1001 Smart Cities
🇫🇮 Helsinki

Helsinki 3D+ Open City Model

🤖 AI-generated summary · ◆ 9 sourced claims · 🔎 Last verified

This overview was generated with AI from the public sources listed below and checked against them before publication. It has not had a complete human fact-check — treat it as a starting point and follow the sources.

9 sourced claims on this page, none individually verified yet — turn on “Sources in the text” to see each one.

How this atlas is made · What “last verified” means · What “source-checked” means · The full record behind this page

✎ Corrected 27 Sep 2026 1 source removed. · 3 revisions in all What changed →

Every building and the ground surface beneath it, free open data since 2016. The city's climate atlas uses it to compute solar radiation for nearly a million roof and wall surfaces.

Outcome🎯 Succeeded
Evidence📊 Independent
what does this mean?The strongest source is an independent non-academic evaluation: an audit office, a government or EU review, or an NGO. It grades who did the looking — not how well the project went. All four grades →
Run byCity of Helsinki
Scale🏙️ City-wide

Part of 1001 Smart Cities — 1,216 documented projects · 🏙️ 9 more in Helsinki · 🪞 Digital twin guide · 📡 Data & IoT projects

Helsinki 3D+ is the city's open 3D model of every building and the ground surface, combining a semantic CityGML information model with a high-resolution reality mesh, released as free open data in 2016 and licensed under CC BY 4.0. Every building is a semantic CityGML object carrying its own database identifiers, so other data streams can be joined to it, and the CityGML files are downloadable in map sheets of four square kilometres. The model underpins the city's Energy and Climate Atlas and has fed heating-demand simulations and Kalasatama planning pilots.

Live 📅 since 2016

📊 Impact

The Energy and Climate Atlas, built on the model, shows an indicative energy-consumption estimate for nearly every building in Helsinki and calculates how much solar radiation each roof and wall surface in the city receives, annually and monthly — nearly a million surfaces in all. Aalto University researchers cite it as their example of a city model turned into a service a resident can use, letting anyone check the solar potential of their own home.

🎓 Lesson

The model was not the product; the identifiers were. Making every building a semantic object with its own database keys is what let the city hang energy, heating and solar data on it afterwards, and it is why a research group could build a public-services view on the same base without asking anyone for a new survey. A mesh you can fly through is a picture. A model whose buildings can be joined to other registers is infrastructure.

📡 Data & IoTDigital twinGIS & cadastreSolar & PVOpen data

Sources

↗ City of Helsinki (authority) archived copyThe city's page on its 3D city models: a reality mesh from aerial photographs (OBJ/3MX) and a semantic CityGML urban data model in which every building carries its own database identifiers; both are licensed CC BY 4.0 and downloadable, the CityGML files in four-square-kilometre map sheets. It describes the Energy and Climate Atlas built on the models (energy estimates for nearly every building, solar calculations for nearly a million roof and wall surfaces, simulated heating demand) and the Kalasatama Digital Twins project of 2018–19. A continuously updated page with no publication date.
↗ Bentley Systems (technology partner)Published June 2022Vendor case study: reality-mesh + CityGML model completed November 2016, €1M investment, ContextCapture/OpenCities Map tech stack. The publisher declares June 2022; the day it stamps is the first of the month, which this atlas does not treat as a publication day, so the date is recorded to the month.
↗ Aalto University (independent)Published 7 April 2021 · updated 1 July 2021Aalto University researchers on uses of city models: they cite the Helsinki Energy and Climate Atlas as a service that lets anyone check the solar power potential of their home, and describe their Palvelututka application, built from City of Helsinki service APIs and the city's 3D models and applied to Kalasatama.
Show your work What this page rests on and what it can’t tell you · all 9 claims with their sources · the forensic record

Evidence file · public beta 9 addressable claims, 3 source dossiers, one permanent baseline. The file is unreviewed — an AI-assisted structural migration, not a human or expert endorsement. Every revision keeps a permanent copy under revision history.

Inspect the claims, one by one — verbatim text, sources and caveats for all 9

The text below is copied verbatim from the published record. Each claim names the source dossiers that carry it; caveats stay attached to the claim they qualify.

