BIM/GIS data integration from the perspective of information flow

Abstract

Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Geographic Information System (GIS) can be integrated at application level and data level. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive, systematic review on data-level BIM/GIS integration from the perspective of information flow. Papers from academic journals, conference proceedings, and book chapters were collected and analysed. The main outcomes and findings of this review are as follows. (1) A unified framework that incorporates all data processing tasks for BIM/GIS data integration was developed. (2) Most problems regarding BIM-to-GIS data conversion have been solved, which enables application-level BIM/GIS integration, while those unsolved problems are mainly related to representation transformation and semantics mapping. (3) To ensure a fluent information flow, BIM models should be more reliable, the conversion paths should be more robust and efficient, and a more flexible data model on the GIS side is in need.