Article
Ming and Qing Dynasty Official-Style Architecture Roof Types
Classification Based on the 3D Point Cloud
Youqiang Dong 1, Miaole Hou 1, Biao Xu 2,*, Yihao Li 1 and Yuhang Ji 1
Citation: Dong, Y.; Hou, M.; Xu, B.;
Li, Y.; Ji, Y. Ming and Qing Dynasty
Official-Style Architecture Roof
Types Classification Based on the 3D
Point Cloud. ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf.
2021, 10, 650. https://doi.org/10.3390/
ijgi10100650
Academic Editors: Andreas
Georgopoulos and Wolfgang Kainz
Received: 7 June 2021
Accepted: 13 September 2021
Published: 27 September 2021
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neu-
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Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Li-
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This article is an open access article
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tribution (CC BY) license (http://crea-
tivecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2021, 10, 650. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi10100650
1 School of Geomatics and Urban Spatial Informatics, Beijing University of Civil Engineering and
Architecture, Beijing 100044, China; dongyouqiang@bucea.edu.cn (Y.D.); houmiaole@bucea.edu.cn (M.H.);
liyihao970721@163.com (Y.L.); ji_yuhang@163.com (Y.J.)
2 Chinese Academy of Surveying and Mapping, Beijing 100036, China
* Correspondence: biaoxv@casm.ac.cn; Tel.: +86-10-6388-0531
Abstract: The Ming and Qing Dynasty type of official-style architecture roof can provide plenty of
prior knowledge relating to the structure and size of these works of architecture, and plays an im-
portant role in the fields of 3D modeling, semantic recognition and culture inheriting. In this paper,
we take the 3D point cloud as the data source, and an automatic classification method for the roof
type of Ming and Qing Dynasty official-style architecture based on the hierarchical semantic net-
work is illustrated. To classify the roofs into the correct categories, the characteristics of different
roof types are analyzed and features including SoRs, DfFtR, DoPP and NoREs are first selected;
subsequently, the corresponding feature extraction methods are proposed; thirdly, aiming at the
structure of the ridges, a matching graph relying on the attributed relational graph of the ridges is
given; based on the former work, a hierarchical semantic network is proposed and the thresholds
are determined with the help of the construction rules of the Ming and Qing Dynasty official-style
architecture. In order to fully verify the efficiency of our proposed method, various types of Ming
and Qing Dynasty official-style architecture roof are identified, and the experimental results show
that all structures are classified correctly.
Keywords: 3D point cloud; roof classification; construction rules; features selection; hierarchical
semantic network
1. Introduction
1.1. Backgrounds
The Ming and Qing Dynasty official-style architecture, which mainly includes the
royal palaces, official buildings and Buddhist/Taoist temples, is an important carrier for
traditional Chinese culture and is considered as the last peak of Chinese architectural his-
tory [1,2]. Timberwork is the main construction material for this ancient Chinese architec-
ture, and wooden posts, beams, lintels and joists make up the framework of a house. Suf-
fering from natural disasters and man-made destruction, a mass of the ancient architec-
ture is damaged or has disappeared due to the fact that these construction materials are
vulnerable to weathering and fires [3]. To preserve the information of this ancient archi-
tecture, digital documentation has become increasingly necessary. The 3D point cloud,
which can be captured from terrestrial or airborne LiDAR, and UAV-based SfM pro-
cessing have become one of the most reliable data sources, and play a more and more
important role in the field of digital documentation [4–6]. Recent studies on the 3D point
cloud have achieved great progress in 3D architectural documentation [7]. However, the
ancient buildings in the Ming and Qing Dynasty contain a large number of components
with irregular shapes, and this brings great difficulties in reconstructing the 3D paramet-
ric model, which has further application [8,9].
www.mdpi.com/journal/ijgi
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2021, 10, 650 2 of 24

Roof types have been widely used in 3D building and parametric modeling and have
led to many achievements. Kada and McKinley [10] firstly segmented the point cloud and
determined that the roof type relies on the number of segments; then, the roof plane pa-
rameters were estimated. Mass and Vosselman [11] selected the heights of the point cloud
as weight functions in moment equations to compute the information on the roof type and
shape parameters. On this basis, the gable roof was reconstructed in [11]. Much of the
literature indicates that roof types play an important role in 3D reconstruction [12–15].
Similarly, the roof types (form) of the Ming and Qing Dynasty official-style architec-
ture can also improve the efficiency of parametric modeling. Moreover, in the Ming and
Qing Dynasty, the hierarchy was strictly divided and the construction of the Ming and
the Qing Dynasty official-style architecture followed certain rules, which can be searched
for in YingzaoFashi (Building Standards) [16] of the Song Dynasty or Gongchengzuofa
zeli (Structural Regulations) [17] published by Qing. The roof types (form) of the Ming
and Qing Dynasty official-style architecture can provide more information, including the
structure, topological relation and the size of the components. Based on the information
from the roof types, Yuan Shen [18] calculated the parameters of the traditional Chinese
curvilinear roof based on the roof types (form). Other 3D reconstruction methods for an-
cient Chinese architecture using roof types can be seen in [19–21].
Hence, understanding how to distinguish the roof types of the Ming and Qing Dyn-
asty official-style architecture from the point cloud is an important task, and has a great
significance in the field of 3D modeling.

1.2. Related Works

1.2.1. Roof Type Classification
Focusing on the roof type, several classification methods have been proposed by re-
searchers. The previous classical methodologies for roof type classification mainly rely on
the texture, geometry, height and other features to form building roof hypotheses. These
features can come from images, the 3D point cloud or DSM. For example, Kushwaha et al.
[22] applied the inclination to categorize roof points into flat, inclined or dome-type roofs;
Mohajeri et al. [23] made use of the number of roof surfaces and the distribution of the
binned slope angles to complete the roof classification based on the DSM; Zang et al. [24]
designed a new feature to describe the roof and obtain better performance compared with
the histogram of oriented gradient (HOG), scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) and
local binary pattern (LBP) features. The methods in [25–27] provide other examples.
Despite the data sources being different, features are always the key to roof type
recognition in classical roof classification methods. Aiming at the different roof types, the
features must be designed carefully. This principle also applies to the roof classification
of the Ming and Qing Dynasty official-style architecture. However, the differences be-
tween different roof types may be very small. How to select and extract the proper fea-
tures from a 3D point cloud to distinguish the roof types is still a challenging task.
In recent years, with the advances in the field of artificial neural networks, some re-
searchers have turned their attention towards deep learning for roof types classification.
Axelsson et al. [28] applied a pre-trained deep convolutional neutral network (CNN) to
classify the most common slope and flat roof types based on the aerial images. Similarly,
based on a pre-trained CNN framework, Partovi et al. [29] accomplished building roof
types classification. In addition to using a pre-trained CNN framework directly, Partovi
et al. extracted the deep features from deep layers of different pre-trained CNN models
and made use of an SVM classifier to recognize the building roof type. Jeremy et al. [30]
proposed an automatically labelling building roof shape method from publicly available
GIS data. In this method, a diverse annotated roof image dataset is created, the multiple
CNN architectures are trained and tested, and the experimental results show that the fu-
sion of the satellite image and LiDAR data can provide greater classification accuracy than
using either data type alone. To improve the learning efficiency and prediction accuracy,
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2021, 10, 650 3 of 24

