Ontology-Based Integration of BIM and GIS for Indoor Routing

Building information modeling (BIM) has been extensively adopted in the architectural, engineering, construction, and operation (AECO) industry, and much indoor geospatial data is aggregated into BIM models. However, pedestrian routing is commonly based on the indoor geospatial data in a geographic information system (GIS), which is typically incompatible with the BIM system. In addition, research on the use of ontology to integrate BIM and GIS is limited. To resolve the data interoperability issue and to address the relevant research gap, this study aims to use ontology to integrate BIM and GIS for indoor routing. This study utilizes the industry foundation classes (IFC) data format extracted from building information models, which is a widely supported open standard in the AECO industry. Indoor geospatial data from the building information models are extracted by IfcOpenShell to integrate with GIS Indoor ontology for generating the integrated ontology. A SPARQL language query is performed to query the integrated ontology model. A prototype application is developed to validate the proposed methodology using a sample IFC model. The results indicate that ontology is valid for the integration of BIM and GIS. The outcomes of this study will serve as a basis for more efficient integration of BIM and GIS and lead to improved indoor navigation in the future.