Analysis of BIM and GIS
integration: results from
literature review and
questionnaire
Ruixue Liu and Yicheng Zhong
MASTER THESIS 2021
Master in Product Development with a specialization
SUSTAINABLE BUILDING INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
This thesis work has been carried out at the School of Engineering in Jönköping in the subject
area Product development - Sustainable Building Information Management. The work is a
part of the Master of Science with a major Product development, specialization in Sustainable
Building Information Management.
The authors take full responsibility for opinions, conclusions and findings presented.
Examiner: Christoph Merschbrock
Supervisor: Annika Moscati
Scope: 30 credits (second cycle)
Date: 2021/06/11
ADDRESS:School of Engineering, P.O Box 1026, SE-551 11 Jönköping, Sweden VISIT:Gjuterigatan 5, Campus, Building E
PHONE:+46 (0)36 10 10 00 WEB:www.ju.se
Analysis of BIM and GIS integration: results from literature review and
questionnaire
Ruixue Liu and Yicheng Zhong 1Jönköping University, Jönköping 551 11, Sweden 2Jönköping University, Jönköping 551 11, Sweden
liru18rt@student.ju.se zhyi18sl@student.ju.se
Abstract. BIM (Building Information Model) and GIS (Geographic Information System) have been rapidly
developed in recent years due to their respective strengths in projects. But these two systems are totally different on focus, reference systems and data storage. With the increasing discussion about integrated BIM-GIS and technologies development, application fields, solutions and challenges are continuously updated and developed. However, the actual application of BIM and GIS integration has not been better implemented because it is restricted to certain extent by different regions, different projects and certain technical constraints. To better explore the integration of BIM and GIS, this paper reviews the development progress of BIM and GIS integration, the exiting integration methods at data level, process level and application level, and the remaining integrated challenges through the studies of 43 relevant research articles, and analyzes the actual situation of integration application through the results of questionnaire. Based on the literature review and a questionnaire, there are still technical problems in BIM-GIS integration including transformation accuracy, semantic simplification and geometric information filtering and so on, and integrated BIM-GIS is currently rarely used in the AEC industry. But due to the benefits of the integration, there is no doubt that integrated BIM-GIS system can bring significant value to the AEC industry.
Keywords: Geographic Information System; Building Information Model; Integration; AEC industry.
1.
Introduction
With the development of digital technology, Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have been developed in recent decades and continue to bring benefits to stakeholders. Implementing BIM technology can contribute to reducing project costs, improving productivity and quality, lowering project delivery time [1], facilitating sustainable building development during the design, construction and operation stages and supporting sustainable building assessment and analysis [2]. Meanwhile, using GIS could provide users with 2D/3D visual and digital images of the physical world, and its application presents a series of potential benefits [3]. The benefit of GIS include that it could further collect, store, manage, calculate, analyze and describe spatial information. However, these two systems are extremely different in reference systems, 3D geometric representation, data format and data storage. For example, BIM pays attention to detailed building components and project information, including building structures and appearances, as well as attributes including owner, history, and cost. In contrast, GIS typically focuses on the shape of buildings and building components and related geographic information from a geographic perspective. The differences between the two systems make the integration of BIM-GIS difficult to a certain extent, although the integration
will bring advantages for integrated applications in different fields such as energy analysis, cost estimation, and indoor navigation [4].
The integration of BIM and GIS is constantly being discussed, including the benefits, challenges and three levels of integration (data level, process level and application level [4]). With the rapid development of the two systems, different levels of integration are proposed to address the differences between BIM and GIS. For example, Bai,Y at al (2017) [5] raised the use of Exact Transformation and Loading (ETL) as a method to solve the geometrical data conversion between BIM and GIS. However, the implementation of integration is limited by different regions, different projects and certain technical constraints. In this paper, the authors investigated the integration of BIM and GIS in theory and practice under the three related questions:
1) why did the integration of BIM and GIS start?
In this section, the development, benefits and application fields of BIM and GIS integration are discussed and explored. The second question addressed in this paper is:
2) how can BIM and GIS be integrated?
Given many differences between BIM and GIS, including differences in focus, data format and structure. The answer to the second question will look at the ways of integration (data level, process level and application level) related to the differences between BIM and GIS. As the ways of integration evolve, a third question follows:
3) What are the challenges of BIM and GIS integration?
For this question, the barriers to integration of two systems are discussed from different aspects, such as knowledge, technologies and other aspects. The answers to these questions further explore the differences between theory and real application situation and provide some direction for the development of BIM-GIS integration in the future.
