Abstract: We introduce a novel approach that reconstructs 3D urban scenes in the form of levels of detail (LODs). Starting from raw datasets such as surface meshes generated by multiview stereo systems, our algorithm proceeds in three main steps: classification, abstraction, and reconstruction. From geometric attributes and a set of semantic rules combined with a Markov random field, we classify the scene into four meaningful classes. The abstraction step detects and regularizes planar structures on buildings, fits icons on trees, roofs, and facades, and performs filtering and simplification for LOD generation. The abstracted data are then provided as input to the reconstruction step which generates watertight buildings through a min-cut formulation on a set of 3D arrangements. Our experiments on complex buildings and large-scale urban scenes show that our approach generates meaningful LODs while being robust and scalable. By combining semantic segmentation and abstraction, it also outperforms general mesh approximation approaches at preserving urban structures.