The Business Smart Government, Smart Cities: Land

Use Victoria embraces 3D data

The Department of Environment, Land, Water, and Planning (DELWP) has been supplying authoritative foundation spatial datasets under its Vicmap™ brand for over 45 years. This supports accurate and up-to-date mapping for a range of users across the public and private sector. Over its history, Vicmap has evolved from paper-based cartographic techniques in the 1970s to digital maps in the 1990s and is now enabling near-survey accurate positioning of its property and parcel layers through the $45 million Digital Cadastre Modernisation project.

As emerging cross-over technologies from the realms of gaming, digital engineering, remote sensing and AI have advanced three dimensional (3D) mapping over the past several years, DELWP has been exploring how 3D spatial datasets can be created from and add value to Victoria’s rich and growing archive of high-resolution photography and elevation data. Through exploratory work in 3D, advanced visualisations, and digital twins, DELWP has matured its capability to create full three-dimensional (3D) models of our natural and built environments encompassing the built form, streetscapes, and vegetation. The department is now sharing these outputs to fuel further innovation throughout Victoria’s planning sector and to inform the future development of Vicmap.

In 2019 Land Use Victoria (LUV), which is part of DELWP, began work on a proof-of-concept project to acquire and assess 3D building object models, photomesh models and elevation data (LiDAR point clouds) covering 20 regional towns across Victoria. The project builds on over two decades of public sector investment in high-resolution elevation and imagery data

Callum McClure, Project Officer at Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning

across Victoria and harnesses 3D capabilities to create exciting new spatial data products. DELWP’s focus on regional towns enabled an exploration of a variety of landscapes and types of built-form, as well as promoting equitable access to high-quality data for regional town planners, community services, property developers and investors to support decision-making.

Victoria’s urban environment is changing rapidly, with both industry and government needing fresh approaches to adapt to increasing risks from bushfires, to enable the social and community benefits of 20-minute “smart” cities, and to ensure the State’s investment in the Big Build extends opportunities and growth throughout regional areas. These 3D datasets have already provided significant benefits, cost savings and efficiencies for Government programs, being re-used in DELWP’s Vic3D planning application as well as providing a foundational dataset for the Digital Twin project.

The potential benefits of 3D spatial data are enormous, and include:

• faster, more robust regulatory assessments and compliance monitoring

• improved community-centric design and engagement

• opportunities for new products, services, jobs, and industries

• improving understanding of the changes in built-form over time

• 3-dimensional scenario testing for town planning and precincts

• improved decision-making and community outcomes.

The datasets were acquired in late 2020 and include:

• elevation point clouds (8ppm2 and 40ppm2 LiDAR) and imagery data over 18 regional towns

• textured photomesh datasets in a range of resolutions (2cm, 5cm, 10cm pixel size)

• textured and untextured Building Object Models at varying levels of detail over commercial, industrial, education and health zones

• Machine Learning Building Footprint Models (LOD1).

Different approaches were used to create them – including machine learning/deep learning – each achieving a different level of detail, quality, and accuracy. This has enabled DELWP to test the benefits of various options and improve its elevation and imagery survey specifications.

DELWP is now seeking your feedback on the benefits and challenges of using 3D data and is making these datasets freely available in exchange for valuable feedback that will guide future investment and collaboration on 3D mapping products.

LIDAR DOWNLOAD PORTAL (link: tinyurl.com/a7q1sype)

3D MODEL DOWNLOAD PORTAL (link: tinyurl.com/3f9x2rfx)

DELWP has also released the data for visualisation and exploration through a web-based platform called Geocirrus. This allows users to interrogate and compare 3D models, including 3D analysis such as line-of-sight and shadowing.

Geocirrus 3D-GIS Web Application (Link: tinyurl.com/5xk8v2fz) available until June 30, 2021 something entirely new and exciting for visualising towns and cities. You can view the video at the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztlTZu9wPZM

We would like to acknowledge our project partners for their role in the delivery of this project: AAM, Aerometrex, Player Piano Data Analytics and RPS Australia East.