An Integrated BIM-GIS Framework for Utility Information Management and Analyses

Abstract

Currently, utility information such as alignment and owner information is mostly managed in 2D CAD files or 2D geographical information system (GIS) models, which have limited capacity for analyses and are sometimes not updated. This paper presents an integrated 3D framework based on building information modeling (BIM) and GIS technologies for managing and analyzing utility information. In the framework, underground utility networks are modeled and represented in GIS software to facilitate visualization. Semantic information such as owner information and inspection records are also included in the 3D representations of utilities in GIS software. The GIS models are then integrated in a BIM environment based on ArcGIS using our developed BIM-GIS integration framework. The BIM-GIS framework supports various analyses such as clash detection. Clashes between existing utility networks and the designed pipelines can be identified and resolved virtually ahead of time. Changes of the utility models can also be updated conveniently in the integrated BIM-GIS framework. An example scenario that is used to test and evaluate the developed framework will be presented in this paper.

4D BIM models for smart utility relocation management in urban infrastructure projects

“…BIM being rich in semantic and geometric information lacks in the management of geospatial information. Efforts in managing both the geospatial and geometric information was done through the integration of BIM GIS technologies (Cheng and Deng, 2015). During the operation and management stages, 2D utility maps in GIS were integrated into the BIM environment to develop 3D integrated models (Liu and Issa, 2012).…”

“…The current approaches to BIM for utility infrastructure are fairly limited to 3D visualization of pipelines (Liu and Issa, 2012; Cheng and Deng, 2015; Chong et al , 2016; Zhao et al , 2019). Limited studies have discussed the use of BIM for the maintenance and management of utility information (Chang and Lin, 2014) and they were limited to the extent of 3D BIM.…”

Integration of Digital Technologies into Underground Utility Asset Management

“…The model additionally provides details on the currently available software and tools for technology integration. Our model conceptually follows the previously described framework established by Cheng and Deng [35]. The advantage of our model representing the process for 2D -3D conversion is that the desired integration can be accomplished by packaging commercially available software without any need for writing customized codes.…”

“…The use of digital twins is continually expanding through rapid developments in connectivity through IoT [17]. Talmaki et al [14] Cheng and Deng [35] presented a framework that was developed for generating 3D models from 2D as-built drawings. The process model proposed by the authors consisted of three components, which were the GIS environment, the BIM model, and an integrating engine that linked the two environments together.…”

Visual Analytics for Operation-Level Construction Monitoring and Documentation: State-of-the-Art Technologies, Research Challenges, and Future Directions

“…Many researchers have thus developed computer vision technologies that can understand onsite images and extract useful information automatically. Previous research has shown the potential of computer vision technologies for diverse operation-level monitoring applications, such as productivity measurement (Bügler et al, 2017;Kim et al, , 2019c and safety analysis (Seo et al, 2015b).…”