Claim 1 clm-3695404c914a5a06 quantitative
Helsinki 3D+ is the city's open 3D model of every building and the ground surface, combining a semantic CityGML information model with a high-resolution reality mesh, released as free open data in 2016
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
The city page describes the reality mesh and the semantic CityGML urban data model of buildings and terrain as open data; the technology partner dates the Helsinki 3D+ project's completion to November 2016 and states that the city set out to share the models as open data.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. City of Helsinki (authority)
  2. Bentley Systems (technology partner)
Claim 2 clm-a00fde967e255dd0 quantitative
licensed under CC BY 4.0
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
The city page states the CC BY 4.0 licence for both the mesh and the urban data model.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. City of Helsinki (authority)
Claim 3 clm-0f0378ba7cef6a15 descriptive
Every building is a semantic CityGML object carrying its own database identifiers, so other data streams can be joined to it, and the CityGML files are downloadable in map sheets of four square kilometres
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
The city page states that all buildings are semantic CityGML objects with their own identifiers allowing the combination of data streams, and that CityGML files come in map sheets of four square kilometres.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. City of Helsinki (authority)
Claim 4 clm-3ccbe6ed28f0ce3f descriptive
The model underpins the city's Energy and Climate Atlas
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
The city page calls the atlas a free browser service based on the 3D City Models.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. City of Helsinki (authority)
Claim 5 clm-2527fc99a3d9ddde descriptive
has fed heating-demand simulations and Kalasatama planning pilots
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
The city page lists the atlas's simulated heating demand of buildings and the 2018–19 Kalasatama Digital Twins project; Aalto researchers applied their model-based service tool to Kalasatama.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. City of Helsinki (authority)
  2. Aalto University (independent)
Claim 6 clm-81097e0b957da8f1 quantitative
The Energy and Climate Atlas, built on the model, shows an indicative energy-consumption estimate for nearly every building in Helsinki and calculates how much solar radiation each roof and wall surface in the city receives, annually and monthly — nearly a million surfaces in all
Published field
impact · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
The city page gives the indicative consumption estimate for nearly every building and solar calculations for all roof and wall surfaces, annually and monthly, nearly a million in total.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. City of Helsinki (authority)
Claim 7 clm-8852a428f78694b5 descriptive
Aalto University researchers cite it as their example of a city model turned into a service a resident can use, letting anyone check the solar potential of their own home
Published field
impact · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
An Aalto researcher gives the atlas as the example of citizens benefiting from services built on city models.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Aalto University (independent)
Claim 8 clm-d1ca04d3339f6d0c descriptive
Making every building a semantic object with its own database keys is what let the city hang energy, heating and solar data on it afterwards
Published field
lesson · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
The city page ties the per-building identifiers to combining data streams and describes the atlas's energy, heating and solar layers built on the models.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. City of Helsinki (authority)
Claim 9 clm-072a9320a0774d49 descriptive
it is why a research group could build a public-services view on the same base without asking anyone for a new survey
Published field
lesson · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
Aalto researchers built their Palvelututka service map from City of Helsinki service APIs and the city's 3D models, combining open data sets that already existed.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Aalto University (independent)
Forensic record — source dossiers, gaps, hashes and the exact revision this page renders

This layer records what is known about each source, what is still missing, and the exact snapshot this page is rendering. A missing date, archive or hash stays visible as missing.

unreviewed Revision 2026-09-27-popular-uplift-2 effective 2026-09-27 · created 2026-09-27

Awaiting operator and domain-expert review; publication of this revision implies neither.

sha256:078d1ab6f72aa8047ef673de12d046a4036f7dcdd41e5401d246d10696848797
Revision history → Permanent version link → Machine-readable record → Evidence Constitution →
9
of 9 claims mapped
3
source dossiers
1
publication dates recorded
1
archives linked
0
exact locators
0
content captures hashed

Governance facts carried by the record

Operator
City of Helsinki
Actor types
city-government
Funding model
public
Funding description
Not recorded
Cost
Not recorded
Ownership
Not recorded
Decision rights
Not recorded
Exit conditions
Not recorded

3 source dossiers

City of Helsinki (authority) hel.fi · 7 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-3ad6b571e8bee43c
Publisher
Name not classified · hel.fi
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
Not recorded
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-09-27
Dossier created
2026-09-27
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
Open archived copy ↗ · 2026-07-29
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

The city's page on its 3D city models: a reality mesh from aerial photographs (OBJ/3MX) and a semantic CityGML urban data model in which every building carries its own database identifiers; both are licensed CC BY 4.0 and downloadable, the CityGML files in four-square-kilometre map sheets. It describes the Energy and Climate Atlas built on the models (energy estimates for nearly every building, solar calculations for nearly a million roof and wall surfaces, simulated heating demand) and the Kalasatama Digital Twins project of 2018–19. A continuously updated page with no publication date.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Bentley Systems (technology partner) bentley.com · 1 linked claim

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-f47bc21acd557a1c
Publisher
Name not classified · bentley.com
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
Not recorded
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-09-27
Dossier created
2026-09-27
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Vendor case study: reality-mesh + CityGML model completed November 2016, €1M investment, ContextCapture/OpenCities Map tech stack. The publisher declares June 2022; the day it stamps is the first of the month, which this atlas does not treat as a publication day, so the date is recorded to the month.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Aalto University (independent) aalto.fi · 3 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-9fcc068e07847764
Publisher
Name not classified · aalto.fi
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2021-04-07
Updated
2021-07-01
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-09-27
Dossier created
2026-09-27
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Aalto University researchers on uses of city models: they cite the Helsinki Energy and Climate Atlas as a service that lets anyone check the solar power potential of their home, and describe their Palvelututka application, built from City of Helsinki service APIs and the city's 3D models and applied to Kalasatama.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Known limits of this file
  • Publisher names and source languages have not yet been classified; domains are recorded without guessing.
  • Existing source notes are descriptive locators, not page- or paragraph-exact citations.
  • A missing archive, publication date or content hash is shown as null rather than inferred.
  • The project-level evidence grade ranks the strongest source in the entry; it is not a truth score for every claim.

Continue exploring

Compare this project

🇳🇱 Rotterdam Municipal Digital Twin · Rotterdam Helsinki's 3D+ opened as free data in 2016, two years before Rotterdam's twin; Rotterdam adds what this doesn't: subsurface pipes. 🇳🇿 Wellington Digital Twin · Wellington Helsinki's 3D+ opened as free data in 2016; Wellington's twin, built six years later, maps flood and landslide risk instead. 🇰🇷 S-Map — Seoul 3D Digital Twin Platform · Seoul Seoul's S-Map runs a simulation lab across 605km2; Helsinki's smaller, older 3D+ model (2016) focuses on rooftop solar potential.

Explore the wider context

🏙️ Urban digital twins compared📖 Digital twin📖 Building performance standard (BPS)📖 GTFS (General Transit Feed Specification)
📎 Cite this project

1001 Smart Cities (2026). “Helsinki 3D+ Open City Model” — Helsinki, Finland. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/helsinki-3d-digital-twin/ (last verified 2026-09-27). Data: CC BY 4.0.

The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.

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