Building a 3D digital municipality: A joint step towards an open geo-data foundation

The societal challenges facing Dutch municipalities, from the energy transition to climate adaptation and spatial planning, require up-to-date, reliable, and 3D spatial insight. In this context, a solid 3D geo-data foundation is no longer a 'nice-to-have', but an essential prerequisite. Within the VNG grant project "Building a 3D digital municipality as part of a geo-data foundation," a number of forward-thinking municipalities are joining forces to take this step collectively, an initiative to which we at Future Insight are proud to contribute as a knowledge and technology partner.

Symbolische weergave van het project 'Bouwen aan een 3D digitale gemeente' (De visuele uitwerking is illustratief en geen onderdeel van het projectresultaat.)

A collective 3D data chain for all municipalities

The main objective of the project is to design and implement proven workflows and an automated 3D data chain for a modern municipal geo-infrastructure. In collaboration with the participating municipalities, a national 3D facility is created in this way.

Various municipalities are carrying out valuable sub-projects within this framework:

• The Municipality of Rotterdam is working on the automated maintenance of source registers and the implementation of the latest CityGML 3.0 standard.

• The Municipality of Amsterdam is developing tooling to convert 2D data of cables and pipelines into 3D.

• The Municipality of Utrecht is developing tooling to create 3D buildings and underground volumes from point clouds.

• The Municipality of Nijmegen is developing tooling for 3D building models based on project-specific point clouds.

• The Municipality of Groningen converts 2D tree files into current 3D data.

• Municipality of Eindhoven: Continues developing tooling for deriving 2D and 3D building data from 3D models of construction plans (IFC).

Our role: The VNG research environment & knowledge sharing

To integrate all these innovations, we are setting up a central VNG research environment on behalf of the Municipality of Rotterdam. We are doing this using our 3D-City platform (based on the Virtual City Suite) and a hosted FME Flow environment via Vinc Data .

This functions as a 'sandbox' and test setup. Here, municipalities can go through the entire 3D chain, store data in a CityGML 2.0/3.0 database, visualize data via 3D viewers, and publish as open 3D web services (such as 3D Tiles). The goal is to create a 'menu' that other Dutch municipalities can use directly and modularly according to their own needs.

In line with what Future Insight stands for

For Future Insight, this collaboration aligns seamlessly with our mission. We strongly believe that geotechnology only truly makes an impact when it is built on open standards, is interoperable, and is made accessible to the entire community.

Our focus in this project is therefore not only on the technology, but also explicitly on knowledge transfer. Through targeted workshops, advice, and support, we help the municipalities' technical teams to independently start working with and managing the 3D environment.

Moving forward together

The project runs until mid-2027. We are very much looking forward to further testing the functioning of the chain together with the VNG, the Municipality of Rotterdam, and all partner municipalities in the coming period, and to demonstrating the added value of 3D for Dutch municipalities.

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Do you also want to take steps within your municipality with a 3D geo-data foundation?

Whether you want to get started with open standards such as CityGML 3.0, automate data chains, or set up a digital twin: we are happy to think along with you. Contact Rick Klooster: | ✉️ [email protected] | 📞 +31 (0)6 - 46 90 97 79 to brainstorm without obligation about the possibilities for your organization.