Bittner et al. [31] propose a Multi-Task conditional generative adversarial network (cGAN)
for simultaneous space borne DSM refinement and roof-type classification.
The methods based on deep learning for roof classification shows promising results;
however, there are some limitations. On one hand, although some roof type training da-
tasets have been published [32], these datasets mainly consist of images and there is rarely
a point cloud dataset focusing on the Ming and Qing Dynasty official-style architecture
roof. On the other hand, the direct method of applying deep learning on a point cloud is
to convert the data into volume representation. Comparing with the 2D image, the amount
of 3D volume data will become very large, very fast (although a graphics processing unit
(GPU) has been developed). To speed up processing, it is necessary to compromise and
adopt a lower resolution (some methods use 64 × 64 × 64). This strategy will cause the loss
of details and bring the cost of quantization errors. In fact, some experimental results show
that the classical methods may obtain better performance than the deep learning methods
in the field of architectural heritage point cloud classification [33].

1.2.2. Object Recognition Based on 3D Point Cloud

Identifying roof types of the Ming and Qing official-style architectures from a point
cloud is an object recognition/classification problem. Classical object recognition methods
based on the 3D point cloud mostly compare/learn the geometric, shape, structural attrib-
utes or multiple attributes to complete the object recognition and classification [34]. From
the perspective of the features, these methods can be divided into four categories: object
recognition methods based on local features, object recognition methods based on global
features, object recognition methods based on graph matching and object recognition
methods based on machine learning.
The process of the object recognition methods based on local features can be divided
into three stages: key point detection, feature description and matching. Many mature
methods which can complete specific functions in each stage have been proposed. In the
key point detection stage, the common key point detection algorithms mainly include in-
trinsic shape signatures (ISSs) [35], Harris 3D [36], local surface patches (LSPs) [37]; fast
point feature histograms (FPFHs) [38], SHOT [39] and rotational projection statistics
(ROPS) [40] which are used for feature description; the feature matching can be completed
by the threshold method, nearest neighbor (NN) and nearest neighbor distance ratio
(NNDR) [41]. Due to the fact that this type of method makes use of the local features of
the key points, edges and patches to complete the target object recognition directly, it in-
evitably needs to search for the feature points from the entire scene and model. This causes
the recognition process to be time consuming. The object recognition methods based on
global features firstly extract the target object from the entire scene and regard the 3D
target object as a whole; then, the global features from the whole 3D target are applied for
the object recognition. The common classical global features mainly contain GFPFH [42],
VFH [43], CVFH [44] and ESF [45]. Although this kind of method is faster compared with
the object recognition methods based on global features, it is sensitive to noise and occlu-
sion. This is mainly because the noise and occlusion damage the extraction results of the
target object from the complex scene. Moreover, due to the fact that the object recognition
methods based on global features regard the target object as a whole, it is difficult to de-
scribe the details of 3D models and recognize objects with similar shapes. For the Ming
and Qing official-style architecture, the differences are just some details between these
roofs. This will damage the recognition rate.
In addition to extracting features directly from the point cloud for object recognition,
some researchers decompose the point cloud data into basic shapes and convert these
basic shapes into a topological graph to represent and recognize the target objects. Schna-
bel et al. [46] applies the random sample consensus (RANSAC) algorithm to decompose
the point cloud data into basic shapes. Each basic shape is represented by an abstract
point, and the adjacent relationship between them is represented by a topological graph.
The object recognition is completed by graph matching. The similar methods in [47–49]
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2021, 10, 650 4 of 24

are a few examples. The main difference of these methods is what kind of features are
selected and extracted to construct the topological graph. For example, Cheng et al. [47]
select various curvature information to construct the topological graph; Hao et al. [48]
defines the connection types between different types of planes and analyzes the structure
of common objects; Berner et al. [49] combines the outlines and shape to construct the
topological graph. For the Chinese ancient architecture roof, the structure of the roof is the
important feature. However, only relying the structure of the different Ming and Qing
Dynasty official-style architectures is impossible. This is mainly because the different roof
types may have the same structure relationship. For example, the structure of the over-
hanging gable roof and the flush gable roof are the same.
The object recognition method based on machine learning extracts and learns the fea-
tures of samples, and uses the classifier to complete the classification and recognition of
objects. Generally speaking, machine learning classifiers can be divided into two catego-
ries: traditional machine learning and deep learning. In the traditional machine learning
method, the commonly used classifiers are: support vector machine [50], random forest
[51], adaboost [52], jointboost [53], naive Bayes classifier [54] and maximum expectation
algorithm [55]. Nowadays, the research of point cloud classification mainly focuses on the
recognition of the different ground objects from complex scenes. Much of the literature
shows that the most important impactors affecting recognition are the selected features.
Hence, the extraction of the features presented in the Ming and Qing official buildings
with different styles is very important in the process of the Ming and Qing official building
style classification based on the point cloud.
Thanks to the performance improvement of computer hardware, some architectural
heritage classification methods based on deep learning are proposed. One of the earliest
and most famous deep learning architectures working directly on the point cloud is point
net [56]. It is an end-to-end deep neural network, which can learn the features of classifi-
cation, part segmentation and semantic segmentation by itself. Because the point net does
not capture the local geometry, a development, namely PointNet++ [57] is proposed. Be-
sides the PointNet, some researchers [58,59] applied convolution to gain understanding
of point-based learning. In 2019, Wang et al. propose a method named DGCNN [60]. In-
stead of employing individual points, this method exploits local geometric structures by
constructing a local neighborhood graph and applying convolution-like operations on the
edges connecting neighboring pairs of points. Although the architectural heritage classi-
fication methods based on deep learning have obtained a good performance, no matter
what the ML or DL, the training datasets are very important. Nowadays, some datasets
such as ModelNet 40 [61], KITTI [62], Sydney Urban Objects dataset [63], Semantic3D [64],
S3DIS [65] and ArCH [66] have been published, most of the current datasets collect data
from urban environments, and there are still no published datasets focusing on immova-
ble cultural assets with an adequate level of detail. This brings difficulties for Ming and
Qing Dynasty official-style architecture roof types recognition.

