[HN Gopher] Tokyo released point cloud data of the entire city f...
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       Tokyo released point cloud data of the entire city for free
        
       Author : taubek
       Score  : 278 points
       Date   : 2024-12-24 10:51 UTC (2 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (twitter.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
        
       | _____k wrote:
       | Link: https://info.tokyo-digitaltwin.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/3dmodel/
        
         | Retr0id wrote:
         | What do I need to click to get the pointcloud version? I'm just
         | getting regular untextured polygons.
        
           | Timon3 wrote:
           | The table "Posted data on 3D Viewer" contains a row "Point
           | cloud data" with several links, e.g. "Viewing the LP point
           | cloud of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government area in the
           | viewer": https://3dview.tokyo-
           | digitaltwin.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/#share=s-...
        
           | numpad0 wrote:
           | Supposed to be [1][2] according to [0] but only by lots of
           | clicking through GUI? It's _really_ intuitive. GSI(Geospatial
           | Information Authority of Japan) download site is a lot
           | better, though they 're more geography focused.
           | 
           | 0:
           | https://twitter.com/tocho_digital/status/1697474739583746474
           | 
           | 1: https://catalog.data.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/dataset/t000029d000
           | 00...
           | 
           | 2: https://catalog.data.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/dataset/t000029d000
           | 00...
           | 
           | 3: https://fgd.gsi.go.jp/download/menu.php
        
       | bamboozled wrote:
       | So fun to explore, it has to be the greatest city on earth, just
       | a marvel in so many ways.
        
       | yieldcrv wrote:
       | Feels like where Google Earth was 22 years ago
        
       | lxdlam wrote:
       | I must say this is tremendous. There are many different AIGC
       | explorations in 3D topics, with such high quality dataset, it
       | will greatly assist current workflow and accelerate the 3D
       | creative evolution.
        
       | JCharante wrote:
       | Great for cgi and video games
        
       | cpa wrote:
       | In france, the national geodata institute (IGN) has captured
       | lidar data of the whole country (20 points per km2 if memory
       | serves, in the OP it's 30p per km2).
       | 
       | https://diffusion-lidarhd.ign.fr/visionneuse/?copc=https:%2F...
        
       | reustle wrote:
       | https://www.swisstopo.admin.ch/en/switzerland-in-3d
       | 
       | > Switzerland is one of the first countries to possess a detailed
       | 3D buildings model covering the whole country. This digital model
       | of Switzerland consists of approx. 70 million 3D objects. Besides
       | every single building in Switzerland and the Principality of
       | Liechtenstein, bridges, cable cars, forests, individual trees and
       | geographical names are also represented in 3D. Two movement modes
       | enable interactive navigation through space. Discover digital
       | Switzerland from the air in flight mode or take a virtual stroll
       | around a 3D model of your own village or neighbourhood.
        
         | cdaringe wrote:
         | Crashed on my old iPhone 6SE, but could tell it was getting
         | cool!
        
         | rnewme wrote:
         | This might be a stupid question, but isn't Switzerland known
         | for its countless hidden bunkers and defense positions? Doesn't
         | mapping and publicly exposing basically the whole country only
         | bring negatives and nothing positive?
        
           | notesinthefield wrote:
           | One would reasonably assume threats could map surface-level
           | objects from orbit. The Swiss (I hope) would consider this
           | and react accordingly.
        
           | jajko wrote:
           | I have one of such fortifications, called Toblerone line,
           | running around our place in canton Vaud. The whole line is
           | maybe 15km long from Geneva lake up the Jura mountains, made
           | up from concrete spikes (even raisable in the middle of
           | roads), blowable bridges and around 15 tiny concrete
           | fortresses (fortinettes), all in plain sight, mostly visible
           | on google maps/street view.
           | 
           | All built around 1930s. There is popular hiking trail along
           | all this, since nature and forests around it are pretty and
           | well maintained. No secret really. Same for many other old
           | stuff. New stuff should be hidden on bases/remote places.
           | 
           | Btw checked our building and surrounding ones and its pretty
           | precise but not up to date with 2024 finished construction.
        
           | SahAssar wrote:
           | I though Switzerland's defense was more based around being
           | mountainous and having explosives planted in critical
           | tunnels/bridges and having a large percentage of the
           | population armed and trained for national self defense.
           | Basically in a ground invasion would be deadly and slow with
           | no mobility and resistance everywhere.
           | 
           | Besides that it's hard to imagine which foreign power would
           | have incentive and power projection to even try it.
           | 
           | The way I've understood it is that none of their defense is
           | hidden, it uses the natural and societal benefits. Most of
           | that could be gleaned by anyone with access to satellite
           | images and wikipedia.
           | 
           | That might all be outdated info though, it'd be interesting
           | to see where I'm wrong though!
        
             | johannes1234321 wrote:
             | There are laws in Switzerland stating that essentially
             | every cirizen has to have a bunker close by. Thus many
             | homes got a bunker.
             | 
             | https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/culture/bunkers-for-all/995134
        
               | SahAssar wrote:
               | Historically that has been the case for for Sweden as
               | well I think. Every older apartment building I've lived
               | in (built before 1990-ish) has had bunkers in the
               | basement, and usually it seems to be sized for more than
               | just the buildings residents (although it is repurposed
               | for storage these days). Thick steel doors and all the
               | other tell-tales of old civilian bunkers.
               | 
               | I'm guessing other European countries did this too.
        
