3D cadastral visualisation: understanding users’ requirements

Abstract

Population growth and reduced availability of land are common challenges in urban areas and lead to intensive property development. These developments extend both above and below ground such as high-rise buildings and infrastructure. For these developments, ownership rights are defined using many types of rights, restrictions, and responsibilities (RRRs). The increasing complexity of multi-level developments and infrastructure exacerbates the challenge inefficiently registering RRRs within land registries, which existing two dimensional (2D) cadastres are only partly able to do. In current cadastral systems, these RRRs are represented using 2D building plans, cross-sections, isometric diagrams and textual descriptions in a paper (or PDF) format. This paper-based method of representation is inefficient in various ways. For example, this method makes it difficult for non-specialists to understand ownership boundaries. Furthermore, representing ownership rights in high-rises and complex developments needs numerous floor plans and cross-sections which are not easy to interpret. In addition, as these plans are recorded in paper or PDF files, queries and analysis are not possible. Therefore, there is a need for more effective and efficient representation of RRRs to support registration and understanding of RRRs in complex developments. 3D visualisation can help people better understand 3D ownership information particularly in complex high-rises. To design and develop efficient 3D visualisation applications, there is a need for identifying 3D cadastral visualisation requirements. The research problem underpinning this study is therefore: visualisation requirements to support the development of 3D cadastral applications to represent rights, restrictions and responsibilities have not been clearly identified. An agreed set of requirements will support the development of visualisation applications designed to meet users’ needs. To address the research problem, this research identified detailed 3D visualisation requirements using a requirements engineering approach to support efficient representation of ownership RRRs. These requirements were classified into data requirements, user interface and system requirements, non-functional requirements, visualisation requirements, and analytical requirements. The validation of requirements included development of two prototypes based on user requirements and gathering experts’ feedback using two questionnaires. Implementation of prototypes for representing RRRs, and the feedback on these, established the validity and priority of the requirements.