Internal GIS for Feasibility
& Schematic Design Development
2025 - WIPUsing Calgary’s 3D buildings open data API, users could only extract buildings as “fill-extrusions” that lacks high-fidelity details such as roof and facade geometry.
By hosting the high-fidelity LiDAR 3D file, and serving it in geographic chunks, the FAAS design staff could extract high-fidelity 3D contexts such as buildings, DEM, power poles, trees, etc. applicable during feasibility and schematic design studies as well as architectural visualizations.
Note:
[08/25/2026]
This was a personal project outside of my required tasks, so this was not completed during the contract. Simple fill-extruded buildings to OBJ extraction works, but buildings with full roof geometries is not currently working..
[09/03/2026]
Working on it again, I managed to get the full geometry OBJ export working!
Data
-
Detailed 3D Buildings Data (https://data.calgary.ca/Base-Maps/3D-Buildings-Citywide/cchr-krqg/about_data)
-
Trees API (https://data.calgary.ca/Environment/Public-Trees/tfs4-3wwa/about_data)
Technologies
QGIS;
Qgis2threejs (QGIS Plugin);
Threebox (ThreeJS for Mapbox);
Mapbox GLJS
Google Earth
Blender
Sketchup
Users can load 3D buildings from Calgary’s Open Data API (in chunks, based on the extent of the viewport), then export them as either GeoJSON, OBJ (Blender 3D file format), or Excel as metadata.
Extracting 3D geospatial contexts, systematically, for feasibility & schematic design processes.
This works, but it requires someone who uses QGIS to perform. The goal is to have a simple web-application interface that FAAS Staff could access.