1.3. Motivation and Contributions

In this work, we aim to distinguish the roof type from the 3D point cloud so that the
information provided by the roof type can be used in the 3D reconstruction of Ming and
Qing Dynasty official-style architecture. Based on a hierarchical semantic network, a clas-
sification method for the Ming and Qing Dynasty official-style architecture roof types is
presented in this paper. With the help of this method, the roofs are classified into the cor-
rect categories. The main contributions of this paper are listed as follows:
 The features which distinguish the roof types are selected based on the “grammar
book” and the corresponding feature extraction methods are proposed.
 Aiming at the structure of the ridges, the attributed relational graphs of the ridges
from different types of the Ming and Qing Dynasty official-style architectures are
constructed and recognized.
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2021, 10, 650 5 of 24

 A hierarchical semantic network for the Ming and Qing official-style architecture roof
classification is proposed. In this framework, adaptive thresholds are estimated
based on the construction rule of Qing Dynasty architecture, and the reliable thresh-
olds are given in this paper.
Research in this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 analyzes and selects the iden-
tified features for the classification of the Ming and Qing Dynasty official-style architec-
ture roof. Section 3 gives the corresponding features extraction methods. To recognize the
structure of the ridges, graph matching relying on the attributed relational graph of the
ridges is proposed in Section 4. In Section 5, a hierarchical semantic network for the clas-
sification approach of the Ming and Qing Dynasty official architecture roof is proposed.
Section 6 shows the experimental results and analysis. Finally, a conclusion is conducted
in Section 7.

2. Feature Selection
2.1. A Brief Introduction of the Roof Types
The roof of ancient Chinese architecture plays a particularly important role in the
building facade, which makes the building produce a unique and strong visual effect and
artistic appeal. For the Ming and Qing Dynasty official-style architecture, the roof types
include basic, special and derived roof types. The basic roof types can be classified into
five categories: hip roof, gable-and-hip roof, pyramidal roof, overhanging gable roof, and
flush gable roof as is shown in Table 1. The gable-and-hip roof, gable roof and overhang-
ing gable roof have a corresponding round ridge roof; and the hip roof, gable-and-hip roof
and pyramidal roof can be further divided into double-eave and single-eave as is shown
in Figure 1. Different roof types reflect the different architectural hierarchies and the social
status of the holder. For example, the hip roof can only be used for the royal buildings or
Confucius halls. From high to low rank, the order of different roof types’ grades is: double-
eave hip roof, double-eave gable-and-hip roof, double-eave pyramidal roof, hip roof, ga-
ble-and-hip roof, pyramidal roof, overhanging gable roof, round ridge roof, and flush ga-
ble roof.

Table 1. The roof types of the Ming and Qing official-style architecture.

Roof Type Illustrations Example Description

Hip roofs with all sides sloping, are the classiest traditional
hip roof roof style. There are a total of five ridges including a main
ridges and four vertical ridges.

Gable and hip roofs, with two curving sides, are second in
gable and hip
importance to hip roofs. They are nine ridges including a
roof
main ridges, four vertical ridges and four diagonal ridges.

Overhanging gable roofs have two straight, overhanging

overhanging
slopes. They are five ridges including a main ridges and four
gable roof
vertical ridges.

Flush gable roofs have a main ridge and raise sloping ridges
flush gable roof on the gable walls. It is a very simple style with two slopes
facing front and back.

Pyramidal roof has four slopes. The number of the slopes is

pyramidal roof equal to the number of vertical ridges which intersected at
one point.
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2021, 10, 650 6 of 24

Round ridge roof, with no main ridge, has two straight

round ridge roof slopes. It is a variant of the gable and hip roof, overhanging
gable roof and flush gable roof.

(a) (b) (c)

Figure 1. The Ming and Qing Dynasty official-style architecture with double-eave roof: (a) double-
eave hip roof architecture (b) double-eave gable and hip roof architecture; (c) double-eave pyrami-
dal roof architecture.

Besides these basic roof types, there are some special and derived roof types for the
Ming and Qing Dynasty official-style architecture. The common ones are: fan-shaped ga-
ble and hip roof with a round ridge, hip and flat roof, intersecting gable and hip roofs
(Figure 2). These roofs are derived from different combinations of basic roofs. For exam-
ple, the intersecting gable and hip roof is formed by the intersection of two gable-and-hip
roofs. The representative intersecting gable and hip roofs building is the corner building
of the Palace Museum in Beijing. Through various combinations of roofs, the shape and
contour of the building become more abundant.

(a) (b) (c)

Figure 2. The special and derived roof type architecture: (a) fan-shaped gable and hip roof with a
round ridge architecture; (b) hip and flat roof architecture; (c) intersecting gable and hip roof archi-
tecture.

The roof types of the Ming and Qing Dynasty official-style architecture are rich and
varied. It is difficult to list all the roof types. Compared with the special roof types and the
derived roof types, the basic roof types are more common. Hence, in this paper, we mainly
focus on the classification of the basic roof types.

2.2. Feature Analysis for the Ming and Qing Dynasty Official-Style Architecture Roof
Classification
According to the description in Table 1, the roof of the Ming and Qing Dynasty offi-
cial-style architecture is mainly composed of roofing and ridges. Among the different
types of roofs, the number, topological structure of the ridges and the shape, number, and
topological relationship of irregular surfaces are different. All these differences can be re-
garded as the identified features. Although the features from the ridges and roof surfaces
are coupled with each other, the features from the ridges can provide more details and are
more robust in the recognition of the Ming and Qing Dynasty official-style architecture
compared with the features from roof surface. For example, both the hip roof and the
pyramidal roof have four slopes. The difference between these two types of roofs is
whether there is a main ridge. Similarly, the gable-and-hip roof with a round ridge does
not have a main ridge, while the gable-and-hip roof has a main ridge.
However, only relying on the ridges to classify the roof of the Ming and Qing official-
style architecture into correct categories is impossible. Several of the limitations are listed
as follows:
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2021, 10, 650 7 of 24

 The structural relationship of the ridge vector graph from the flush gable roof and
overhanging gable roof are almost the same.
 The ridges cannot provide the single-eave or multiple-eave information which is
used to distinguish the single-eave or multiple-eave hip roof, pyramidal roof and
gable and hip roof.
To overcome these limitations, other features from the Ming and Ming and Qing
Dynasty official-style architectures should be considered. Based on these analyses, the se-
lected features for the roof classification are listed as follows.
1. The structure of the ridges—SoRs
The ridges from different roof types of the Ming and Qing Dynasty official-style ar-
chitecture have different topological relationships. The structure of the ridges of different
roof types can be seen in Figure 3. Based on SoRs, most roofs can be classified into the
correct categories.

