
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Publication Year
2018
Language
English
Copyright
© 2018 L. Díaz-Vilarino, L. González-De Santos, E. Verbree, G. Michailidou, S. Zlatanova
Research Group
OLD Department of GIS Technology
Issue number
4
Volume number
42
Pages (from-to)
225-232
Reuse Rights

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Abstract

Visibility is a common measure to describe the spatial properties of an environment related to the spatial behaviour. Isovists represent the space that can be seen from one observation point, and they are used to analyse the existence of obstacles affecting or blocking intervisibility in an area. Although point clouds depict the as-built reality in a very detailed and accurate way, literature addressing the analysis of visibility in 3D, and more specifically the usage of point clouds to visibility analysis, is rather limited. In this paper, a methodology to evaluate visibility from point clouds in indoor environments is proposed, resulting in the creation of 3D isovists. Point cloud is firstly discretized in a voxel-based structure and voxels are labelled into ‘exterior’, ‘occupied’, ‘visible’ and ‘occluded’ based on an occupancy followed by a visibility analysis performed from a ray-tracing algorithm. 3D Isovists are created from the boundary of visible voxels from an observer position and considering as input parameters the visual angle, maximum line of sight, and eye gaze direction.