This paper aims to examine the development of BIM-GIS integration, suggest some integrated ways to address the differences of two systems, and discuss the challenges during BIM-GIS integration. In Section 2, the literature review and questionnaire are described in detail. Section 3 focuses on the integrated development, ways and challenges between BIM and GIS based on literature review, discussing the integrated application fields, integration of BIM and GIS at data level, process level and application level, and various challenges in terms of technology, specifications, privacy issues and so on. In Section 4, the actual situation of integrated BIM-GIS in the AEC industry is described based on the questionnaire results. The questionnaire is mainly divided into four parts involving general personal information, integrated advantages, solutions and challenges, and set up open-ended and closed-ended questions. For this survey, a total of 53 responses were received, most of which came from China. The answers from the questionnaire reflect that the respondents did not commonly used integrated BIM-GIS, nor do they know BIM-GIS integration very well.In Section 5, by comparing the information obtained from the literature review and questionnaire, BIM-GIS integration will be discussed in depth to a certain extent. Besides, some limitations and furture directions also will be discussed and explored. In general, the integration of BIM and GIS would present more advantages in the future with the development of various technologies and improve the AEC industry development.
2.
Materials/Methods
For this study, a literature review and a questionnaire have been used as scientific methods. The literature review aimed to understand BIM and GIS through the development, the solution, and the integration challenges. After in depth search of literatures, the search strategy was to divide the study into three keyword clusters:
- (bim OR "building information model" OR "building information management") AND (gis OR "geographic information system") AND (review);
- (bim OR "building information model") AND (gis OR "geographic information system") AND (data interoperability);
- (bim OR "building information model") AND (gis OR "geographic information system") AND (integrat*)
With the first cluster, the relevant literature about the development progress of BIM, GIS, and BIM-GIS integration can be found to analyze the reason for the integration. The second cluster enables the improvement of finding solutions for the challenges during the integration of BIM and GIS with different levels. The last one can not only reveal those earliest kinds of literature on integration but also provide an exhaustive search for solutions and challenges.
Based on Karimi and Iordanova (2021) [6], qualitative analysis was conducted to identify the papers most relevant to formulated question in the introduction. Figure 1 illustrates the overall method used in this study. As exhibited in the figure, the initial keywords including (bim OR "building information model") AND (gis OR "geographic information system") AND (integrat*) are performed on Scopus, with a total of 343 document results. After a preliminary understanding of the integrated BIM-GIS literatures, new keywords were added to the paper identification process, namely (bim OR "building information model" OR “building information management”) AND (gis OR "geographic information system") AND (review) and (bim OR "building information model") AND (gis OR "geographic information system") AND (data interoperability), with 79 documents and 75 documents retrieved, respectively. After removing repetitions, titles, keywords, abstracts, and contents were carefully read to determine the hits related to the targeted domain. Finally, 43 academic papers were analyzed qualitatively.
Fig.1. The process of searching related literatures.
The questionnaire approach was used to investigate the current practical application of the BIM-GIS integration. In this way, different responses could gather for a group of participants that could serve the primary goal of the research [7]. Because China publishes the most documents about BIM and GIS integration (according to the document retrieval results), in order to better understand the actual situation of the integration in different places, open-ended and close-ended questions were designed on Google Forms in English and Chinese and delivered to different AEC companies through LinkedIn and via email. 53 responses have been received in total.
The questions addressed the four aspects: generic personal information, integrated benefits, integrated solutions, and integrated challenges. Generic questions were employed to understand the general situation of the respondents and if they use BIM or GIS or integrated system. Besides, the questions related to integrated
benefits, integrated solutions, and integrated challenges were set to analyze their understanding of integrated BIM-GIS and explore the application and measures that have been used in real projects.
3.
Literature review
3.1. Development of BIM-GIS integration
The scientific research on integrating BIM and GIS systems has only started in the recent decade [8], which is a relatively short period, comparing with GIS that can be traced back to the 1960s and BIM developed in the early 1980s. In addition, since BIM and GIS were originally developed for different purposes, many challenges have arisen during the integration [9]. Thus, to better understand these two different domains and their integration, BIM and GIS development progresses should be studied to investigate the development of BIM-GIS integration.
The term "geographic information system" was proposed by Roger Tomlinson when he published his scientific paper "geographic information system for regional planning" in 1968 [10]. From the 1970s to 2000s, geographic information system (GIS) has undergone a series of development processes, such as computer mapping, spatial database management, visualization-based map analysis, spatial statistical modeling, and the implementation of CityGML (an open data model and XML-based format for the storage and exchange of virtual 3D city models) [3]. It can be widely applied in various fields such as regional planning, disaster monitoring, agriculture and infrastructure maintenance and land survey, cadastral management, environmental management [11].