(a) (b) (c) (d)

Figure 3. The vector graph of ridges: (a) hip roofs; (b) gable and hip roof; (c) gable roof or flush gable
roof; (d) pyramidal roof.

2. The distance from the outline of the facades to outline of the roof—DfFtR
Figure 4a,b shows a flush gable roof building and an overhanging gable roof build-
ing, respectively. For the flush gable roof building, the outline of the facades is basically
consistent with the outline of roof on the XOY plane as is shown in Figure 4c, while the
outline of the facades is far away from the roof contour on both sides of the overhanging
gable roof building as is shown in Figure 4d. From the perspective of the construction
system for the Ming and Qing Dynasty official-style architecture, the distance from the
outline of the facades to outline of the roof (DfFtR) of the overhanging gable roof building
is also called cantilever length (悬挑). Obviously, DfFtR can be regarded as a salient fea-
ture for distinguishing the flush gable roof and overhanging gable roof.

(a) (b)

(c) (d)
Figure 4. (a) Illustration of a flush gable roof building; (b) illusion of an overhanging gable roof
building; (c) the roof and facades of a flush gable roof building from the front perspective views; (d)
illustration of DfFtR.
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2021, 10, 650 8 of 24

3. The density of the projective points—DoPP

The shape of a main ridge is nearly a cuboid as is shown in Figure 5a. Due to the fact
that there are two facades on the front and rear sides of the main ridge, this results in the
density of the projective points (DoPP) on the XOY plane being higher than that located
in other areas of the roof surface as is shown in Figure 5b. Based on the DoPP, the main
ridge can be recognized.

(a) (b)
Figure 5. (a) The main ridge of a flush gable roof building; (b) the roof point cloud density distribu-
tion on the XOY plane.

4. The number of the roof eaves—NoREs

The number of the roof eaves (NoREs) is mainly used for distinguishing the single
eave architecture and multiple eave architecture.

3. Feature Extraction
The input data are an entire architecture point cloud. Considering the calculation
process of the selected features, the roof and the ridges should be extracted before gener-
ating the features. In this section, a roof extraction method based on the change of projec-
tive areas and a ridge extraction method using the section lines are illustrated at first. On
the basis of the extracted roof and ridges, the features are generated in Section 3.3.

3.1. The Roof Extraction Method Based on the Change of Projective Areas
The shape of the Ming and Qing Dynasty official-style architecture roof is sloping or
curved and the roof eaves extend out of the beam frame. This results in the projective area
of the points becoming small from the roof eaves to the top of the roof on the XOY plane.
Based on the change of projective areas, a roof extraction method is proposed. The details
of this method are described as follows:
 Suppose that the original point cloud represented the Ming and Qing Dynasty offi-
cial-style architecture (Figure 6a) is defined as = { ( )| = 1,2, ⋯ , },
is the number of points in . The point ( ) and the point ( )
belonging to the point cloud are the highest and lowest points along direction
separately.
 Along the z direction, divide the point cloud into the several of subsets with inter-
val as is shown in Figure 6b. The interval is set as 0.1 m based on experience.
( )
The sampled points are defined as = = 1,2, ⋯ , , = int +1 . A
point from the point cloud is categorized to the subset which should meet
Equation (1).
∈
( − ) (1)
j = int +1

 From 1 to M, wipe off the point set from the original point cloud in turn. After
each point subset is removed, project the remaining points onto the XOY planar co-
ordinates with a scale . If the number of points falls in a grid beyond 0, this grid is
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2021, 10, 650 9 of 24

marked as 255. Subsequently, a morphological close operator with a 7 × 7 square

structuring element is used to generate an initial binary image. Figure 6c,d shows the
generated binary image created by the points which are higher the red points and the
green points labeled as in Figure 6b separately. The number of pixels consisting of
the binary image can be regarded as the projective areas on the XOY plane. The his-
togram composed of the areas is shown in Figure 6e.
Starting with the roof eave, the area becomes smaller with the increasing height. If
the elevation value of a point is greater than that of the split roof eave, this point can be
regarded as the roof point, otherwise the point is the roof point. The extracted roof can be
seen in Figure 6f.

(a) (b) (c)

4000

3500
the first roof eave

3000

the projective areas in pixels

2500 the second roof eave
2000

1500

1000

500

0
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41 43 45 47 49 51 53 55 57 59 61 63 65 67 69

the evalation in sample interval

(d) (e) (f)

Figure 6. The roof extraction process: (a) the original point cloud; (b) two sampled points subsets;
(c) the generated projective image by the remaining points which are higher than the red points
labeled as in (b); (d) the generated projective image by the remaining points which are higher than
the red points labeled as in (b); (e) the histogram generated by projective areas; (f) the extracted
facades and roof.

3.2. The Ridge Extraction Using Section Lines

Figure 7 shows the process of the ridge extraction. The details of this process are de-
scribed as follows:
 Project the roof points onto the XOY plane, and divide the two-dimensional plane
into grids according to the specific size . The points ( ),
( ), ( ) and ( ) are the top
point, bottom point, left-most point and the right-most point separately.
 Along the axis, search the ridge points. Firstly, suppose that the points within the
row which are parallel to the axis are defined as the point set . =
( ) = 1,2, ⋯ , , is the number of the points. The point
( ) should meet Formula (2).
+ ( − 1) < ≤ + (2)
Select the highest point ( ) from the point set . If
a point meets Formula (3), this point is stored into the point set .
− ≤ (3)
In this formula, is the elevation of the point, is the specified threshold. The
extracted ridge points belonging to the row are shown in Figure 7b. Figure 7d shows
the extracted ridge points within different rows.
 Similarly, continue step 2 along the X axis and save the ridge points to the point set
. The extracted ridge points are shown in Figure 7f.
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2021, 10, 650 10 of 24

(a) (b)

(c) (d)

(e) (f)
Figure 7. The process of extracting ridges: (a) the top view of the original point cloud; (b) section
lines; (c) the points from section line along LX1 labeled as in (b); (d) the points from different section
lines along X axis; (e) the points from section line along LY1 labeled as in (b); (f) the extracted ridge
points.

