Laser marking has been used since the invention of lasers but it is only in the last decade that it started evolving into 3D surface marking. The problem of defining the toolpath for a 3 axis laser marking machine can seem to be the same as the definition of the toolpath for the CNC milling machines but this is not completely true. In the case of laser marking is not only the last pass that will affect surface finish but every pass made. This implies that to obtain the desired final effect on the material it is crucial to define different pocketing and filling patterns together with the laser parameters. Defining new patterns that meet the requirements for the laser marking on 3D curved surface is a non-trivial problem; the toolpaths, depending on the application, may need to have different properties such as constant distance or density between path lines, non-crossing of path lines or defined angle of intersection. When trying to mark non flat surfaces with 2D images or paths, in certain cases, distortion of the 2D space cannot be avoided. This paper will analyze different proposed techniques for mapping and marking 3D solids with a 3 axes, mirror based, laser marking CNC machine analyzing advantages and disadvantages of each one from the software development point of view.

Forests represent an important economic resource for mountainous areas being for a few region and mountain communities the main form of income. However, wood chain management in these contexts differs from the traditional schemes due to the limits imposed by terrain morphology, both for the operation planning aspects and the hardware requirements. In fact, forest organizational and technical problems require a wider strategic and detailed level of planning to reach the level of productivity of forest operation techniques applied on flatlands.In particular, a perfect knowledge of forest inventories improves long-term management sustainability and efficiency allowing a better understanding of forest ecosystems. However, this knowledge is usually based on historical parcel information with only few cases of remote sensing information from satellite imageries. This is not enough to fully exploit the benefit of the mountain areas forest stocks where the economic and ecological value of each single parcel depends on singletree characteristics.The work presented in this paper, based on the results of the SLOPE (Integrated proceSsing and controL systems fOr sustainable forest Production in mountain arEas) project, investigates the capability to generate, manage and visualize detailed virtual forest models using geospatial information, combining data acquired from traditional on-the-field laser scanning surveys technologies with new aerial survey through UAV systems. These models are then combined with interactive 3D virtual globes for continuous assessment of resource characteristics, harvesting planning and real-time monitoring of the whole production.

This paper illustrates a 3D web-based visual simulation system that supports spatial-information based realistic modelling and real-time rendering of forest scenes. 3D visualization of forest landscapes will be used to understand stand ecological succession, landscape transformation helping regional planning and improving decision-making processes and forest management through what-if analysis tools. The goal of the presented project is to deploy a web system able to easily provide access to forestry information, typically managed in GIS or dedicated system, ensuring the fruition of this information to non-geospatial experts like forest owners and field operators.Technologies such as HTML5, WebGL, CSS 3D and Canvas element have been chosen as the most suitable for the interactive visualization of the forest model placed in the context of a virtual globe representation of the Earth using a highly customized version of the CesiumJS virtual globe, called GeoBrowser3D. Powered by WebGL and state of the art software technologies it offers a three-dimensional Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) compliant solution, integrated with computational and visual techniques for decision making environments. This solution allows large scale GIS data visualization such as maps and forest models, as well as high detail small scale information such as point clouds or stems structures that are automatically generated according to inventory database and pre-designed template models. Additionally, forest activity planners can have access to larger scale datasets like roads and cadastral maps as well as single timber information. The system has been tested and evaluated in applications of walkthrough simulation and forest visualization. The test site is situated in Northern Italy, close to Sover in the Trentino region.

Nowadays, rapid technological development into acquiring geo-spatial information; joined to the capabilities to process these data in a relative short period of time, allows the generation of detailed 3D textured city models that will become an essential part of the modern city information infrastructure (Spatial Data Infrastructure) and, can be used to integrate various data from different sources for public accessible visualisation and many other applications. One of the main bottlenecks, which at the moment limit the use of these datasets to few experts, is a lack on efficient visualization systems through the web and interoperable frameworks that allow standardising the access to the city models. The work presented in this paper tries to satisfy these two requirements developing a 3D web-based visualization system based on OGC standards and effective visualization concepts. The architectural framework, based on Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) concepts, provides the 3D city data to a web client designed to support the view process in a very effective way. The first part of the work is to design a framework compliant to the 3D Portrayal Service drafted by the of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) 3D standardization working group. The latter is related to the development of an effective web client able to render in an efficient way the 3D city models.

