A Study on the Application of a Drone-Based 3D Model for Wind Environment Prediction

Recently, with the urban redevelopment and the spread of the planned cities, there is increasing interest in the wind environment, which is related not only to design of buildings and landscaping but also to the comfortability of pedestrians. Numerical analysis for wind environment prediction is underway in many fields, such as dense areas of high-rise building or composition of the apartment complexes, a precisive 3D building model is essentially required in this process. Many studies conducted for wind environment analysis have typically used the method of creating a 3D model by utilizing the building layer included in the GIS (Geographic Information System) data. These data can easily and quickly observe the flow of atmosphere in a wide urban environment, but cannot be suitable for observing precisive flow of atmosphere, and in particular, the effect of a complicated structure of a single building on the flow of atmosphere cannot be calculated. Recently, drone photogrammetry has shown the advantage of being able to automatically perform building modeling based on a large number of images. In this study, we applied photogrammetry technology using a drone to evaluate the flow of atmosphere around two buildings located close to each other. Two 3D models were made into an automatic modeling technique and manual modeling technique. Auto-modeling technique is using an automatically generates a point cloud through photogrammetry and generating models through interpolation, and manual-modeling technique is a manually operated technique that individually generates 3D models based on point clouds. And then the flow of atmosphere for the two models was compared and analyzed. As a result, the wind environment of the two models showed a clear difference, and the model created by auto-modeling showed faster flow of atmosphere than the model created by manual modeling. Also in the case of the 3D mesh generated by auto-modeling showed the limitation of not proceeding an accurate analysis because the precise 3D shape was not reproduced in the closed area such as the porch of the building or the bridge between buildings.