Development of semantically rich 3D retrofit models

The use of Building Information Modeling (BIM) has gained considerable interest in new build projects. However, its use in existing assets has been limited to geometric models utilizing point cloud data (PCD) as the primary source of data. The inclusion of nongeometrical data from distributed sources in the geometric model to make it semantically rich has considerable challenges. This paper proposes an approach to provide a framework for generating semantically-rich parametric models for existing assets. Although the geometric information such as length, width, area, and volume can be extracted from PCD, nongeometric data may need to be appended to this to generate genuinely semantically rich models. The comma-separated values (CSV) format is used to represent the data that can be extracted from PCD. In addition, the nongeometric information derived from other sources are appended to the CSV file. Subsequently, the resource description framework (RDF) data are generated from the data in the CSV files. RDF is a commonly used Semantic Web technology for storing, sharing, and reusing information on the web. The RDF data then are used to create the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) data model by translating RDF into IFC. The IFC file is used to generate three-dimensional (3D) BIM by importing it into any IFC compliant application. The proposed approach was validated on one part of the Edinburgh Castle, a relatively complex historical building. The choice of building for validating the approach was driven by technical as well as pragmatic reasons. Technically, the robustness of the approach would have been proven if it were shown to work for a complex rather than a relatively simple building. Pragmatically, the authors had access to data on Edinburgh Castle due to an ongoing partnership with Historic Environment Scotland (HES). However, as a result of the validation process, it is suggested that the proposed approach should be applicable to any existing building

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

Purpose: Facilitating the information exchange and interoperability between stakeholders during the life-cycle of an asset can be one of the fundamental necessities for developing an enhanced information exchange framework. Such a framework can also improve the successful accomplishment of building projects. This paper aims to use Semantic Web technologies for facilitating information exchange within existing building projects. Design/methodology/approach: In real-world building projects, the construction industry’s information supply chain may initiate from near scratch when new building projects are started resulting in diverse data structures represented in unstructured data sources, like Excel spreadsheets and documents. Large-scale data generated throughout a building's life-cycle requires exchanging and processing during an asset's Operation and Maintenance (O&M) phase. Building information modelling (BIM) processes and related technologies can address some of the challenges and limitations of information exchange and interoperability within new building projects. However, the use of BIM in existing and retrofit assets has been hampered by the challenges surrounding the limitations of existing technologies. Findings: The aim of this paper is twofold. Firstly, it briefly outlines the framework previously developed for generating semantically enriched 3D retrofit models. Secondly, a framework is proposed focussing on facilitating the information exchange and interoperability for existing buildings. Semantic Web technologies and standards, such as Web Ontology Language and existing AEC domain ontologies are used to enhance and improve the proposed framework. Originality/value: The proposed framework is evaluated by implementing an example application and the Resource Description Framework data produced by the previously developed framework. The proposed approach makes a valuable contribution to the asset/facilities management (AM/FM) domain. It should be of interest to various FM practices for existing assets, such as the building information/knowledge management for design, construction and O&M stages of an asset’s life-cycle

SPAR.txt, a cheap Shallow Parsing approach for Regulatory texts

Automated Compliance Checking (ACC) systems aim to semantically parse building regulations to a set of rules. However, semantic parsing is known to be hard and requires large amounts of training data. The complexity of creating such training data has led to re-search that focuses on small sub-tasks, such as shallow parsing or the extraction of a limited subset of rules. This study introduces a shallow parsing task for which training data is relatively cheap to create, with the aim of learning a lexicon for ACC. We annotate a small domain-specific dataset of 200 sentences, SPAR.txt1, and train a sequence tagger that achieves 79,93 F1-score on the test set. We then show through manual evaluation that the model identifies most (89,84) de-fined terms in a set of building regulation documents, and that both contiguous and discontiguous Multi-Word Expressions (MWE) are discovered with reasonable accuracy (70,3)

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

Purpose: There are suggestions that construction processes could be considerably improved by integrating BIM with 3D laser scanning technologies. This case study integrated 3D laser point cloud scans with BIM to explore the effects of BIM adoption on ongoing construction project, whilst evaluating the utility of 3D laser scanning technology for producing structural 3D models by converting Point Cloud Data (PCD) into BIM. Design: The primary data acquisition adopted the use of Trimble X7 laser scanning process which is a set of data points in the scanned space that represents the scanned structure. The implementation of BIM with the 3D PCD to explore the precision and effectiveness of the construction processes as well as the as-built condition of a structure was precisely captured using the 3D laser scanning technology to recreate accurate and exact 3D models capable of being used to find and fix problems during construction. Findings: The findings indicate that the integration of BIM and 3D laser scanning technology have the tendency to mitigate issues such as building rework, improved project completion times, reduced project cost, enhanced interdisciplinary communication, cooperation, and collaboration amongst the project duty holders which ultimately enhance the overall efficiency of the construction project. Originality: These findings highlight the significance of integrating BIM and 3D laser scanning technology in the construction process and emphasize the value of advanced data collection methods for effectively managing construction projects and streamlined workflows