Three-dimensional modeling with national coverage: Case of The Netherlands

Three-dimensional technologies have matured over the years. At the same time, 3D information is becoming increasingly important in many applications. Still it is not straightforward to apply the solutions that work on prototypes, small areas or for specific projects to 3D modeling of a whole nation. In the Netherlands, two initiatives are ongoing to address the issues of nation-wide 3D modeling. First, the initiative that aims at establishing and implementing a national 3D standard for large-scale topography with support of all stakeholders. Collecting and maintaining the large-scale data are the responsibility of local governments (mainly municipalities). The second initiative is led by the Kadaster (the organization responsible for topographic mapping in the Netherlands) and aims at automatically generating a 3D version of the 1:10 k object-oriented data-set based on a smart combination of the two-dimensional data with high-resolution laser data. Both initiatives are presented in this paper including results, open issues, and future plans.