Urban Analytics Lab

Geospatial and 3D urban modelling research group at the National University of Singapore

We are a new multidisciplinary research group focusing on urban data analysis, geographic data science, and 3D city modelling at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Our mission is to leverage spatially enabled data for urban applications, catalyse the development of spatial data infrastructures in the context of smart cities, and make sense of big geospatial data and digital twins in the built environment.

The research group is led by Dr Filip Biljecki, presidential young professor at the NUS School of Design and Environment.

We are involved in several international collaborations such as the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC).

You are welcome to follow our work through Twitter, our blog, and our papers.

The full list of our interests and key words: Geographical Information Science (GIS), geospatial machine learning, geographic data science, spatial data infrastructure (SDI), 3D city modelling / 3D GIS (some people also call them digital twins), 3D urban analytics, spatial data quality and standardisation (CityJSON, CityGML), Volunteered geoinformation (VGI) and OpenStreetMap (OSM), Building Information modelling (BIM), Geospatial data visualisation, 3D underground data modelling, and 3D cadastre.

Lately

Updates from our Lab

Feel free to follow us on Twitter or through our RSS feed.

Publication of the collection Emerging topics in 3D GIS

A special issue we organised in Transactions in GIS
2021-02-17 3 min read

New paper: 3dfier: automatic reconstruction of 3D city models

A software paper published in the Journal of Open Source Software.
2021-01-28 3 min read

New paper: 3D city models for urban farming site identification in buildings

A novel application of 3D geoinformation, published in Computers, Environment and Urban Systems
2021-01-11 3 min read

OGC seeks public comment on new CityJSON Community Standard

CityJSON offers an easy-to-use alternative to the GML encoding of CityGML 2.0 for the storage and exchange of 3D city models
2021-01-09 3 min read

Two new papers: Reference study of IFC/CityGML software support

The GeoBIM benchmark is concluded with two papers published back-to-back in Transactions in GIS
2021-01-04 4 min read

The new building of our school is the first one in SE Asia to achieve the stringent Zero Energy Certification

Recognition by the prestigious International Living Future Institute
2020-12-02 1 min read

New paper: Extending CityGML for IFC-sourced 3D city models

Development of an application domain extension published in Automation in Construction
2020-11-16 2 min read

Meet our junior members

The Lab warmly welcomes new student researchers
2020-11-03 3 min read

Recent activities of the Lab

After we’ve enjoyed taking part in the State of the Map, IACAD, and 3D GeoInfo, the ongoing work of the Lab was presented at other venues.
2020-10-28 1 min read

New report: Smart at Scale: Cities to Watch (25 Case Studies)

We contributed to the latest report of the World Economic Forum focusing on successful pilot projects that scaled
2020-10-27 1 min read

Guest lecture by Jinal Foflia

We are very pleased that Ms Jinal Foflia, Senior Program Manager – Geo at Grab has visited us to give a guest lecture as part of our module Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Cartography.
2020-10-17 1 min read

The PI of the Lab elected co-chair of the Open Geospatial Consortium 3DIM DWG

3D Information Modelling Domain Working Group
2020-09-23 1 min read

New paper: How might an LoD Logic Framework Help to Bridge the 3D Cadastre Research-to-Practice Gap?

FIG Working Week 2020. A Proposal for a Level of Implementation Framework
2020-09-15 2 min read

New paper: Tools for BIM-GIS Integration (IFC Georeferencing and Conversions): Results from the GeoBIM Benchmark 2019

A new collaborative paper in which we have been involved has been published
2020-09-14 3 min read

Participation at the 3D GeoInfo 2020 conference

3D GeoInfo is a key conference in the 3D GIS community
2020-09-13 1 min read
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What we do

And how we do it

Reusable, Sharable, and Transferable Smart Data Platform for Collaborative Development of Data-driven Smart Cities

Novel technologies to connect smart cities

Large-scale 3D geospatial data for urban analytics

Creating country-wide 3D city models using artificial intelligence

3D cadastre

Collaboration with Prof Jantien Stoter (TU Delft) and Dr Serene Ho (RMIT University).

BIM-GIS interoperability

Integration of Building Information Modelling (BIM) and GIS

Urban Modelling and Smart Cities

Harnessing geographic information in the urban context.