The concept of BIM was first known as a building description system in 1974, a database capable of describing buildings in detail, allowing design and construction [12]. Industry foundation classes (IFC) were released in 1997 and developed by International Alliance for Interoperability (IAI) [13], realizing the information sharing between different AEC procedures. It was not until Autodesk released a white paper called "building information modeling" in 2002 that the terms "building information model" and "building information model" (including the acronym "BIM") gradually became mainstream [14]. Afterward, BIM has been rapidly improved with the introduction of Omniclass (building information classification and coding system) in 2006 and the National BIM Standard in 2007 [15] in 2007. Now BIM, which can realize document management, coordination, and simulation in the whole life cycle of the project, has a significant role in the AEC industry [16].
As discussed above, the 2000s is an era of rapid development for BIM and GIS. With the development of GIS, the concept of the 3D city was put forward [17]. However, the primary source of the 3D city was from aerial photography [18] or laser scanning [19] in the case of GIS only, making it unable to attain sufficient geometric and semantic information of buildings. However, with the development of BIM, researchers found that the BIM model can be used as the main body of buildings in 3D cities. In 2007, Isikdag et al. (2007) [13] presented that BIM (IFC model) could include geometric and semantic information of building elements in the object-oriented data structure, in which semantic information and spatial relations could be derived. Simultaneously, the development of CityGML enabled the GIS system to support 3D geometry (in geometric models) and spatial relationships (in topological models). Given these two technological developments, the 3D city process could be promoted through the comprehensive utilization of the building and geospatial information. Besides, Isikdag et al. (2007) [13] firstly proposed the method of integrating and successfully applied it in fire response management. Then in 2008, Isikdag et al. (2008) [20] further applied the integration of BIM-GIS to site selection. In the following decade, researchers conducted continuous in-depth studies of integration and have realized that the integration of these two fields can achieve mutual benefits, win-win results, and form a strong
synergy. For example, using integration model can not only establish indoor networks for emergency response [24] [25], expand noise assessment from regional level to indoor level [22], and assess the impact of flood on buildings [28], but also construct high energy efficiency buildings [5], keep track of the supply chain status [23] and minimize construction waste [30] and so on. According to Kurwi (2019) [7], the following are examples of lifecycle phases where integrating BIM and GIS can be used:
Lifecycle phases Application
Planning and Design
Site selection [20]
Climatic assessment through integrating BIM design models and climate data from GIS databases [21]
Evaluate and optimize energy-efficiency performance by semantic web technologies [5]
Interior acoustic design base on an integrated BIM-GIS platform [22] Construction Managing supply chain in a visualized construction supply chain management
system [23] Operation
and Maintenance
Emergency response and indoor navigation [20] [24] [25] Facility asset management [26]
Detecting and mapping the information for pipe networks [27] Heritage protection base on an integrated BIM-GIS platform [28] Flood damage assessment (FDA) [29]
Demolition Waste estimation, waste sorting and calculation [30]
Table 1. Examples of integrated BIM and GIS applications.
3.2. Ways of BIM-GIS integration
The levels of integration are proposed to achieve data interoperability and exchange information between BIM and GIS [31]. These levels are divided into three parts: data, process, and application levels [31]. The data level and process level are detailed into two sublevels (geometric level and semantic level, semantic web technologies and services-based methods), while application level is neglected to a certain extent.
Data level
Geometry Level
At the geometry level, the integrated way is based on the differences in reference system, 3D geometric representation and level of detail (LOD) between BIM and GIS. The first of these differences concerns the use of different reference systems; BIM adopts a local placement system, while GIS applies a geographic coordination system (GCS). Transforming the two systems requires calculating the transition matrix, bridging matrix M and the origin difference ∆ [32]. Alternatively, the three coordinate transformations are adopted (the world coordinate system (T1), the local coordinate system (T2), and the local 2D coordinate system (T3)) to create the transformation process that enables the same form of system to achieve different purposes in the conversion process [4].
The second difference is that BIM and GIS represent 3D geometry in different ways. BIM adopts the IFC as a standardized open data model which has three representation paradigms for volumetric objects, including Constructive Solid Geometry (CSG), Sweep Solid (SS), and Boundary Representation(B-rep). Compared with
BIM, the GIS platform adopts the CityGML and shapefile, which are the most common data format. For the CityGML format, the boundary representation is only selected to express 3D geometry. Hence, the solutions are formed with many possible between IFC (CSG, SS, B-Rep) and CityGMl/ shapefile(B-Rep). For instance, open-source computational geometry library VTK can be adopted to implement the conversion from CSG to B-Rep [31]. In addition, Deng et al. (2016) [33] employed the data mapping coordination system conversion function to achieve the conversion from IFC B-Rep to CityGML B-Rep and from IFC Sweep Solid to CityGML B-Rep.
