3D Property Research from a Legal Perspective Revisited

The concept of 3D cadastre is widespread internationally and part of many nations’ legal infrastructure. Since the publication of a literature survey on 3D cadastre research by Paulsson and Paasch in 2013, there has been a considerable amount of research output and activities in regard to 3D cadastre, which led us to believe that a new investigation of 3D cadastre publications could be of interest. The aim of this study is to analyze the development in 3D cadastre research during the years 2012–2020, focusing on the legal perspective of 3D property. A classification was made into main groups, legal, technical, registration and organizational, also investigating the occurrence of sub-themes such as visualization, BIM and standardization. The results of other literature studies on 3D cadastre research were compared with the outcome of this study. The number of identified publications during the analyzed years was 530. The study showed that the number of publications on legal topics has increased, but in relation to the other groups is still rather low. The 3D cadastre research community could benefit from the inclusion of the legal perspective in publications from other main groups, along with an increased focus on international comparative studies.