For many years Sigma Metrix has been cooperating with virtualcitySYSTEMS, the developer of software solutions for 3D data collection, processing, management, and delivery. It was reported on December 2 that virtualcitySYSTEMS won 1st place in the OGC CityGML Challenge competition. Congratulations to our colleagues on the win!

Sponsored by OGC Strategic Member, Ordnance Survey, the CityGML Challenge encouraged the configuration of software tools to visualise CityGML data. It was supported by the Manchester City Council and Triangulum Project funded by the European Commission (EC). Triangulum focuses on replicable smart city solutions and frameworks relating to sustainable energy, mobility, and ICT.

The purpose of the OGC CityGML Challenge is to develop software solutions for the new version of CityGML 3.0. CityGML models are successfully evolving around the world, and most major cities in Germany use this OGC standard for processing, managing, and exchanging 3D geodata. North Rhine-Westphalia, Thuringia, Berlin, Hamburg provide CityGML models as open data.

The software developments that demonstrate a higher value of CityGML models and open standards in comparison with conventional visualization in the form of urban and regional models were submitted to the competition. The availability of semantic information and the possibility to integrate thematic data and planned parameters make CityGML models essential in the development of smart cities.

The finalists of the OGC CityGML Challenge were virtualcitySYSTEMS, HFT Stuttgart and CSI Piemonte. The winner was selected and awarded at the Open Geospatial Consortium conference on November 18-22 in Toulouse. Klaus Nagel, CTO of virtualcitySYSTEMS, has presented an open 3D web visualization service developed for Manchester. This tool can be used to create and visualize city development scenarios, edit attributes in real time, and export CityGML 3.0 to other popular 3D formats. The virtualcitySYSTEMS development was awarded as the best.