Cave Chamber Data Modeling and 3D Web Visualization

Abstract

Underground caves and its specific structures are important for geomorphological studies. In this paper we present tools to identify and map speleothems by surveying cave chambers interiors. The cave chamber was surveyed using Terrestrial Laser Scanning to acquire point clouds with high level of detail for 3D model generation. This data with 45 million points is useful for either reconstruction, geomorphological studies or virtual visits of caves. With this point cloud we generated a 3D-mesh to represent the surface model of the cave chamber, which is important to study its geomorphological features. A topological structure of the 3D-mesh was also implemented to get an efficient algorithm to help identifying stalactites. The possibility to publish 3D data on the Web is of particular interest for the geospatial field. For this reason, it was decided to make the cave model available in the Web by developing a 3D graphical interface where users can navigate and interact with the three-dimensional models of the cave. For this Web3D framework it was used X3D, WebGL and X3DOM. Such solution does not require any additional plug-ins or components.