The municipality of Deventer in the Netherlands, together with Esri Netherlands, is creating a 3D mesh of the city and its immediate surroundings. Thanks to this technology, the municipality is less dependent on sensors and surveyors to map the city, as they are used for maps and digital twins. “We are at the forefront of serving other municipalities and stakeholders in the future,” says Gijs Schulkes of the Municipality of Deventer.
3D mesh is a highly detailed 3D representation of a city or country supplemented with all kinds of data from the environment. Unlike maps and even digital twins, 3D mesh is less dependent on manual work with surveyors or sensors. The 3D display is constructed from available image material in combination with data from external sources. Planners, urban planners, green managers, licensing authorities and other functions within and outside the government make decisions on this basis.
3D mesh in experimental phase
Deventer is the first municipality in the Netherlands to work with 3D mesh. The project is still in an experimental phase, in which a task group in Deventer, together with schools, companies and other institutions, is looking for the benefits and possibilities. Gijs Schulkes, Geo Information account manager at the Municipality of Deventer, says: “We are at the forefront of serving other municipalities and stakeholders in the future. We are paving the way.”
The municipality of Deventer had been working with a digital twin for some time but became inspired during a presentation by Esri about 3D meshes. The partnership De Kien, the city campus of Deventer where talent and tech come together, was brought in to cooperate. Together, the organizations want to discover what a 3D mesh can mean for the city.
Feeding on aerial photography
To feed the 3D mesh, Deventer uses the aerial photography of Kavel 10. This relatively young company in the sector combines perpendicular with diagonal photography, resulting in sharp close-ups down to 5 centimeters. The photography can also be delivered within a month. This contrasts with national initiatives where only perpendicular images are shared and for which the municipality sometimes has to wait months.
Schulkes explains: “The images from Kavel 10 have a resolution of 5 cm, are supplied as a True Ortho aerial photo and are available to us within four weeks of taking them. That topicality alone provides many benefits.” The photo-realistic representation can, for example, help with the housing assignment to see the new situation at infill locations, including the shadow effect on the existing environment.
Applying data with 3D mesh
Schulkes says: “Where we used to focus on managing and collecting data, we are now looking at the application of data together with others. It is a big step towards data-driven working. We are at the forefront of this, and we are really still in the discovery phase, but we hope to share the lessons we are learning now with other municipalities and institutions so that everyone can benefit from them in the future.”
The municipality of Deventer, together with the University of Twente, Aventus and Saxion, is also looking at how the 3D mesh can be quickly made useful and can pay for itself. In addition to being a source of information for making plans, 3D mesh can be used, for example, to develop scenarios. The municipality is also looking at whether 365-degree images can be replaced with 3D mesh. “But the first innovative steps have been taken,” the municipality said in a statement.