One of the main topics of cities is mobility. Nowadays, Mobile phones can provide navigation instructions in real-time, accessing wireless the Internet so routing and navigation applications on the Internet, in cars or on personal smartphones are everyday tools for many people. The purpose of iSCOPE project was to deploy, based on new generation urban city model, a set of services to support the improvement of life quality on urban areas. One of these services was a personalized routing service for disabled people. Pedestrians need a specific set of features to represent the environment and other information including barriers, sidewalks accessibility along the way, points of interest, and even services for disabled people. Unfortunately commercial geodata providers do not offer this detailed information; therefore there is a lack on this data from digital city maps, yellow pages and travel information data sets. This paper will explore the potential for the VGI community to improve data access and services in the field of disable pedestrian mobility computing. This allows collecting information about a network to be used in routeplanning, real-time navigation or for both, by providing detailed information about the “best” individual route based on the user’s limitations.

The rapid technological evolution, which is characterizing all the disciplines involved within the wide concept of smart cities, is becoming a key factor to trigger true user-driven innovation. However to fully develop the Smart City concept to a wide geographical target, it is required an infrastructure that allows the integration of heterogeneous geographical information and sensor networks into a common technological ground. In this context 3D city models will play an increasingly important role in our daily lives and become an essential part of the modern city information infrastructure (Spatial Data Infrastructure). The work presented in this paper describes an innovative Services Oriented Architecture software platform aimed at providing smartcities services on top of 3D urban models. 3D city models are the basis of many applications and can became the platform for integrating city information within the Smart-Cites context. In particular the paper will investigate how the efficient visualisation of 3D city models using different levels of detail (LODs) is one of the pivotal technological challenge to support Smart-Cities applications. The goal is to provide to the final user realistic and abstract 3D representations of the urban environment and the possibility to interact with a massive amounts of semantic information contained into the geospatial 3D city model. The proposed solution, using OCG standards and a custom service to provide 3D city models, lets the users to consume the services and interact with the 3D model via Web in a more effective way.

Increase in traffic volumes in urbanized areas of the world has caused a rise in congestion with negative consequences on safety, environment and quality of life of citizens. Only in Europe the cost of traffic congestion is 1% of the GDP, and this does not take into account the cost in terms of deaths caused by road network saturation. On top of this 30% of energy consumed by our population goes into public or private transport system. More than 55000Km of roads and railroads are monitored by webcams or vehicle counters. Some technologies to assess road network state and improve safety and quality of life of travelers already exists but many are limited to small networks or a particular public transport operator. Smart use and harmonization of available data on top of other real-time data acquisition methods can provide a better service to European citizens. Smart use of public transport possibilities can have a huge positive impact on traveling speed, quality and safety. In the last years availability of public transport real time data and the spread of smart mobile devices, allowed us to develop pervasive travel assistant applications for mobile phones. The project presented in this paper, i-Tour, shows how an IT solution for mobile phones can have sensible impact on personal mobility quality by promoting the use of mixed public-private transport. The application takes into account user preferences as well as real-time information on road conditions, weather and public transport network status. I-Tour also promotes a new approach to data collection based on a recommender system where the information provided by the whole user community enriches the trusted-knowledge common database with local up-to-date knowledge consisting of point of interest and real-time road network information. The client can adapt to user preferences to better meet user needs, young users may prefer using bikes or just walking while adults may prefer taking the car or public transports. At the same time some users need to always use the fastest mean of transport while other may prefer a more eco-friendly choice. Innovative user-friendly interfaces have been developed to create new interface metaphors; when a user search for a travel solution a set of possible routes will be given to the user on a graph showing not only each path but also the different meaning of transport, the quality of service, traffic conditions and waiting times of each route. The software also is potentially profitable since many areas of the client are adaptable to integrate ads or provide visibility to sponsored locations or commercial point of interests. The client provides 3 types of map visualization system, top-down 2D Map, full 3D map, and Augmented Reality visualization. To seamlessly switch between different visualization methods an innovative system based on device orientation has been ideated. When the user keeps the device horizontal the client set the visualization to 2D map, when the device is kept vertical the device switch to augmented reality view; in between the map shows full 3D terrain visualization. Questionnaires responses shown that many solutions adopted were well appreciated by the users.

Three dimensional city model is a topic of great interest in the context of the smart cities. The CityGML standard allows to collect in a unique format a big amount of information regarding the urban scenario, both from the geometric and from the f semantic and descriptive point of view. The chain of processes developed such as the creation, storage in tile and integration with data coming from different sources is quickly described. Greater attention is paid in describing the technique adopted for the streaming of the data from the server to the client, and this is compared with the standard services W3DS, WFS and WVS. Finally, a technique to convert three-dimensional vector model in elevation map is illustrated.

ABSTRACTThe technological progress has made available to masses electronic devices with compact size and high performances and quality at affordable prices.