The last difference in geometry level is the level of detail (LOD) for BIM and GIS; IFC and CityGML have different classifications. According to the level of development (LOD) concept, both IFC and CityGML divide the level of detail (LOD) into five categories, with IFC from LOD100 to LOD500 and CityGML is divided from LOD0 to LOD4. Different definitions of LOD increase the difficulty of data mapping between BIM and GIS. CityGML defines LOD0 as FootPrint and RoofEdge in the building model. Nevertheless, LOD100 in IFC is only defined as the concept of model element in IFC without any geometric representation. The LODs in them cannot correspond to each other, causing some information or data to be lost during the building model conversion between IFC and CityGML. Therefore, many solutions can be chosen, such as, exporting different data types containing GeoBIM extended data to CityGML LOD4 in BIMserver [34], transferring the IFC model to LOD3 through an automated process containing filtered objects and building exterior envelopes, and store it as CityGML Solid and multi-surface [35].
Semantic Level
At the semantic level, some problems also need to be solved. One of the problems is the mismatch problem related to the different definitions and classifications of BIM and GIS. For example, BIM defines doors, windows, and door opening elements as ifcdoor, ifcwindow, and ifcOpeningElement, while GIS generalizes them as doors and windows opening. To better transfer the information, De Laat, et al. (2011) [34] employed the schema extension (such as GeoBIM extension) to converse IFC data into CityGML in the open-source Building Information Modelserver. However, it is not easy to acquire all semantic information from IFC in CityGML. The limitation forces researchers to analyze the potential extensions of the BIM data model to incorporate multi-scale representations of the project and transform them into a CityGML [36]. It would result in an automated update for the modification of an object. Then, a new approach using the Word Hash Method based on Letter Trigram (WHSMM) has been proposed since it further presents superior performance over other language-based semantic mapping methods for better transformations [37]. Besides, the Exact Transform and Load (ETL) is designed and applied with a semi-automatic way to convert data between BIM and GIS. In the ETL process, BIM and GIS are converted to resource description framework (RDF) to solve data interoperability and the inability to meet community energy design requirements [5]. It could help large-scale projects, such as urban communities, abstract and low-level information to describe the building. This approach not only benefits batch data conversion but also improves its reusability and scalability. The ETL concept was tested and validated using facilities management (FM) to develop a prototype that implemented FM use cases [38].
For another perceptive, the BIM-GIS integration requires some new standards to build the bridge for transformation since BIM and GIS have different standards (IFC and CItyGML). Based on IndoorGML Standard Working Group, OGC IndoorGML was developed as an application solution and used to exchange information related to indoor navigation [39]. The ontology integration between the indoor information of IFC and the GIS ontology of OGC IndoorGML can be completed by executing the SPARQL query language [40]. Besides, OGC LandInfra / InfraGML is a standard supporting land and civil engineering infrastructure [41]. Although the OGC LandInfra / InfraGML has been recognized as a candidate by a few potential use cases and
enables to work as a bridge between BIM and GIS, little information is available on software support and practices for OGC InfraGML [42]. Moreover, IFC EXPRESS mode can be used to build a unified modeling language (UML) to link the BIM and GIS through conversing schema, such as using special rule and the open-source software ShapeChange convert IFC to UML and then to GML [43]. Furthermore, users enable to evaluate the building further and visualize it in 3D effectively with creating the new model as a profile of GML [19].
Process level
Semantic Web Technologies
At the process level, the integration of BIM and GIS will not change the data format and structure. Therefore, the reference ontology as part of the Semantic Web or Web Service is used to expand the potential of its cross-domain architecture mapping to store and present the differences of objects [44]. For example, Rosse and Mejino. (2003) [45] earlier adopted the FMA (Foundational Model of Anatomy) as a reference ontology to correlate different biomedical informatics views. Afterward, detailed and expressive ontology and semantic web technologies were applied to integrate GIS, BIM, and a series of isolation systems, such as smart metering, the clean wastewater network, and the scientific water supply system [46]. Besides, a fully automated method model to obtain integrated data is developed by using semantic network technology in managing highway routes of more significant landscapes [22]. The semantic web technologies assist in addressing the data interoperability and satisfying the data requirement for community energy design to a certain extent. However, there are still challenges in leveraging semantic Web technologies, including the Web Ontology Language (OWL) and Resource Description Framework (RDF) [5]. For instance, there is no a standard ontology and required knowledge base [47].
