Abstract: In order to reduce the cost of 3D urban modeling, an automatic modeling method for large-scale urban scene based on 2D digital maps is proposed. In this method, ground features are classified firstly according to the characteristic that different features in 2D digital map have different color, then an extraction algorithm is designed to obtain the ground feature’s boundary, and at the same time, a simplified algorithm based on distance measurement is designed for generating the boundary’s key points of ground features which construct the geometry information of the ground features in 2D digital maps. Finally, the generating rule for the height of the buildings is designed according to the type of the buildings. The experiment results show that this method can automatically generate realistic 3D urban models.

Key words: digital maps, 3D urban, automated modeling, boundary extraction