3D building model simplification method considering both model mesh and building structure

Abstract The simplification of three‐dimensional (3D) building models to improve rendering efficiency has gained widespread attention. To maintain the model's overall appearance features while increasing the simplification rate, we propose a novel 3D building simplification method that considers both the model mesh and building structure. The method divides a 3D building into a primary structure and subsidiary structures. It then organizes these structures using StructureTree, a multi‐way tree. The structures are organized according to the dependency relationships between building structures. When simplifying a building, the decision whether to simplify the mesh or remove the subsidiary structure in the leaf node of the StructureTree depends on the volume change caused by the edge collapse and the visual saliency of the removed structure. The experimental results show that our method exhibits a better simplification effect than the traditional simplification method, and the proposed method can achieve a high simplification rate while maintaining the simplification quality. Furthermore, the results of some spatial analyses based on the highly simplified building model are consistent with those of the original model.