Abstract: According to the 3D spatial continuity of subsurface space and requirements of interactive modification and analysis in the process of modeling, an new 3D vector data model for subsurface modeling is proposed. Objectoriented method is adopted to represent all kinds of subsurface spatial objects and important topological connective relations among geometric primitives and spatial objects are well maintained by segment primitives and topological faces, which benefits the implementation of analytical algorithms such as cutting, excavating, topological query and so on. This 3D spatial data model has a good performance in data storage, spatial query and rapid rendering, and can be applied to modeling underground space.

Key words: subsurface space, space partition, 3D spatial data model, vector model, topological face