An investigation into the applicability of building information models in geospatial environment in support of site selection and fire response management processes

Abstract

Some tasks in the construction industry and urban management field such as site selection and fire
response management are usually managed by using a Geographical Information System (GIS), as the
tasks in these processes require a high level and amount of integrated geospatial information. Recently,
a key element of this integrated geospatial information to emerge is detailed geometrical and semantic
information about buildings. In parallel, Building Information Models (BIMs) of today have the capacity
for storing and representing such detailed geometrical and semantic information. In this context, the
research aimed to investigate the applicability of BIMs in geospatial environment by focusing specifically
on these two domains; site selection and fire response management. In the first phase of the research two
use case scenarios were developed in order to understand the processes in these domains in a more
detailed manner and to establish the scope of a possible software development for transferring information
from BIMs into the geospatial environment. In the following phase of the research two data models
were developed – a Schema-Level Model View and a geospatial data model. The Schema-Level Model
View was used in simplifying the information acquired from the BIM, while the geospatial data model
acted as the template for creating physical files and databases in the geospatial environment. Following
this, three software components to transfer building information into the geospatial environment were
designed, developed, and validated. The first component served for acquiring the building information
from the BIM, while the latter two served for transforming the information into the geospatial environment.
The overall research demonstrated that it is possible to transfer (high level of geometric and semantic)
information acquired from BIMs into the geospatial environment. The results also demonstrated that
BIMs provide a sufficient level and amount of (geometric and semantic) information (about the building)
for the seamless automation of data management tasks in the site selection and fire response management
processes.
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