             | jazzyjackson wrote:
             | I've definitely seen clips of heavy artillery tucked away
             | into friendly barns and garden sheds. Maybe there's just
             | wealthy people who like to collect large guns and there's
             | some pride in turning away a Nazi invasion with their
             | defenses.
             | 
             | Here's a cute video I found discussing the line of 12
             | fortresses protecting a little bottleneck of a river valley
             | - he explains that the two camouflaged as villas are done
             | so as not to be eyesores for the tourists.
             | 
             | https://youtu.be/tPL9-L2gwzo
             | 
             | https://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2015/06/12/the_vi
             | l...
             | 
             | EDIT a few more examples here                 A former
             | infantry bunker is camouflaged as a medieval house in the
             | town of Duggingen. Notice the half-circle windows, which
             | appear to have been painted on            Nearby mountains
             | have been made so porous that whole divisions can fit
             | inside them. There are weapons and soldiers under barns.
             | There are cannons inside pretty houses.             If you
             | look closely, you can see a massive door in the hillside
             | that would swing open - A Swiss Air Force Mirage III RS
             | outside its mountain hanger.
             | 
             | https://mathewingram.com/work/2022/02/14/switzerlands-
             | hidden...
        
           | yencabulator wrote:
           | Map says it's a building, not what's in the building or how
           | sturdy the building is. The thing that looks like a barn
           | might not be a barn.
        
         | ks2048 wrote:
         | I wonder if this dataset has been added to OpenStreetMap (or
         | what the legal restrictions could be). If I look at Zurich on
         | https://osmbuildings.org/ it seems like it has all the
         | buildings in 3d.
        
       | yarri wrote:
       | Background on the Tokyo government's digital twin program,
       | including sourcing and maintenance efforts
       | 
       | https://github.com/tokyo-digitaltwin/roadmap_v1.0/blob/main/...
        
       | Havoc wrote:
       | How do they collect point cloud data at scale?
        
         | lbotos wrote:
         | speculating: Lidar from a plane?
         | 
         | https://www.reddit.com/r/Albany/comments/1hdxkz0/comment/m1z...
         | 
         | Imagine a route like this, except many lanes. I was trying to
         | find a pic I saw the other day of one over NYC
        
           | lbotos wrote:
           | slightly better:
           | 
           | https://www.reddit.com/r/flightradar24/comments/u59zc2/off_t.
           | ..
           | 
           | https://www.yellowscan.com/knowledge/drone-flight-
           | planners-t...
        
           | anakaine wrote:
           | I do this sort of stuff for work. Plane borne lidar is
           | typically only part of the answer, and usually a hybrid
           | acquisition model is required.
        
             | toomuchtodo wrote:
             | Are there drones that can provide similar products at
             | parity (versus needing aircraft)?
        
         | araes wrote:
         | Here's a link to the people out of Huntsville, AL who do a lot
         | of survey acquisition work in America, and did the collection
         | effort noted in the Reddit post below. [1]
         | 
         | The About Us video shows some of the planes, equipment,
         | collection flights, survey patterns, and data applications for
         | the collection efforts. Other pages have notes on the planes
         | and work done.
         | 
         | [1] Revolution Flight, Survey Subunit,
         | https://www.surveyaircraft.com/about-us
        
       | nullhole wrote:
       | Free reminder that the USGS is involved in an epic, nearly
       | decade-long collection of mid- and high- density lidar of the
       | entire continental USA, and the QC'd data (point cloud & derived)
       | is published gratis for everyone to use:
       | 
       | https://www.usgs.gov/3d-elevation-program
       | 
       | https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/3d-elevation-program-fy25-...
       | 
       | https://www.usgs.gov/3d-elevation-program/3dep-spatial-metad...
        
       | Dig1t wrote:
       | I would love to use point cloud data like this to make a map for
       | a video game. What is the state of the art for turning point
       | cloud data into 3D models?
       | 
       | Anyone know what the best of the best is?
        
         | fsloth wrote:
         | What would the game be like? There are many ways to get as-
         | built buildings at scale from existing datasets. For example
         | there are cesium tiles. OSM data contains footprint polygons
         | with height which means extrusion is trivial.
         | 
         | To explore know production algorithms for pointcloud-to-mesh
         | check out the ones provided in cloudcompare and meshlab and see
         | if any fit your purpose. Afaik there is no one objectively best
         | recipe so you need to know what you want and be aware of the
         | tradeoffs and constraints.
         | 
         | Note that for real time large scale cityscapes for complex
         | buildings you likely need lods, impostors etc - which you don't
         | get for free. If you use just polygon extrusions you can likely
         | bucket like a square kilometer of buildings to a drawcall (or
         | more).
        
         | Stevvo wrote:
         | Simplygon is used in MS Flight Simulator bcs it can generate
         | seamless LODs. LOD 0 can simply be a Delaunay triangulation.
        
       | RandomBK wrote:
       | A couple of cities have been doing this as well. Vancouver Canada
       | has lidar point clouds covering the entire city, going back to
       | 2013.
       | 
       | [0]
       | https://opendata.vancouver.ca/explore/dataset/lidar-2022/inf...
       | 
       | [1] https://x.com/edwardjxli/status/1871676981143875725
        
       | ranger_danger wrote:
       | Login-walled. Anyone have an archive that doesn't require endless
       | cloudflare captchas (looking at you, archive.ph)?
        
         | confooseddd wrote:
         | xcancel.com with proxy enabled in its setting for media seems
         | to work
        
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       (page generated 2024-12-26 23:01 UTC)