3D Urban Reconstruction from Point Clouds and Optical Imagery: Modeling and Applications
A special issue of Remote Sensing (ISSN 2072-4292). This special issue belongs to the section "Urban Remote Sensing".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2026 | Viewed by 93
Special Issue Editors
Interests: multisensor odometry and mapping; 3D reconstruction; sensor calibration; SLAM
2. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
Interests: image/video processing; object recognition; image-based monitoring; multi-view and stereo-view camera-based 3D vision; disaster responses using various types of image/video data
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: lidar mapping; place recognition; SLAM; robotics; machine learning
Interests: forest remote sensing building extraction; 2D/3D change detection; data fusion; time-series image analysis; semantic 3D point cloud segmentation; computer vision; 3D reconstruction
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Three-dimensional (3D) urban reconstruction has become a cornerstone of modern remote sensing and geospatial intelligence. High-fidelity urban models are now essential for infrastructure planning, smart city management, disaster response, environmental monitoring, digital twin construction, and autonomous system simulation. In recent years, learning-based approaches, including transformer architectures, neural implicit representations (e.g., Neural Radiance Fields), Gaussian-based scene modeling, and foundation models, have revolutionized 3D scene representation, novel view synthesis, and large-scale reconstruction efficiency.
Today, urban reconstruction encompasses a wide range of core problems, including pose estimation, multi-view geometry, large-scale mapping, mesh and surface generation, semantic annotation, scene representation, place recognition, and photorealistic rendering. As urban environments grow increasingly complex and dynamic, scalable, robust, and semantically rich 3D modeling methods are critical for future digital cities and intelligent systems.
This Special Issue aims to summarize and showcase recent developments in urban 3D reconstruction, with particular emphasis on LiDAR and optical imagery within remote sensing contexts. The focus of the collection is on data acquisition, processing, modeling, and interpretation of Earth observation data for urban environments. Moreover, the integration of multi-modal sensing, large-scale mapping, digital twin construction, and simulation further strengthens its relevance to geospatial science and applied remote sensing.
We are seeking contributions that address theoretical modeling, algorithmic advances, system integration, and large-scale deployment challenges. The topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Reconstruction and modeling of urban environments and infrastructure;
- Geometry–semantic integration for object-level urban reconstruction and analysis;
- Neural and transformer-based methods for 3D urban modeling and representation;
- Time-series reconstruction and urban change detection;
- Applications of digital twins in planning, monitoring, simulation, and smart city systems.
Dr. Jianzhu Huai
Prof. Dr. Rongjun Qin
Dr. Milad Ramezani
Dr. Jiaojiao Tian
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Remote Sensing is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- 3D urban reconstruction
- large-scale mapping
- photogrammetry
- neural scene representation
- novel view synthesis
- digital twins
- urban modeling
- transformer-based reconstruction
Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue
- Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
- Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
- Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
- External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
- Reprint: MDPI Books provides the opportunity to republish successful Special Issues in book format, both online and in print.
Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.
