ISPRS, Vol.34, Part 2W2, “Dynamic and Multi-Dimensional GIS’’, Bangkok, May 23-25, 2001 
In the project of the reconstruction of Zhi-Lian Nunnery, all 
the data of the real timber-made components of this ancient 
building are measured and represented as line and frame 
graphs by a computer. By this way, the connection of different 
components can be described completely and it even can 
determine the connection quality between mortises and tenons 
directly from the screen of a computer. No matter the 
usefulness of this, it is not a stereo representation and is 
un-convenient for observation. In the following section, the 
surface model is used to replace 3D frame model based on the 
analysis of the latter. 
2.1 3D frame model 
An instance of this model is shown in fig. 1, which is 
generated by AUTOCAD12.0. The computer records the 
coordinate values of all the vertexes in the figure and the 
relationship table of the lines between two different vertexes. 
This model can provide scenograph of arbitrary direction of 
view, but it is not suitable to obtain section graph, intersection 
graph of two planes, blanking graph and profile graph. 
Therefore, this model can not satisfy the pre-requisite of stereo 
modeling completely. 
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Figure 1 frame model of timber component 
((progn 
(setvar "osmode" 1) ;endpoint 
(initget 1) (setq startPt );getpoint 
(if (eq (type pt) 'LIST) (grdraw pO pt -1 1) ))) 
2.2 surface model 
This model firstly uses the sealing parts encapsulated by 
edges of different components to define the surfaces of an 
object, then defines the object composed by the surfaces. The 
data structure of this model is to append an extra information 
table to the structure of 3D frame model. It can be used to 
process blanking graph, profile graph and so forth. The 
following little program is developed under AUTOCAN 12.0 to 
compose a surface based on arbitrarily many vertexes: 
(defun c:plface (/ r1 t1 ss startPt) 
(savenv) ¡saving currently state 
(setvar "osmode” 512) 
(initget 1) 
(setq t1 (getpoint "Select PLINE: ")) 
(cond 
((eq (type t1) ’LIST) (setq ss (getpl t1)) 
(cond ((null ss) (princ “ No Polyline found.")) 
((= (sslength ss) 0) (princ " Entity is not a Polyline.“)) 
(if (eq (type pt) 'LIST) 
(progn (setvar “osmode“ 0) 
(command pt) 
(setq n (1+ n))) 
(setq loop nil))) 
(command '"') 
(setq i 1)(repeat n 
(command i) 
(setq i (1+ i))) 
(command ““ "“) 
(resenv)) Drenew fore state 
A series of surfaces composed by the above program is 
shown in fig.2 (after blanking). These surfaces are easy to 
observe and can intuitively describe the relationship of 
components. This model is the foundation of lignification.