3D Modelling of Geospatial Data Using PyVista: A Free and Open Source Framework

In geotechnical engineering, the ground investigation is not only to gather physico-mechanical properties of soil samples in the study area but also to visualize those soil samples in a three-dimensional (3D) space. By doing so, geotechnical engineers could see an overall picture of the geotechnical conditions in their correct spatial relationship to identify the potential problems during the geotechnical design and construction and hence figure out the appropriate solutions. To contribute to the existing free 3D modelling software packages, this paper introduces a pilot study in 3D geological modelling using PyVista package—a free and open-source framework running on Python platform. With the support of PyVista package, users could handle diverse geospatial data formats, visualize them in a 3D space, and derive useful information for their research. The pilot study suggests a simplified workflow running from the sparse data to the 3D solid block model. With the available 3D model, users could generate several slices, cut-away portions of the 3D model, or extract a boring log at any coordinate within the study area.