The Significance of Porches in Urban Applications: A Method for Automated Modeling and Integration

Porches, as defined by the Art & Architecture Thesaurus, serve as vital transitional spaces linking indoor and outdoor environments. Despite their historical and contemporary significance, porches lack explicit representation in prevalent standards like CityGML and IndoorGML, posing challenges for comprehensive spatial modeling and its application. This paper proposes a method for modeling porches that aligns with the existing OGC standard CityGML 3.0, ensuring accuracy and compatibility. Drawing upon geomatics techniques, the method aims to bridge the gap in representing these spaces, critical for applications such as navigation systems, urban planning, and energy simulations. By integrating geometric, machine learning, and informative modeling approaches, this method seeks to provide a robust foundation for various practical applications. The paper outlines a comprehensive state-of-the-art review, describes the proposed method from digitalization to random forest (RF)-based point cloud classification and vectorization, presents case studies and results, and offers critical discussions and conclusions. Through this endeavor, the paper contributes to enhancing the representation and understanding of porches within the digital spatial landscape.