An Integration of BIM and GIS for Integrated Project Delivery: Fid-Bau Portal

An Integration of BIM and GIS for Integrated Project Delivery

Gao, Zhili / Ezekwem, Kenechukwu / Aslam, Mughees

The architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry often finds difficulties to transfer data between different stages of project development. Although the use of building information modelling (BIM) and geographic information systems (GIS) applications have brought notable improvements to some AEC industry processes, the disjointed use of these systems and the differences in their system file architectures disrupt the seamless flow project information, and results in avoidable project waste and other issues. As GIS moves towards 3D modeling, and as BIM increasingly improves collaboration through communication, the potential to integrate both systems for a more integrated project environment is growing. This integration could be useful for supporting integrated project delivery (IPD) system since BIM/GIS integration with reliable information exchange could ensure optimum results in the IPD. Therefore, this paper proposes a framework, environmental information modelling (EIM) to bridge the gap between the GIS and BIM systems, with a BIM-GIS integration model developed and programmed into an application using C#.NET. The paper assesses the feasibility of the framework and model for seamless and reliable project information exchange, using of planning and development requirements of a local city, and using a sample residential project. The paper also discusses the challenges of the framework and suggests directions for future research.