Redesigned, streamlined database schema
3DCityDB v5 is a major update of the earlier version and fully supports CityGML 3.0, 2.0, and 1.0. The database schema is based on the OGC CityGML 3.0 standard. Compared to earlier versions of the 3DCityDB (V4), more generic mapping rules were applied resulting in a significant reduction of the number of database tables. Furthermore, geometry objects are now directly mapped onto corresponding database types. This makes it much easier to express spatial queries in SQL, faster to evaluate such queries, and also to directly connect to the 3DCityDB from geoinformation systems and utilize the spatial objects.
New, versatile citydb-tool
The citydb-tool can import and export CityGML datasets of arbitrary file sizes using both GML encoding and CityJSON encoding in all versions. The citydb-tool allows on-the-fly upgrade of CityGML 2.0 / 1.0 datasets during import to CityGML 3.0 and the downgrade of stored CityGML 3.0 datasets in the database to CityGML 2.0 or 1.0 files. The citydb-tool supports the OGC CQL2 standard to perform complex spatial and semantic queries.
The database and the citydb-tool are also available as prebuilt Docker containers, allowing to set up a 3DCityDB and run the import of CityGML datasets in a few seconds. All features are nicely explained in the new online documentation.
Strong development partnership
3DCityDB v5 has been jointly developed by an extended group of partners consisting of the Chair of Geoinformatics at Technical University of Munich (TUM), Hochschule für Technik Stuttgart, and the companies Virtual City Systems, M.O.S.S. Computer Grafik Systeme, and LIST Eco. Prof. Thomas H. Kolbe, Chair of Geoinformatics, started the development of the 3DCityDB in 2003 and has been contributing with his current team (Murat Kendir, Son H. Nguyen, Andreas Donaubauer) and past teams to the developments since then.
Who is using the 3DCityDB
The 3D City Database (v4) is in use in real-life production systems in many places around the world and is also being used in research projects and education. With the release of 3DCityDB v5, we expect that most users of v4 will migrate to the new version in the future. V4 is still functioning and available but is now in maintenance mode (for some extended time period).
The software can be downloaded here: https://github.com/3dcitydb. Online documentation is available here: https://3dcitydb.github.io/3dcitydb-mkdocs/