3.3. Feature Generation

Based on the roof extraction method and the ridge extraction method, the extraction
process details of the features including NoREs, DfFtR, DoPP and SoRs are listed as fol-
lows.
1. NoREs generation
As is shown in Figure 6e, the histogram can be divided into four stages. In the first
stage, only the facade points are removed and the projective area remains unchanged;
subsequently, the area becomes small with the decrease of points belong to the first roof
eave; in the third stage, the facade points between the first roof eave and the second roof
eave are wiped off gradually and the projective area keeps stable; lastly, with the increase
of height, the projective area becomes 0. Obviously, the intervals where the projective area
remains unchanged correspond to the facade points, and the intervals where the projec-
tive area decreases correspond to the roof points. The extracted facade points and roof
points can be seen in Figure 6f. The number of the intervals where the projective area
remains unchanged is NoREs.
2. DfFtR generation
After roof extraction, project the façade points and roof points onto the XOY plane,
and generate the outline of the facades and roof, separately. DfFtR is equal to the distance
between two intersections which are created by a straight line defined by the center point
and main direction of the architecture. These two intersections are on the side of the build-
ing facade.
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2021, 10, 650 11 of 24

3. SoRs generation
Project the ridge points onto the XOY plane. If the number of the points located in a
grid is beyond 1, the grid is labeled as 255. After these steps, the generated ridge lines still
have a width of 2–3 pixels. Subsequently, a Skeletonization algorithm [67] is performed to
thin the ridge lines. Finally, a straight-line detector based on the Freeman chain code [68]
is used to generate the ridge lines.
4. DoPP generation
The main ridge is parallel to the main direction of the architecture, and is located in
the middle area of the architecture. Based on this, the ridge line which represents the main
ridge is selected. Around the selected ridge line, create a buffer region. The number of
points located in this buffer region divided by the area of this buffer region is the DoPP.

4. Graph Matching Relying on the Attributed Relational Graph of the Ridges

Different from NoREs, DfFtR and DoPP which have a specified threshold, the SoRs
is the structural relationship of the ridges. Hence, the structure of the ridges should be
converted into a topological graph and the graph matching algorithm is used to distin-
guish the roof types. Nowadays, the formal description methods of structure are various,
including serial grammar, tree grammar, deep learning and so on. The attributed rela-
tional graph not only can describe the structural relationship of the graph, but also can
introduce the property which describes some characteristics of the graph. In this section,
we firstly construct the attributed relational graph of ridges; then, the subgraph isograms
are applied to distinguish the roof types.

4.1. The Generation of the Attributed Relational Graph of the Ridges

Here, we define a quadruple to present the attributed relational graph as in Formula
(4).
=( , , , , , ) (4)
In Formula (4), = { ⋯ } is the finite data set of the vertices, is the
number of vertices in the data set ; = { ⋯ } is the finite set of the edges,
such as e = ( ), 1 ≤ , ≤ , i ≠ j , which represents the edge between the vertex
and the vertex , M is the number of edges in E, is the vertex property set, and
is the edge property set. is a function that produces vertical properties from → ,
and is a function that produces edge properties from → .
In the process of describing ridge features using an attributed relational graph, the
extracted ridge line is regarded as the vertex and the connection relationship between
the ridges can be used as the edge . and contain an attribute separately. The
length α is the vertebrae properties in and the angle between the connected ridges
is the edge property in . Figure 8 shows the vector graph and the corresponding at-
tributed relational graph of the ridges from the different types of Ming and Qing official
architecture. Table 2 shows the attributed relational graph template of the ridges from
pyramidal roofs.

(a) (b) (c) (d)

Figure 8. The corresponding attributed relational graph: (a) hip roofs; (b) gable and hip roof; (c)
gable roof or flush gable roof; (d) pyramidal roof.
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2021, 10, 650 12 of 24

Table 2. The attributed relational graph template of the ridges from pyramidal roofs.

= ， ， ，

= 〈 〉， 〈 〉， 〈 〉， 〈 〉， 〈 〉， 〈 〉
={ | , = 1,2, ⋯ , }
={ | , = 1,2, ⋯ , }

= {α = ⁄ }

= {θ = cos ( ) }

4.2. The Roof Type Reorganization Based on the Subgraph Isograms

The generated attributed relational graph from extracted the ridges should match the
constructed attributed relational graph template so that the Ming and Qing Dynasty offi-
cial-style architecture can be classified into the correct category. The graph isomorphism
can solve the problem. The graph isomorphism is the function from the graph =
( , , , , , ) to the graph G = ( , , , , , ). This function ： →
should satisfy the followed numbering conditions:
(1) ∀ ∈ , ∃ ( ) = ( ) ;
(2) ∀ = ( , ) ∈ , ∃ = ( ), ( ) ∈ and ( )= ( ) ; ∀e’ = ( , )∈
E ,∃ = ( ), ( ) ∈ and ( ) = ( ).
When the structure of two graphs is the same, these two graphs must be an isomor-
phism. However, suffering from the extraction accuracy of the ridges, only a part of the
graph is obtained in some cases. Hence, the isomorphism conditions need to be relaxed to
allow one graph to be mapped to another part of the graph. This mapping is called sub-
graph isograms. The function : → is the isomorphic function from the graph G to
the subgraph of G .
From the analysis above, the isomorphism of the graph is a special case of the sub-
graph isomorphism. In this paper, the Ullmann algorithm [69] is used to determine the
isomorphism of subgraphs.

5. Our Proposed Method

5.1. The Workflow of Our Proposed Methods
The workflow of our proposed method is shown in Figure 9. The process of this
workflow is separated into four stages. The details of each stage are described as follows:
 In the first stage, the roof extraction method is applied to segment the point cloud
into the facade points and roof points. The feature NoREs is obtained. If NoREs = 1,
the Ming and Qing official-style architecture roof is classified as a single-eave roof;
otherwise, this roof is categorized as a multiple-eaves roof.
 Secondly, extract the ridge points from the roof points based on the ridge extraction
method proposed in Section 3.2 and make use of the ridge points to generate the
feature SoRs. Based on the method in Section 4, a single-eave roof can be classified
into a hip roof, pyramidal roof, unclassified gable and hip roof or unclassified roof;
and the multiple-eaves roof is classified into a hip roof, pyramidal roof or unclassified
gable and hip roof.
 In the third step, calculate the DfFtR. If > ℎ , the unclassified single-
eave roof is regarded as an unclassified overhanging gable roof; otherwise, the un-
classified single-eave roof is regarded as an unclassified flush gable roof.
 Finally, calculate the DoPP based on the method in Section 3.3. If > ℎ ,
the unclassified flush gable roof, unclassified overhanging gable roof or unclassified
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2021, 10, 650 13 of 24

gable and hip roof is grouped into the flush gable roof category, overhanging gable
roof category or gable and hip roof category; otherwise, the unclassified roof is cate-
gorized as an overhanging gable round ridge roof, flush gable round ridge roof or
gable and hip round ridge roof.