Services-Based Methods
The other solution is the services-based method, which addresses the integration of BIM and GIS by internet, rather than developing a new web-service type. The method is ordinarily effective because of semantic and geometric conversion and less information loss [9]. One of the cases is using a web-based system to analyze and visualize disasters, such as floods. Moreover, it also could help users to link different building levels and data domains with a 3D building framework.
Application level
At this Level, integration methods generally involve rebuilding; suggesting that the existing BIM or GIS tool is either modified as a medium to exchange and integrate information [48]. This integration method is usually costly and inflexible. They can support specific projects, and some examples could be integration approaches displayed by specific cases, or methods described. For example, the customized plug-in gained from BIM can be employed to exact required information from GIS and store it in the central database [49]. Moreover, a multi-disciplinary approach is described and used to underpin the collaborative research project. This method encompasses all scales and lifecycle phases of the built environment to achieve a more effective expansion of the project that is the holistic design of energy-efficient buildings on a neighborhood scale [50].
3.3. Challenges of BIM-GIS integration
At present, many papers on the integration of BIM-GIS have proposed various solutions, especially the challenges related to data conversion. Although many problems have been solved theoretically and many solutions have been successfully tested under the background of "idealization", some technical and
non-technical problems remain to be solved.
Mismatching information is the main problem in the process of data integration. According to Wang et al. (2019) [8], the BIM model data is vast and complex, and IFC objects possess hundreds of different types, in which the stored information has different attributes and geometric expressions. Despite the relatively simple structure of the CityGML 3D model corresponding to GIS, most of the information used to represent the association and attributes between features in IFC may disturb the geometric mapping process between IFC and CityGML, resulting in the loss of geometric data. Besides, geometric transformation may be ambiguities that thus have to be resolved because BIM and GIS geometries are modeled differently. To date, transformation of different 3D representation between BIM and GIS exists some problems, although the transformation from IFC CSG, sweep, and B-rep to CityGML B-rep separately has been realized and proposed some solutions separately. However, only the transformation from CityGML B-rep to IFC B-rep is available; in the reverse direction, the transformation of other shapes to B-rep has not developed [52] [32]. Additionally, when data is transformed between IFC and CityGML, the two most critical semantic models may have a semantic loss of features. For example, the inner and outer walls of a natural building will become the same object after conversion. The reason for the mismatch problems existing for the semantic transformation is that the number of definitions in IFC is much more than CityGML. As a result, some objects of IFC would be ignored during the integration. The different definitions cannot produce a good mapping between BIM and GIS, such as on the Level of Detail (LOD). As one of the GIS formats, the shapefiles are usually neglected in the integration process [51]. It is also the most-used exchange data format in the GIS industry to support 3D geometry and can be exchanged with IFC. In comparison, it does not have a definition of LOD, making the LOD transformation difficult.
The next one is about the automation of the matching process. Ding et al. (2020) [37] proposed that many integration methods (including manual checking of complex and heterogeneous model files) are time-consuming and weak in generalization. Thus, many mapping methods have been proposed to better combine IFC and CityGML. Among them, the mapping of semantic and geometric information is two necessary processes. In most integration methods, semantic information mapping is manually performed by domain experts. Although these manual methods can produce the right mapping, they are time-consuming and must be performed by experts in BIM and GIS. Therefore, the automation of computer-aided semantic mapping is very necessary for the integration between IFC and CityGML. However, it is difficult to realize the full automation of the matching process at present [54]. Besides, transfering information from BIM to GIS can lead to the problem of information overload since BIM and GIS contain a great quantity of information about the project. For instance, the size of a complex single building model loaded in BIM may reach several GB. The whole city's data size, including thousands of buildings, would be difficult to be handled [31]. Hence, new technologies and innovative methods are required to reduce the data size and keep completed information.
Moreover, there is a lack of norms for integration. At present, most of the integration methods are conducted in specific scenarios, resulting in lack of real experience in industrial management practice. Therefore, the technical standards of GIS and BIM integration are not unified, and the standardization construction cannot be realized [49]. Although a new standard was built to complete the transformation, such as IndoorGML and InfraGML/LandInfra, these standards do not fully complete the required transformation. For instance, LandInfra is much closer to 3D GIM models than to BIM models during implement the integration while it can cause limited interoperability to BIM formats [38] [53].
