Ebrahim Karan

BIM and GIS Integration and Interoperability Based on Semantic Web Technology

AbstractWhen making design and construction decisions, planners must consider information from different scales and domains. Currently, building and geospatial data are shared and exchanged through a common data format, such as industry foundation classes (IFC). Because of the diversity and complexity of domain knowledge across building information modeling (BIM) and geographic information system (GIS) systems, however, these syntactic approaches are not capable of completely sharing semantic information that is unique in each system. This study uses semantic web technology to ensure semantic interoperability between existing BIM and GIS tools. The proposed approach is composed of three main steps: ontology construction, semantic integration through interoperable data formats and standards, and query of heterogeneous information sources. The completeness of the methodology is validated through a case study.

Developing a Spatial Data Framework for Facility Management Supply Chains

Several studies have shown that the implementation of supply chain management (SCM) in the context of facilities management (FM) can resolve service delivery problems and provide significant benefit in cost savings and customer satisfaction. To fully utilize the benefits of SCM, the supply chain actors would require facilities’ data, suppliers’ information, and tools to share the information through a wide variety of users across the entire supply chain. Considering the wide range of spatial information used in the FM supply chain, this study develops a spatial data framework to manage data and disseminate information throughout a supply chain. The proposed framework uses building information modeling (BIM) capabilities to accurately provide existing information about the inside of a building and geographic information system (GIS) to support the wide range of spatial analysis used in the logistics perspective of the supply chain. Also, semantic web services are used to convey meaning and support the integration of information from all of these spatial, temporal and informational dimensions. The concept of the semantic web is applied in this study to provide semantic interoperability between BIM and GIS operations and to demonstrate the feasibility of the technology for the building and FM industries.

Digital Modeling of Construction Site Terrain Using Remotely Sensed Data and Geographic Information Systems Analyses

AbstractTopography and physical characteristics of a project should be considered in the preconstruction planning for any construction site. However, many of the technologies used for generating digital models of site topography rely extensively on project site surveys. This paper contributes to the body of knowledge by improving the understanding of the nature and sources of remotely sensed data for construction applications as well as the accuracy of digital terrain models (DTMs) derived from remotely sensed data. Airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR), satellite imagery, and models provided by the USGS are three different sources of remotely sensed data that have been used in this study. It is expected that the research outcome will overcome some of the drawbacks of the existing methods for modeling site topography. The elevation values derived from these terrain models are compared with the values that have been measured in the field. The results indicate that the LiDAR-based DTM represents the ...

Generating IFC models from heterogeneous data using semantic web

Purpose – This paper aims to develop a framework to represent semantic web query results as Industry Foundation Class (IFC) building models. The subject of interoperability has received considerable attention in the construction literature in recent years. Given the distributed, semantically heterogeneous data sources, the problem is to retrieve information accurately and with minimal human intervention by considering their semantic descriptions. Design/methodology/approach – This paper provides a framework to translate semantic web query results into the XML representations of IFC schema and data. Using the concepts and relationships in an IFC schema, the authors first develop an ontology to specify an equivalent IFC entity in the query results. Then, a mapping structure is defined and used to translate and fill all query results into an ifcXML document. For query processing, the proposed framework implements a set of predefined query mappings between the source schema and a corresponding IFC output sche...

Using Building Energy Simulation and Geospatial Analysis to Determine Building and Transportation Related Energy Use

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), building and transportation sectors account for approximately 75% of CO₂ emissions. Given the magnitude of this statistic, many studies have been directed towards the issue of energy use and carbon emissions of the built environment. Most of these studies however, have focused only on either buildings or transportation systems. To analyze the dynamics of energy use associated with buildings and transportation systems, it is essential to explore the interactions between these two sectors in a single comprehensive model. This paper develops a network infrastructure model to determine the transportation energy intensity of a building as well as building energy consumption based on the residents’ lifestyle. The proposed model is developed using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Building Information Modeling (BIM) to identify the current trends in energy use associated with people behavior and infrastructure (buildings and transportation networks). BIM is used as a life cycle inventory to model and collect building-related information and material quantities, and GIS is used to define geo-referenced locations, storing attribute data, and displaying data on maps. The main input to the model would be characteristics of buildings and transportation networks, and socioeconomic data (population dynamics) collected from a survey. The model then generates the energy and carbon implications of the network in the form of a map.

Measuring End-User Satisfaction in the Design of Building Projects Using Eye- Tracking Technology

The importance of end-user participation in the design process of building and construction projects has been recognized and addressed by a number of researchers and practitioners. The main goal is to ensure that the project outcome meets the facility users’ needs. In order to understand their needs, a variety of approaches (e.g. focus groups, workshops, and questionnaires) for the building end-users participation in the design process have been presented in the literature. Despite the contributions and practical features of these methods, they require a significant amount of time and effort to conduct and interpret the participants’ responses. To overcome this limitation, this paper investigates the use of eye-tracking technology to measure and analyze end-user satisfaction. This study is carried out to test the hypothesis that the users’ satisfaction of design variations is related to their visual attention. In other words, design alternatives with high level of users’ satisfaction attract more attention. An experiment using four alternatives for the design of a facade is performed to test the effectiveness of eye-tracking technology. The design alternatives are developed and displayed in a virtual 3D environment. Participants are asked to rate their level of satisfaction with each alternative, while their interaction with the virtual models is recorded using eye-tracking. The results of the experiment are also demonstrated to domain experts to get a better understanding of the technology’s potential and challenges.

A Comprehensive Matrix of Unmanned Aerial Systems Requirements for Potential Applications within a Department of Transportation

The continuous improvement in the function and performance of unmanned aerial systems (UASs) promotes the need for specific research to integrate this leading-edge technology into various applications across Departments of Transportation (DOTs). DOTs of several states have started looking into using UAS technology for different purposes from tracking highway construction projects and performing structure inventories to road maintenance and monitoring roadside environmental conditions, as well as many other traffic management or safety issues, albeit individually focusing on specific usage scenarios. This study investigates various divisions and offices within a Department of Transportation to determine the operational requirements for UAS usage in specific divisions that have the potential to implement this technology to aid and supplement their daily operations. Through a series of interviews with subject matter experts at the management and operational levels, a matrix of user requirements for tasks that have the potential to use UAS was developed. This matrix is mapped to a UAS technical matrix that embeds the technological and technical requirements for development of a potential UAS. These matrices can be used by other DOTs for defining the design specifications for UAS that can fulfill their construction-related operational requirements.