scholarly journals From IFC to 3D Tiles: An Integrated Open-Source Solution for Visualising BIMs on Cesium

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (10) ◽  
pp. 393 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yiqun Chen ◽  
Erfan Shooraj ◽  
Abbas Rajabifard ◽  
Soheil Sabri

The 3D Tiles specification, created by Cesium, is designed for streaming massive heterogeneous three-dimensional (3D) geospatial datasets online using WebGL technology. The program has prevailed in the WebGIS community due to its ability to visualise, interact, and style 3D objects for various scenarios, such as 3D cities, indoor environments, and point clouds. It offers a new opportunity to integrate Building Information Models (BIM) in the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) data format with existing geospatial data in a 3D WebGIS platform with open-source implementation. As no open-source solution for converting IFC models into 3D Tiles for online visualization had yet been found, this paper explores feasible approaches and integrates a range of tools and libraries as an open-source solution for the community.

Author(s):  
D. Guler ◽  
T. Yomralioglu

Abstract. Owing to the increasing existence of multistorey buildings and infrastructures in the built environment, there is a need for three-dimensional (3D) land administration systems (LAS). Regarding this, condominium rights in real-estate properties are needed to be represented as 3D for preventing misinterpretations with regards to who is responsible for or has ownership in which parts of the buildings. Digitalizing the public services appears in current strategies of governments and administrations since it contributes to transparency, speed, and accurateness in the processes. Building permitting that contains obtaining the occupancy permit is a vital one of these public services. With the even-increasing adaptation of Building Information Modelling (BIM), a whole raft of Building Information Models (BIMs) are created to use in digital building permitting. Thus, a significant opportunity for 3D delineation of condominium rights comes out of the reuse of these BIMs, especially their Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) data. In this sense, this paper puts forward an approach that includes developing the conceptual model to depict condominium rights and linking that model with the IFC schema. The applicability of the approach is demonstrated by using a floor of a simple building. The study shows that IFC-based representation of condominium rights can be beneficial for the transition to 3D LAS in Turkey.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (9) ◽  
pp. 355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rudi Stouffs ◽  
Helga Tauscher ◽  
Filip Biljecki

The Singapore Government has embarked on a project to establish a three-dimensional city model and collaborative data platform for Singapore. The research herein contributes to this endeavour by developing a methodology and algorithms to automate the conversion of Building Information Models (BIM), in the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) data format, into CityGML building models, capturing both geometric and semantic information as available in the BIM models, and including exterior as well as interior structures. We adopt a Triple Graph Grammar (TGG) to formally relate IFC and CityGML, both semantically and geometrically, and to transform a building information model, expressed as an IFC object graph, into a city model expressed as a CityGML object graph. The work pipeline includes extending the CityGML data model with an Application Domain Extension (ADE), which allows capturing information from IFC that is relevant in the geospatial context but at the same time not supported by CityGML in its standard form. In this paper, we elaborate on the triple graph grammar approach and the motivation and roadmap for the development of the ADE. While a fully complete and lossless conversion may never be achieved, this paper suggests that both a TGG and an ADE are natural choices for supporting the conversion between IFC and CityGML.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (8) ◽  
pp. 307 ◽  
Author(s):  
Per-Ola Olsson ◽  
Josefine Axelsson ◽  
Martin Hooper ◽  
Lars Harrie

The building permission process is to a large extent an analogue process where much information is handled in paper format or as pdf files. With the ongoing digitalisation in society, there is a potential to automate this process by integrating Building Information Models (BIM) of planned buildings and geospatial data to check if a building conforms to the building permission regulations. In this study, an inventory of which regulations in the (Swedish) detailed development plans that can be automatically checked or supported by 3D visualisation was conducted. Then, two of these regulations, the building height and the building footprint area, were studied in detail to find to which extent they can be automatically checked by integration of BIM and geospatial data. In addition, a feasibility study of one visual criterion was conducted. One concern when automating the building permission process is the variability of content within the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) data model. Variations in modelling methods and model content leads to differences in IFC models’ content and structure; these differences complicate automated processes. To facilitate automated processes, requirements on the production of IFC models for building permission applications could be defined in the form of model view definitions or delivery specifications.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 3649
Author(s):  
Tae Ho Kwon ◽  
Sang I. Park ◽  
Young-Hoon Jang ◽  
Sang-Ho Lee

Building information modeling (BIM) has been widely applied in conjunction with the industry foundation class (IFC) for buildings and infrastructure such as railways. However, a limitation of the BIM technology presents limitations that make designing the three-dimensional (3D) alignment-based information models difficult. Thus, the time and effort required to create a railway track model are increased, while the reliability of the model is reduced. In this study, we propose a methodology for developing an alignment-based independent railway track model and extended IFC models containing railway alignment information. The developed algorithm using BIM software tools allows for a discontinuous structure to be designed. The 3D alignment information connects different BIM software tools, and the classification system and IFC schema for expressing railway tracks are extended. Moreover, the classification system is fundamental for assigning IFC entities to railway components. Spatial and hierarchical entities were created through a developed user interface. The proposed methodology was implemented in an actual railway track test. The possibility of managing IFC-based railway track information, including its 3D alignment information, was confirmed. The proposed methodology can reduce the modeling time and can be extended to other alignment-based structures, such as roads.