Meanwhile, many other ways need to be considered and addressed. With integrating BIM and GIS, practitioners need to grasp BIM, GIS and integrated technological knowledge [54]. Besides, integration needs to be fully resolved for all the data storage, especially for the older buildings. Since the older buildings have no system to store the complete information of them. It would be tough to integrate BIM and GIS for them. The
integration of BIM and GIS is connected with various stakeholders who have different access rights and restrictions for the database. However, there are some databases unavailable for many organizations, such as the government. Hence, the privacy issue is a considered factor for integrating BIM and GIS [55]. These unsolved barriers need to be further improved to develop the integrated methods and promote the AEC industry development.
4.
Questionnaire
Questions set in the questionnaire are mainly classified into the general personal information, integrated benefits, integrated methods, and integrated challenges. Through the analysis of the answers from respondents who have knowledge and experience related to any of, BIM, GIS and in AEC industry, to access the current status of integrated BIM-GIS in the AEC industry. All the questions can be found in Appendix A, and the figures mentioned in this section can be found in Appendix B.
Regarding profession/role, the purpose of the questionnaire is to understand the actual application of the integrated BIM-GIS in the AEC industry. Thus, the occupation of the respondent is also related to the fields such as AEC industry, including BIM modeler, BIM engineer, BIM consultant, Management consultant, HVAC Engineer, Cost Engineer, GIS developer, Construction supervisor, CAD designer, Civil engineer, and Land surveyor. (See figure 2 in appendix B for more information)
Figures 3 and 4 demonstrate that most of the respondents come from China and work in medium or large companies/organizations. The most significant number of respondents working in large companies/organizations came from the public sector. In small and medium-sized companies/organizations, the number of people working in the private sector accounts for the highest proportion. Specifically, only two people work in other sectors including one from a foreign company with more than 200 employees. The other is from Public, private, and academia, whose profession/role is Chartered Engineer and academic. As illustrated in Figure 5, among the 53 respondents, 27 (about 51%) used BIM only while only 2 (4%) used GIS only, 11 persons (21%) did not use the technology related to BIM or GIS, 10 (19%) used BIM and GIS, but not integrated, and only 3 of them used integrated BIM-GIS, accounting for 5% of the total.
For those who did not use integrated BIM-GIS, the result of the last question they answered is presented in Figure 6. Among the 50 respondents, 27 (54%) believed that the BIM-GIS integration could benefit them. In the remaining 23 respondents, 21 did not know, and 2 did not consider that it would be beneficial. Those who used integrated BIM-GIS technology need to answer further questions about BIM-GIS integration. As exhibited in Figure 7, 2 respondents used software and platform to integrate BIM and GIS, respectively, while the other applied various methods including software and platform to integrate BIM and GIS base on the needs of clients.
On the question Which kind of fields that BIM-GIS integration can be used in, it is illustrated in Figure 8 that only 1 respondent chose all the options except None of them, besides, he added that the integrated BIM-GIS could also be used for temporary works and telecoms, but without any explanation about how to use. The other two respondents each chose only one option, one thought BIM-GIS integration just could be used in traffic design, the other thought that it was only applicable to facility asset management. Concerning their opinions of integrated BIM-GIS, 3 respondents believed that integrating BIM-GIS was beneficial to the projects, designers and engineers, and the number of persons working with integrated BIM-GIS had increased during the last five years, as revealed in Figure 9. But on the other two statements about delivery time and cost, there was one objection.
There were few answers replying to the number of projects using integrated BIM and GIS. One of the respondents gave the specific number 5 to 10 while the others could not provide the specific number of projects
because it also depended on the clients and specific project. The application of integration covered the different stages of building. Nevertheless, using the integration of BIM and GIS in demolition was less than the other stages of building (Figure 10). For integrating BIM and GIS, two organizations developed the method/procedure through data integration and layer overlay, but one organization has not done that. Simultaneously, one responder stated that the integrated solutions usually depend on client requirements and capabilities based on the two BIM standards (previously the UK PAS series for BIM). The question Did you or your organization
encounter challenges during integrating BIM and GIS? aimed to explore the following questions about
challenges and solutions. Figure 11 presents that the different coordination systems were significant challenges for some responders who work with BIM and GIS integration, accounting for about 66.7%. It is the same percentage as the Other option, including the different cultures and technical need for trust, and the integration of BIM and multi-source data. The other challenges are different formats and standards, and lack of expert knowledge. Meanwhile, in response to these challenges, three respondents gave their respective solutions, such as writing conversion program, unifying BIM model with multi-source data, and discussing the challenges, the benefits, the requirements, and trust-achieving.
5.