Figure 9. Proposed hierarchical semantic network for the Ming and Qing official-style architecture
classification.

5.2. Threshold Determination

In our proposed method, ℎ and ℎ are the thresholds in the suggested
hierarchical semantic network for the Ming and Qing official-style architecture classifica-
tion. These two thresholds are decided by the cantilever length (CL) and the height of the
main ridge (HoMRR) separately.
From the perspective of the construction system, the Ming and Qing Dynasty official-
style architecture can be further divided into wooden frame architecture with dougongs
and wooden frame architecture without dougongs. The former mainly covers the catego-
ries of hip roof, gable-and-hip roof, pyramidal roof, overhanging gable roof and flush ga-
ble roof; the latter contains the pyramidal roof, overhanging gable roof, and flush gable
roof. These two wooden frame architectures have different modules. The dimensions of
the main components of the Ming and Qing official architecture should be a multiple of
the modules. According to the Gongcheng Zuofa Zeli of the Qing Dynasty, both HoMRR
and CL is equal to 12 * doukou under the doukou module system. Under the D module
system, HoMRR should be equal to 2.2D and CL is equal to 3.3D as is shown in Table 3.
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2021, 10, 650 14 of 24

Table 3. The rule table for the thresholds.

The Modules of the Wooden The Modules of the Wooden

Index
Frame with Dougong Frame without Dougong
eave column height 60 doukou 11 D
main ridge height 12 doukou 2.2 D
diameter of the draft 1.5 doukou D/3
cantilever length 12 doukou 3.3 D

The doukou has 11 sizes or grades and the minimum dimensions of doukou is 1 cun
(3.5 cm) as is show in Figure 10. However, the eave column diameter D does not have an
exact value. To overcome this limitation, the corresponding sizes of the same components
from the wooden frame architecture with or without dougongs is applied to obtain an
approximate value of D. Based on this, D ranges from 3.6 doukou to 5.5 doukou. Consid-
ering the different grades of Ming and Qing official-style buildings, HoMRR ranges from
1 cun × 8 to 6 cun × 12 and CL ranges from 1 cun × 3.3 × 3.6 to 6 cun × 12.

Figure 10. The grades and sizes of Qing doukou.

ℎ should be equal to CL. The higher the grade of the Ming and Qing official-
style building is, the bigger CL is. Hence, ℎ should be higher than the minimum
CL-1 cun × 8. For ℎ , suppose that the density of point cloud is . In theory,
ℎ should be equal to × (2 × × + × )⁄( × ) when is
bigger than the width of the main ridge; otherwise, ℎ is equal to ×
( × + × )⁄( × ). In this paper, is user-defined. Here, we set as
. We can set this value to be the ℎ which can be set as 2 .

6. Performance Evaluation
6.1. Experimental Data Description
Many Ming and Qing official-style buildings have been established as major histori-
cal and cultural sites protected at the national level in China and are managed by corre-
sponding institutions. When we capture the point cloud, the authorization from these in-
stitutions is necessary. This results in the acquisition of the point cloud becoming very
difficult. In our experiments, three datasets were used to evaluate the performance of our
proposed method. The first two datasets consisted of point clouds captured by the terres-
trial laser scanning system or generated by UAV images and contained two roof types. To
test more roof types, we introduced a third dataset composed of the point clouds derived
from 3DsMAX models. The 3D information of these models is consistent with that of real
buildings and is reliable test data through inspection and comparison by experts. Each
dataset is described as follows:
 The first dataset contained the point cloud of the Gate of Supreme Harmony and the
Hall of Complete Harmony labeled as rectangle 1 and 2 in Figure 11a. These point
cloud was captured by the terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) system. Figure 12 shows
the point cloud after registration in the commercial software package Leica Cyclone.
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2021, 10, 650 15 of 24

The point cloud density of the Gate of Supreme Harmony and the Hall of Complete
Harmony was 44,083 points/m2 and 43,416 points/m2, respectively.

(a) (b)
Figure 11. (a) Forbidden City; (b) Qutan Temple.

Figure 12. The point cloud of the Gate of Supreme Harmony and the Hall of Complete Harmony.

 The second dataset was composed of the dense image matching (DIM) point cloud
of BaoGuang Hall located in Qutan Temple, QingHai province, China as is shown in
Figure 11b. 261 UAV images are collected by DJI Phantom4 which was composed of
a FC6310R camera with a 13.2 × 8.8 mm2 sensor size and a 2.41 μm pixel size. The
flight path surrounded the building as is shown in Figure 13. The distance from the
exposure points to this building varied from 20 m to 85 m. Considering the 8.8 mm
focal length and the photographic distance, the ground sampling distance (GSD) for
all cameras ranged from 0.5 cm to 2 cm. Relying on the commercial software pack-
age Bentley, this DIM point cloud was generated. The density of the generated DIM
point cloud was 59,737 points/m .
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2021, 10, 650 16 of 24

camera position
Figure 13. The flight path.

 The third dataset included 3DsMAX models of Meridian Gate, LiJing Xuan, Gate of
Lasting Happiness labeled as rectangle 4, 5 and 6 in Figure 11a and a 3D model ex-
ample from a website. To satisfy the data requirements, we converted these 3D mod-
els into 3D point cloud based on the commercial software CloudCompare. The den-
sity of the point cloud was 95 points/m2.
There are six types of Ming and Qing Dynasty official-style architecture roofs: dou-
ble-eave hip roof, double-eave gable and hip roof, flush gable roof, round ridge roof, over-
hanging gable roof and pyramidal roof. The roof type information of each test building is
described in Table 4.

Table 4. The details of each test building.