Author(s):  
Bonsang Koo ◽  
Raekyu Jung ◽  
Youngsu Yu ◽  
Inhan Kim

Abstract Data interoperability between domain-specific applications is a key prerequisite for building information modeling (BIM) to solidify its position as a central medium for collaboration and information sharing in the construction industry. The Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) provides an open and neutral data format to standardize data exchanges in BIM, but is often exposed to data loss and misclassifications. Concretely, errors in mappings between BIM elements and IFC entities may occur due to manual omissions or the lack of awareness of the IFC schema itself, which is broadly defined and highly complex. This study explored the use of geometric deep learning models to classify infrastructure BIM elements, with the ultimate goal of automating the prechecking of BIM-to-IFC mappings. Two models with proven classification performance, Multi-View Convolutional Neural Network (MVCNN) and PointNet, were trained and tested to classify 10 types of commonly used BIM elements in road infrastructure, using a dataset of 1496 3D models. Results revealed MVCNN as the superior model with ACC and F1 score values of 0.98 and 0.98, compared with PointNet's corresponding values of 0.83 and 0.87, respectively. MVCNN, which employs multiple images to learn the features of a 3D artifact, was able to discern subtle differences in their shapes and geometry. PointNet seems to lose the granularity of the shapes, as it uses points partially selected from point clouds.


Author(s):  
Y. Dehbi ◽  
J.-H. Haunert ◽  
L. Plümer

3D city and building models according to CityGML encode the geometry, represent the structure and model semantically relevant building parts such as doors, windows and balconies. Building information models support the building design, construction and the facility management. In contrast to CityGML, they include also objects which cannot be observed from the outside. The three dimensional indoor models characterize a missing link between both worlds. Their derivation, however, is expensive. The semantic automatic interpretation of 3D point clouds of indoor environments is a methodically demanding task. The data acquisition is costly and difficult. The laser scanners and image-based methods require the access to every room. Based on an approach which does not require an additional geometry acquisition of building indoors, we propose an attempt for filling the gaps between 3D building models and building information models. Based on sparse observations such as the building footprint and room areas, 3D indoor models are generated using combinatorial and stochastic reasoning. The derived models are expanded by a-priori not observable structures such as electric installation. Gaussian mixtures, linear and bi-linear constraints are used to represent the background knowledge and structural regularities. The derivation of hypothesised models is performed by stochastic reasoning using graphical models, Gauss-Markov models and MAP-estimators.


CivilEng ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 174-192
Author(s):  
Alcinia Zita Sampaio ◽  
Augusto Martins Gomes

The building information modelling (BIM) methodology supports collaborative works, based on the centralization of all information in a federated BIM model and on an efficient level of interoperability between BIM-based platforms. Concerning the structure design, the interoperability capacity of the most used software presents limitations that must be identified and alternative solutions must be proposed. This study analyzes the process of transfer of structure models between modeling and structure analysis tools. Distinct building cases were performed in order to recognize the type of limitations verified in the transfer processes concerning two-way data flow between several software. The study involves the modeling software ArchiCAD 2020, Revit 2020, and AECOsim 2019 and the structure analyzes tools SAP 2020, Robot 2020, and ETABS 22020. The transfer processes are realized in two ways: using the native data format; using a universal standard data transfer, the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) format. The level of maturity of BIM in structure design is still relatively low, caused essentially by interoperability problems, but despite the limitations detected, this study shows throughout the development of several building case, that the methodology has clear advantages in the development of the structure project.


2020 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 469-481
Author(s):  
Kay Rogage ◽  
David Greenwood

The operation and maintenance of built assets is crucial for optimising their whole life cost and efficiency. Historically, however, there has been a general failure in the transfer information between the design-and-construct (D&C) and operate-and-maintain (O&M) phases of the asset lifecycle. The recent steady uptake of digital technologies, such as Building Information Modelling (BIM) in the D&C phase has been accompanied by an expectation that this would enable better transfer of information to those responsible for O&M. Progress has been slow, with practitioners being unsure as to how to incorporate BIM into their working practices. Three types of challenge are identified, related to communication, experience and technology. In examining the last aspect, it appears that a major problem has been that of interoperability between building information models and the many computer-aided facilities management (CAFM) systems in use. The successful and automatic transfer of information from a building model to an FM tool is, in theory, achievable through the medium of the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) schema. However, this relies upon the authoring of the model in terms of how well its structure permits the identification of relevant objects, their relationships and attributes. The testing of over 100 anonymised building models revealed that very few did; prohibiting their straightforward mapping to the maintenance database we had selected for the test. An alternative, hybrid approach was developed using an open-source software toolkit to identify objects by their geometry as well as their classification, thus enabling their automatic transfer. In some cases, manual transfer proved necessary. The implications are that while these problems can be overcome on a case-by-case basis, interoperability between D&C and O&M systems will not become standard until it is accommodated by appropriate and informed authoring of building models.


Author(s):  
H. Macher ◽  
M. Boudhaim ◽  
P. Grussenmeyer ◽  
M. Siroux ◽  
T. Landes

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> In the context of building renovation, infrared (IR) cameras are widely used to perform the energy audit of buildings. They allow analysing precisely the energetic performances of existing buildings and thermal analyses represent a key step for the reduction of energy consumption. They are also used to assess the thermal comfort of people living or working in a building. Building Information Models (BIM) are widespread to plan the rehabilitation of existing buildings and laser scanning is now commonly used to capture the geometry of buildings for as-built BIM creation. The combination of thermographic and geometric data presents a high number and variety of applications (Lagüela and Díaz-Vilariño, 2016). However, geometric and thermal information are generally acquired separately by different building stakeholders and thermal analyses are performed with independence of geometry. In this paper, the combination of thermal and geometric information is investigated for indoor of buildings. The aim of the project is to create 3D thermographic point clouds based on data acquired by a laser scanner and a thermal camera. Based on these point clouds, BIM models might be enriched with thermal information through the scan-to-BIM process.</p>


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