Discussion
With the development of the concepts of 3D city and smart city, the integration of BIM and GIS is the general trend. By integrating the characteristics of BIM that can parametrically describe the properties of building components and the macro geometric space of GIS, multi-scale urban management from micro to macro can be realized. The emergence of GIS lays the foundation for the intelligent development of the city, such as designing with minimum accidents, earthquake mitigation, and preventing fire hazards [56]. The emergence of BIM attaches the overall information of the city buildings and change the decision-making process in the construction of smart cities [56]. The BIM-GIS integration combines the heterogeneity of information models to obtain effective management of information in all phases of a project life cycle [5]. However, there are many different aspects of data exchange such as application scenarios, data format, geometric representation and standardization [31] because the formats used by BIM and GIS are not the same, resulting in many obstacles to the integration of BIM and GIS.
Although researchers have conducted a lot of research to integrate BIM and GIS in the past decade, according to the questionnaire results, there is still a distance to achieve universal application in the AEC industry. As the questionnaire results revealed, among the 53 respondents, 21% AEC industry employees have never used technologies related to BIM or GIS, and only three are engaged in BIM-GIS integration. Besides, nearly half of the people do not know the benefits of BIM-GIS integration, and 4% responders even believe that the integration of BIM and GIS is not beneficial. Moreover, those who are engaged in BIM-GIS integration work even have a one-sided understanding of BIM-GIS integration rather than a comprehensive understanding. For example, on the question of which fields BIM-GIS integration can be applied to, according to the literatures, all the fields provided in the questionnaire can be applied by BIM-GIS integration, but only one person selected all the fields and supplemented some fields while the rest chose only one field. In addition, from the perspective of respondents, integrated methods also need to consider various factors, for instance, whether companies and organizations have knowledge of advanced technologies, if they have sufficient funds to invest in advanced equipment or software, or whether there are cultural differences and technological trust issues.
The ultimate goal of BIM and GIS integration is to realize the information exchange and sharing between the two systems, indicating that geometric and semantic information can flow freely between BIM and GIS. Although Novapoint and Quadri were used early on to achieve primary BIM and GIS integration [57], the actual
situation is still far from this ultimate goal. The literature review has a detailed description and classification of the integrated ways of BIM and GIS, but the actual integration process is more to use multiple methods mixed together, without detailed classification. Besides, people often adopt multiple approaches instead of a single approach since the information required is not consistent from project to project, and the complexity of the transition between BIM and GIS is not the same. This results in the absence of a unified solution for BIM and GIS conversions. Thus, two systems should provide more information that each other needs to better exchange data between BIM and GIS. For instance, during the transformation process from BIM to GIS, if GIS needs to obtain more building information, BIM needs to provide more detailed 3D models. Additionally, the sections about challenges mention the different coordination systems and some technical issues, reflecting that the challenges focus more on matching the two systems, such as LOD matching at the semantic level. From the technical and human aspects, the integration of data from multiple sources is more important and more demanding. Moreover, with the development of BIM and GIS integration, a number of new challenges emerge. For example, working with companies or organizations from different countries also requires enhanced communication between works, designers, builders and stakeholders.
The literature review and the questionnaire results equip us with a general understanding and more vast and international insight of integrated BIM-GIS. But there are some limitations on the method and questionnaire results as follows. First, questionnaire was the only way we used to collect data to assess the current status of the BIM and GIS integration, but we did not fully consider that participants might write less, which limits the usefulness of open-ended questions, leading to the result that we could not make an accurate judgment on their mastery of the integrated BIM-GIS because the responders did not give detailed answers on the open-ended questions about integration methods and how to deal with the integration challenges. If there was no time limitation, it would be better to conduct a subsequent semi-structured interview based on the results of questionnaire data. Second, the original intention of the questionnaire is to understand the current application of BIM-GIS integration in the AEC industry from different countries while the largest number of respondents in this questionnaire are from China (91%). Thus, this questionnaire result can only explain the current application of integrated BIM-GIS in the Chinese AEC industry, and it might not be representative of the situation of BIM and GIS integration in the UK, Sweden, and the United States.
The future of BIM and GIS integration is promised based on increasing demand for digital platforms, 3D visualization, multi-source data, and smart city. Some problems need to be settled to achieve complete data interoperability between BIM and GIS. Therefore, some suggestions for the future development of integrated BIM-GIS are proposed based on this research on integrated BIM-GIS:
- More people should be familiar or trained in both systems. For example, government should encourage to study BIM and GIS to make the advantages of BIM-GIS integration to be popularized to enable more AEC industry personnel to understand it, especially the current situation in China.
