Employment of Semantic Web Technologies for Capturing Comprehensive Parametric Building Models

Abstract

Building Information Modelling is a well-known acronym in the construction industry. BIM process is more than modelling buildings, and it provides the opportunity to drive efficiency and effectiveness to the information management of build projects. Accordingly, Building Information Models (BIMs), typically known as semantic three-dimensional parametric models, are fast becoming the comprehensive information source in Architecture, Engineering & Construction (AEC), and Facility Management (FM). The use of BIM in existing buildings has been hampered by the challenges and limitations surrounding the available technologies. The most popular and commonly used approach for generating models is to manually generate 3D artefacts utilizing point measurements extracted from range-based technologies (typically 3D laser scanning). In the recent past, several studies have been carried out to make the retrofit BIM development process as effective and efficient as possible by developing different methods for mapping 3D models using Point Cloud Data (PCD) as the main source of information. However, an appropriate fully generated parametric model is still some way away. In this paper, we review the-state-of-the-art to address the research gap and challenges involved in generating parametric models before outlining the proposal of our approach. In this research, we employ Semantic Web technologies to capture parametric models. Elements are first recognized in PCD, and corresponding geometric information extracted from PCD are then tagged with Universally Unique Identifiers (UUIDs). Tags are then linked with the generated Resource Description Framework (RDF) data for each element. The core and challenging part of this research is the standardization process where RDF as a serialization is translated to Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) as a data model. The generated IFC format is then utilized to capture corresponding models. The primary results are very promising and should be of interest to the modelling of all kinds of building components, particularly historical building information modelling (HBIM).

Practicalities of Incorporating 3D Laser Scanning with BIM in Live Construction Projects: A Case Study

“…Previous research has concentrated on the integration of BIM and 3D laser scanning in existing or historical buildings, with less attention to ongoing construction projects [28,29,31]. Concerning the conventional construction management processes, Building Information Models (BIMs) may lose their efficacy when the embedded information cannot be synchronised with the current construction processes in real time.…”

Application of semantic Web ontologies for the improvement of information exchange in existing buildings

“…COBie cannot be utilised in BIM-driven applications for generating BIM models as it cannot transfer geometries (Farias et al, 2015;Gui, Wang, Qiu, Gui, & Deconinck, 2019). On the other hand, the IFC data model cannot present all kinds of non-geometrical data involved in BIM models (Sadeghineko et al, 2019;Sadeghineko & Kumar, 2020). In this regard, commercial BIM applications largely suffer from the limitations of exchanging data and indirectly capturing 3D models of buildings, particularly existing assets that do not have an appropriate model.…”

“…2.1 Parametric modelling using point cloud data An existing building may not have a 3D as-designed model or indeed any model at all. In such cases, 2D drawings and paper-based or digital documents are the only available information sources for generating BIM models (Sadeghineko et al, 2019(Sadeghineko et al, , 2018. PCD, as the output of the 3D laser scanning technology, is widely used within the AEC domain for generating building models by using existing BIM applications to implement the process of converting PCD into 3 D building models, which is mainly carried out manually.…”

“…Residual Risks, Sustainability Performance, Expected Life, and Risks), may need to be combined with the 3D model for generating a genuinely semantically enriched 3D building model. In current practice, approaches proposed and developed in the literature mainly focus on the detection of geometries in PCD rather than the information required in BIM models (Volk et al, 2014;Sadeghineko, Kumar, & Chan, 2019).…”

Methodology for retrospectively developing a BIM model from point cloud scans using ongoing building project as case study

“…Building Information Modelling (BIM) attracts growing interest within the AEC domain due to its role in enhancing processes and associated technologies (Amin & Abanda 2019;Sadeghineko et al, 2019). The unique nature of BIM as a process is its capability of being supported by a variety of tools, technologies and protocols that involve the generation, storage, management and sharing of digital representations of the physical and functional properties of the building (Kavaliauskas et al, 2022).…”