Big Data in Real Estate

Leveraging urban analytics in real estate

GeoBIM Benchmark

Reference study on software support for open standards of city and building models

Opportunities

Openings, scholarships, and fellowships

Please check the opportunities page for more information how to join us.

Teaching

Our education activities

We are involved in teaching master courses and supervising dissertations. Are you looking for a thesis topic? Please check the teaching page for more information.

Recent publications

Our 15 latest papers. Enjoy

All our papers are available here.
Emerging topics in 3D GIS
Filip Biljecki, Rudi Stouffs, Mohsen Kalantari
PDF DOI
3dfier: automatic reconstruction of 3D city models
Hugo Ledoux, Filip Biljecki, Balázs Dukai, Kavisha Kumar, Ravi Peters, Jantien Stoter, Tom Commandeur
PDF DOI
3D city models for urban farming site identification in buildings
Ankit Palliwal, Shuang Song, Hugh Tiang Wah Tan, Filip Biljecki
PDF Project DOI
Reference study of IFC software support: The GeoBIM benchmark 2019---Part I
Francesca Noardo, Thomas Krijnen, Ken Arroyo Ohori, Filip Biljecki, Claire Ellul, Lars Harrie, Helen Eriksson, Lorenzo Polia, Nebras Salheb, Helga Tauscher, Jordi van Liempt, Hendrik Goerne, Dean Hintz, Tim Kaiser, Cristina Leoni, Artur Warchol, Jantien Stoter
PDF Project DOI
Reference study of CityGML software support: The GeoBIM benchmark 2019---Part II
Francesca Noardo, Ken Arroyo Ohori, Filip Biljecki, Claire Ellul, Lars Harrie, Thomas Krijnen, Helen Eriksson, Jordi van Liempt, Maria Pla, Antonio Ruiz, Dean Hintz, Nina Krueger, Cristina Leoni, Leire Leoz, Diana Moraru, Stelios Vitalis, Philipp Willkomm, Jantien Stoter
PDF Project DOI
Extending CityGML for IFC-sourced 3D city models
Filip Biljecki, Joie Lim, James Crawford, Diana Moraru, Helga Tauscher, Amol Konde, Kamel Adouane, Simon Lawrence, Patrick Janssen, Rudi Stouffs
PDF Project DOI
Smart at Scale: Cities to Watch - 25 Case Studies
World Economic Forum - Global Future Council on Cities
PDF
Exploration of open data in Southeast Asia to generate 3D building models
Filip Biljecki
PDF Project DOI
GeoBIM benchmark -- ISPRS Scientific initiative 2019 -- Final report
F Noardo, K Arroyo Ohori, Filip Biljecki, C Ellul, L Harrie, T Krijnen, M Kokla, G Agugiaro, J Stoter
PDF Project
Visualising detailed CityGML and ADE at the building scale
Joie Lim, Patrick Janssen, Filip Biljecki
PDF Project DOI
The ISPRS-EuroSDR GeoBIM benchmark 2019
Francesca Noardo, Ken Arroyo Ohori, Filip Biljecki, Claire Ellul, Lars Harrie, Thomas Krijnen, Margarita Kokla, Jantien Stoter
PDF Project Project DOI
Assessing the quality of OpenStreetMap building data in Singapore
Ethan Chen Wai Hoong
PDF Project
Tools for BIM-GIS Integration (IFC Georeferencing and Conversions): Results from the GeoBIM Benchmark 2019
Francesca Noardo, Lars Harrie, Ken Arroyo Ohori, Filip Biljecki, Claire Ellul, Thomas Krijnen, Helen Eriksson, Dogus Guler, Dean Hintz, Mojgan A Jadidi, Maria Pla, Santi Sanchez, Ville-Pekka Soini, Rudi Stouffs, Jernej Tekavec, Jantien Stoter
PDF Project Project DOI
Assessing global OpenStreetMap building completeness to generate large-scale 3D city models
Filip Biljecki, Ang Li Min
PDF Project DOI
ICDAR'20: Intelligent Cross-Data Analysis and Retrieval
Minh-Son Dao, Morten Fjeld, Filip Biljecki, Uraz Yavanoglu, Mianxiong Dong
PDF DOI
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