Converting to/from CityGML files

The open-source software citygml-tools allows us to automatically convert between CityGML and CityJSON, and vice-versa.

Download its latest release (v1.4.3 at the time of writing this), and unzip its content.

Open a console/terminal (also called “Command Prompt” in Windows)

The executable is at the root of the folder, type ./citygml-tools:

Conversion CityGML -> CityJSON

Download this CityGML file of The Hague (or any CityGML files; these can have textures too), and place it in a given folder (say /home/elvis/temp/data/) To convert it to CityJSON:

./citygml-tools to-cityjson /home/elvis/temp/data/DenHaag_01.xml

Voilà, this creates a new CityJSON v1.0 file: /home/elvis/hugo/temp/data/DenHaag_01.json

To upgrade the file to CityJSON v1.1: cjio DenHaag_01.json upgrade save DenHaag_01.city.json

If you drag that file into the viewer ninja, you can view it:

Conversion CityJSON -> CityGML

From the CityJSON file, a new GML file can be created with that command from-cityjson