Architecture Name Roof Type Point Cloud Illustration

Gate of Supreme double-eave ga-

Harmony ble and hip roof

Hall of Complete
pyramidal roof
Harmony

double-eave ga-
BaoGuang Hall
ble and hip roof

double-eave hip
Meridian Gate
roof
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2021, 10, 650 17 of 24

LiJing Xuan flush gable roof

flush gable roof

Gate of Lasting
with round
Happiness
ridge

overhanging ga-
A 3D model example
ble roof

6.2. Experimental Results and Discussion

6.2.1. Experimental Results
In our experiment, the thresholds were set according to the description in Section 5.2.
Table 5 illustrates the classification details of each test Ming and Qing Dynasty official-
style architecture roof from dataset 1, 2 and 3, respectively. The extraction process of each
test architecture roof is listed as follows:
 NoREs extraction. As is shown in the second row of Table 5, for the Hall of Complete
Harmony, LiJing Xuan, Gate of Lasting Happiness and the collected example, the
projective areas kept stable at first; subsequently, the projective areas became smaller
after the height was beyond the eaves. The NoREs from these architectures was 1 and
the roofs of these architectures were grouped into the single-eave roofs. For the gen-
erated histogram of the Gate of Supreme Harmony, BaoGuang Hall and the Meridian
Gate, there were two intervals where the projective area remained unchanged. The
NoREs from the three architectures was 2. The roofs of the three architectures were
categorized into the double-eave roofs. The extracted roof of each test architecture is
shown in the third row of Table 5.
 SoRs extraction and reorganization. The extracted ridge points from each architecture
can be seen in the fifth row of Table 5. The experimental results showed our proposed
method could obtain the correct structure of the ridges of each architecture. Based on
the extracted SoRs, the roof of the Meridian Gate was distinguished as a double-eave
hip roof and the roof of the Hall of Complete Harmony was classified into the py-
ramidal roof category. The unclassified double-eave gable and hip roof type con-
tained the roofs of Gate of Supreme Harmony and BaoGuang Hall. The roofs of other
architectures were categorized as unclassified single-eave roofs.
 DfFtR detection. For the unclassified single-eave roofs, the DfFtR of the collected 3D
model example was 0.32 m and the outlines of the facades and roofs from LiJing
Xuan and Gate of Lasting Happiness were almost the same as is shown in the sixth
row of Table 5. The roof of the collected 3D model example was regarded as an un-
classified overhanging gable roof and the roof of LiJing Xuan and Gate of Lasting
Happiness were grouped as unclassified flush gable roofs.
 DoPP detection. As is shown in the seventh row of Table 5, except the Gate of Lasting
Happiness, the density of points located in the areas around the main ridge from
other unclassified roofs was higher than that in other areas. After this step, the Gate
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2021, 10, 650 18 of 24

of Lasting Happiness was categorized as a flush gable roof with round ridge and
other unclassified roofs were classified correctly.
The experimental results at each stage were consistent with the theoretical results
and all the test architecture roofs were classified into the correct categories. This shows
that our proposed method could get a good performance for the Ming and Qing Dynasty
official-style architecture roof classification.

6.2.2. The Density of Point Cloud Sensitivity Analysis

The features extraction which relied heavily on the roof and ridge extraction methods
had a significant effect on the experimental results. The density of the point cloud seri-
ously influenced the roof and ridge extraction. To verify the robustness of our proposed
methods, the sensitivity of the point cloud density should be analyzed. The point cloud of
BaoGuang Hall was generated by UAV images, the point cloud of Gate of Lasting Happi-
ness was created from the 3DsMAX and the point cloud of Hall of Complete Harmony
was captured by terrestrial laser scanning technology, separately. Three point clouds
came from different data sources. On the other hand, the roof types of BaoGuang Hall, the
Hall of Complete Harmony and the Gate of Lasting Happiness were different. To ensure
the robustness and accuracy of the analysis, we selected the point cloud of BaoGuang Hall,
the Gate of Lasting Happiness and the Hall of Complete Harmony as the analysis objects
and rarefied the point cloud density to 1/10 and 1/100 of the original density separately in
this analysis process.
For the roof extraction, the shape of histogram generated by the projective areas
along the Z direction and the extracted roof almost were the same with different point
densities as is shown in Tables 6–8. Theoretically, when the average distance between two
nearest points was beyond the distance from the roof eave to the ground or distance be-
tween two roof eaves, the roof extraction would fail. However, this is an extreme case. In
this circumstance, the density of point cloud would be too small and could not meet the
requirement of 3D modeling. The results showed that the densities of the point cloud had
little impact on the roof extraction.
In the ridge extraction stage, the ridges extracted from the Hall of Complete Har-
mony point cloud with different densities were the same as is shown in Table 7. For
BaoGuang Hall, starting from the junction of the diagonal ridge and the vertical ridge,
there was a short line segment when the density of point cloud was 1 percent of the orig-
inal density as is shown in the fourth row and column of Table 6. In fact, a blank area
between the diagonal ridge and the vertical ridge for gable and hip roof did exist as is
shown the circle in Figure 7a. Due to the fact that the size of this blank area was small, it
was completely filled after the morphological close operation with a 7 × 7 operator in
our proposed ridge extraction method when the density of the point cloud was 59,737
points/m and 5974 points/m , separately. When the density of the point cloud was
lower than a specified value, the distance between the points located on the diagonal ridge
or the vertical ridge becomes large and the distance between two grids which contained
the projective points was beyond the size of the operator. This resulted in this blank area
being preserved after morphological close operation. Hence, the short line segment was
generated after the Skeletonization algorithm was performed. Similarly, the phenomenon
that the vertical ridge of the Gate of Lasting Happiness was broken when the point cloud
density was at minimum as in the fourth row and column of Table 8 was also caused for
this reason. Although the extracted ridges had some differences when the densities of the
point cloud were different, the generated SoRs was still a subgraph of the true ridge struc-
ture graph.
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2021, 10, 650 19 of 24

Table 5. The experimental details and results.

Gate of Supreme Hall of Complete Gate of Lasting A 3D Model
BaoGuang Hall Meridian Gate LiJing Xuan
Harmony Harmony Happiness Example

Original point
cloud of test

4,000 60,000 35,000 8,000

30,000 20,000 1,000
3,500 7,000
30,000

The change of the 25,000 50,000

the projective areas in

800

the projective areas in pixels

3,000

the projective areas in pixels

6,000
the projective areas in
15,000

he projective areas in pixels

25,000

he projective areas in pixels

40,000

he projective areas in pixels

20,000 2,500 5,000 600
20,000

areas on the X
pixels

15,000 2,000 30,000 4,000

10,000
pixels

15,000 400
1,500 3,000
10,000 20,000

along the Z direc-

10,000 2,000 200
5,000 1,000
5,000 10,000
5,000 1,000
500 0
0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
0 0

tions 1 5 9 13 17 21 25 29 33 37 41 45 49 53 57 61 65 69 73 77 81 85 89

the evalation in sample interval

1 4 7 1013161922252831343740434649525558616467707376

the evalation in sample interval

0
1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 34 37 40 43 46 49 52 55 58 61 64 67 70

the evalation in sample interval

1 8 15 22 29 36 43 50 57 64 71 78 85 92 99 106113120127

the evalation in sample interval

0
1 9 17 25 33 41 49 57 65 73 81 89 97 105 113

the evalation in sample interval

1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 34 37 40 43 46 49 52 55 58 61 64

the evalation in sample interval

the evalation in sample interval

Extracted roof

NoREs null null null null

Extracted ridge
points

DfFtR null null null null

Main ridge null null

double-eave gable and hip double-eave gable and hip flush gable roof with overhanging flush gable
Roof type pyramidal roof double-eave hip roof flush gable roof
roof roof round ridge roof
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2021, 10, 650 20 of 24

Table 6. The BaoGuang Hall roof recognition process based on point cloud with different density.

