Three-dimensional strata objects registration for land administration domain model

Abstract

Due to the rapid increase of urban population, intensive land development has resulted in complex building construction taking place above and below land surface. The conventional 2D cadastre system cannot accommodate complex or multiple ownership in the vertical dimension. Many cadastral models were developed to address this problem. However, these models must be evaluated to ensure their suitability to Malaysia’s land administration system. The models were assessed to examine how data are handled and to what extent they fulfil the criteria of the 3D cadastre, as well as the data modelling approaches, they employed to support the 3D data. Although 2D cadastre has long been around, creating and maintaining 3D cadastre remains a challenge. The LADM-ISO 19152 provides a conceptual description of the land administration system, including a 3D cadastral registration. Standardisation provides the data model flexibility, making it much easier for spatial data handling. There have been several research and development activities in the past on the LADM. The focus of those studies was on the conceptual model, which has yet to be realised. Therefore, this study aimed to design a conceptual model and 3D strata objects registration database and develop LADM-based 3D strata object registration as a prototype. An accurate 3D cadastre and property, including strata, is crucial for the land administration system. In this study, the 3D information of strata objects based on LADM was validated. It was also possible to question or to view the 3D objects registration interactively compared to other previous works in this domain. Strata object registration has the following aspect such as parcel unit, accessory unit, common property unit, limited common property unit, and land parcel. Within the Malaysian authority, all these objects’ representations are in 2D. This research focused on extending the representation of those strata objects to 3D. The prototype development began with data modelling (i.e., selecting relevant object classes and expanding the classes with attributes). It focused on data conversion from an existing database (i.e., strata.xml format) to an open-source database (i.e., PostgreSQL). The conversion process included two iterations (i.e., the context mapping and the output module for the database). The strata XML information was replaced with LADM related elements and attributes after the conversion. The visualisation and application modules were subsequently developed using an open-source platform (i.e., QGIS). The prototype is able to answer all questions related to strata aspects (i.e., ownership, share unit, Management Corporation (MC), spatial source document and strata objects). This work is anticipated to spearhead the national authorities in implementing strata objects registration to improve 3D cadastral objects management.