Cenergy3: An API for City Energy 3D Modeling

TL;DR

The paper tackles the need for actionable, privacy-preserving visualization of urban energy infrastructure by introducing Cenergy3, a free API that automatically generates geospatially aware 3D city models from OpenTopography, OpenStreetMap, and Overture Maps. It presents a four-stage pipeline—geocoding, terrain processing, vector data draping, and building extrusion— to synthesize terrain, roads, power lines, and buildings into an interactive 3D scene aligned to Web Mercator (EPSG:3857). The API outputs a JSON-serialized Plotly Figure, enabling easy integration with web, data science, and cloud platforms, and emphasizes interoperability through standardized coordinates and open data formats. This approach supports urban energy planning, infrastructure alignment analysis, and resilience studies by linking demand nodes with supply networks in a spatially contextualized 3D environment.

Abstract

The efficient management and planning of urban energy systems require integrated three-dimensional (3D) models that accurately represent both consumption nodes and distribution networks. This paper introduces our developed geospatial Application Programming Interface (API) that automates the generation of 3D urban digital model from open data. The API synthesizes data from OpenTopography, OpenStreetMap, and Overture Maps in generating 3D models. The rendered model visualizes and contextualizes power grid infrastructure alongside the built environment and transportation networks. The API provides interactive figures for the 3D models, which are essential for analyzing infrastructure alignment and spatially linking energy demand nodes (buildings) with energy supply (utility grids). Our API leverages standard Web Mercator coordinates (EPSG:3857) and JSON serialization to ensure interoperability within smart city and energy simulation platforms.

Figures (7)

• Figure 1: An example of the resulted 3D model for Alna, Oslo, Norway. The white lines are road networks, the red lines are utilty grids, and the light blue blocks represent buildings.
• Figure 2: An example of the visualized terrain (for the area of Alna, Oslo, Norway).
• Figure 3: An example of retrieved information (for the area of Alna, Oslo, Norway).
• Figure 4: Retrieved building footprints from OSM (for the area of Alna, Oslo, Norway).
• Figure 5: An example of extruded buildings (for the area of Alna, Oslo, Norway).