- Multiple approaches and the matching of the two systems should be considered in integrated solutions, considering that these aspects are more applicable to the real situation. For example, using the open-source package and a process level approach with an algorithm transfer fundamental data between BIM and GIS [58]. Since some of the current solutions are likely to be project-specific (such as LOD matching between BIM and GIS, semantic information exchange), the multiple approaches can achieve effectively information.
- Due to global development, integration challenges should consider more factors, such as different regions and different cultures. For example, different regions have differences in technology development and standards, which leads to increase some extra obstacles during application BIM and GIS integration in the AEC industry.
In future work, more aspects of the challenge and hybrid solutions may be considered, such as complex situations to accomplish complete data interoperability between BIM and GIS.
6.
Conclusions
The application of BIM and GIS integration has become a research hotspot in academia and industry with the advance in information technologies and the efforts of individuals and organizations. The integration of BIM and GIS enables the exchange and mutual operation of BIM information in the micro-domain and GIS information in the macro-domain. In this paper, the development, methods and challenges of BIM-GIS integration are reviewed, and the current actual application of BIM-GIS integration are statistically summarized through the analysis of literatures and questionnaire result. In the integrating BIM-GIS development, a generic approach may emerge rather than a solution generated for a specific project, leading to increasing the new issues, such as huge data handling. New technologies proposed would increase requirement of talents in these fields. It contributes to an upward trend in the demand for cross-disciplinary talent. In general, demand-driven, talent training in the fields of BIM and GIS as well as collaboration and government initiatives are the three key paths to enable the integration of BIM-GIS to overcome the challenges such as model information mismatch, model lightweight, automated mapping and integrated standardization. The seamless integration of BIM and GIS will create a new mode for planning, design, operation and management in the urban and engineering fields, allowing stakeholders to design and manage more rationally, efficiently, and scientifically presenting essential practical significance.
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Appendix A: The Questionnaire
1.What is your profession/role?
2. Which sector do you work in? A. Public
B. Private C. Other
If you choose "Other", please specify.
3. What is the size of your company/organization? A. Large (200 or more employees)
B. Medium (50-199 employees) C. Small (less than 50 employees) D. Other
If you choose "Other", please specify.
4. Where is your company/organization located?
5. Do you use anyone of the following technologies? A. BIM only (Go to 6)
B. GIS only (Go to 6)
C. BIM and GIS, but not integrated (Go to 6) D. Integrated BIM-GIS (Go to 7)
E. None of them (Go to 6)
6. Do you think there would be benefit from integrated BIM-GIS? (Last question) A. Yes
B. No
C. I don’t know
7. In which way do you integrate BIM and GIS? A. Software (I.e. FME)
B. Platform (I.e. Semantic Web) C. System (I.e. Reference system) D. Other
8. Which kind of fields do you know that BIM-GIS integration can be used in? (Multiple choice) A. Site selection
B. Climatic assessment C. Indoor navigation D. Energy management E. Interior acoustic design F. Facility asset management G. Waste management H. Emergency management I. Supply chain management J. None of them
K. Other
If you choose "Other", please specify.
9. To what extent do you agree with the following statements? Strongly
agree Agree Neutral Disagree
Strongly disagree Integrating BIM-GIS is beneficial to the project Integrated BIM-GIS brings benefits to designers and engineers. Integrated BIM-GIS can enhance the project
delivery time Integrated BIM-GIS can improve visual exploration of project.
Using integrated BIM-GIS can reduce the cost of the project The number of
persons working with integrated BIM-GIS during the
last five years has increased.
11. At which stage of the building life cycle do you or your organization use BIM and GIS integration more? (Multiple choice)
A. Planning B. Design C. Construction
D. Operation and Maintenance E. Demolition
12. Did you or your organization develop any method/procedure for the integration of BIM and GIS? A. Yes
B. No
C. I don’t know
13. If 'Yes', What method/procedure is used by you or your organization for the integration?
14. Did you or your organization encounter challenges during integrating BIM and GIS? A. Yes (go to 15)
B. No
C. I don’t know
15. Which kind of problems you meet for integration of BIM and GIS? (Multiple choice) A. Different 3D geometric and semantic representation
B. Different format and standard C. Different coordination systems D. Different Object identification E. Information overload
F. Lack of expert knowledge G. Assessment of data quality H. Validity of information I. Other
If you choose "Other", please specify.
Appendix B: The Questionnaire results
Fig.2. The profession/role of the respondents.
Fig.4. Location of respondents' company/organization.
Fig.5. The using technology of respondents.
Fig.7. The integrated method used by respondents.
Fig.8. The application fields of BIM-GIS integration.
Fig.10. The stage of the building life cycle using BIM and GIS integration more.