Density The Histogram of the

Roof Ridges Main Ridges
( / ) Projective Areas
4,000

3,500

the projective areas in pixels

3,000

2,500

2,000

59,737 1,500

1,000

500

0
1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 34 37 40 43 46 49 52 55 58 61 64 67 70

the evalation in sample interval

4,000

3,500
the projective areas in pixels

3,000

2,500

2,000

5,974 1,500

1,000

500

0
1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 34 37 40 43 46 49 52 55 58 61 64 67 70

the evalation in sample interval

4,000

3,500
the projective areas in pixels

3,000

2,500

2,000

597 1,500

1,000

500

0
1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 34 37 40 43 46 49 52 55 58 61 64 67 70

the evalation in sample interval

Table 7. The Hall of Complete Harmony roof reorganization process based on point cloud with different density.

Density The Histogram of the

Roof Ridges Main Ridges
( / ) Projective Areas
20,000
the projective areas in

15,000

10,000
pixels

43,416 5,000
null
0
1 4 7 1013161922252831343740434649525558616467707376

the evalation in sample interval

20,000
the projective areas in

15,000

10,000
pixels

4,342 5,000
null
0
1 4 7 1013161922252831343740434649525558616467707376

the evalation in sample interval

20,000
the projective areas in

15,000

10,000
pixels

434 5,000
null
0
1 4 7 1013161922252831343740434649525558616467707376

the evalation in sample interval

Table 8. The Gate of Lasting Happiness roof reorganization process based on point cloud with different density.

Density The Histogram of the

Roof Ridges Main Ridges
( / ) Projective Areas
8,000

7,000

6,000
he projective areas in pixels

5,000

4,000

95 3,000

2,000

1,000

0
1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 34 37 40 43 46 49 52 55 58 61 64

the evalation in sample interval

8,000

7,000

6,000
he projective areas in pixels

5,000

4,000

9.5 3,000

2,000

1,000

0
1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 34 37 40 43 46 49 52 55 58 61 64

the evalation in sample interval

ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2021, 10, 650 21 of 24

8,000

7,000

6,000

he projective areas in pixels

5,000

4,000

1 3,000

2,000

1,000

0
1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 34 37 40 43 46 49 52 55 58 61 64

the evalation in sample interval

For the main ridge detection, under different point cloud density conditions, the
main ridges of BaoGuang Hall were detected as is shown in the fourth column of Table 6.
The distribution of the point cloud density on the XOY plane as is shown in the fourth
column of Table 8 illustrated that Gate of Lasting Happiness did not have a main ridge.
The experimental results were consistent with the true roof types. Notably, when the dis-
tance between points was greater than the height or width of the main ridge, our proposed
method may not have detected the main ridge. This is mainly because the points located
on the surface of the main ridge did not exist. This is an extreme case. In this paper, we
suppose that the point cloud can represent the details of the Ming and Qing official-style
architecture. Based on the above analysis, our proposed method is robust to the test point
clouds with different densities.
Moreover, the gaps, noise and occlusion of point clouds also influenced the experi-
mental results. In order to ensure that the point cloud data can successfully complete the
3D modeling, the quality of the collected point clouds should meet a certain criterion in
practical engineering. Hence, we can ignore these factors in our experiments.

7. Conclusions and Future Work

This paper proposes a method for the classification of the Ming and Qing official-
style architectures from 3D point cloud combining the ridges and other features. The high-
lights of this work are listed as follows:
 The features including NoREs, DfFtR, DoPP and SoRs are selected for the classifica-
tion of the Ming and Qing official-style architecture roof and the corresponding fea-
ture extraction methods are proposed.
 The attributed relational graphs of the ridges from different roof types of the Ming
and Qing official-style architecture are constructed and the Ullmann algorithm is ap-
plied to complete the initial roof type reorganization task based on SoRs.
 A hierarchical semantic network is proposed to distinguish the type of the Ming and
Qing official-style architecture roof and the thresholds used in this semantic network
are estimated based on the construction rules of the Ming and Qing official-style ar-
chitecture. Based on the proposed method, all the selected Ming and Qing official
architecture roofs are classified into the correct categories. The experimental results
shows that our proposed method can achieve good performance and have robust-
ness.
Additionally, it is worth noting that the classification of the Ming and Qing official-
style architecture is not the terminal goal of our work. We hope to reconstruct a historical
building information model (HBIM) of the Ming and Qing official-style architecture auto-
matically especially in the geometric parameter acquisition of the model relying on the
roof type. In previous work [70,71], how to obtain the single building and how to recon-
struct the decorative component have been solved. The future work will include: (1) the
Ming and Qing official-style architectural component segmentation and extraction; (2) pa-
rameterization of components; (3) the HBIM reconstruction mechanism; and (4) using var-
ious strategies to ensure the point cloud can be processed in memory.

Author Contributions: Conceptualization, Youqiang Dong and Miaole Hou; methodology, Biao Xu;
software, Youqiang Dong; validation, Miaole Hou, Yuhang Ji and Yihao Li; formal analysis, Biao
Xu; investigation, Yuhang Ji; resources, Miaole Hou data curation, Yuhang Ji; writing—original
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2021, 10, 650 22 of 24

draft preparation, Yuhang Ji and Yihao Li; writing—review and editing, Youqiang Dong; supervi-
sion, Biao Xu and Yihao Li; project administration, Miaole Hou; funding acquisition, Youqiang
Dong. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding: This research was funded by National Key Research and Development Program of
China(2019YFC1520800); Scientific Research Project of Beijing Educational Committee
(KM202110016005); Beijing Postdoctoral Research Foundation (21009920004); Beijing Municipal Ed-
ucation Commission (KZ202110016021); Young Beijing Scholars Project (04147521504).
Institutional Review Board Statement: Not applicable.
Informed Consent Statement: Not applicable.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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