Towards Defining a Framework for Automatic Generation of Buildings in CityGML Using Building Information Models

Increased demand for tools that allow merging of Building Information Models with GIS models is observed in the last several years. Professionals from both domains are looking for solutions to seamlessly integrate such models for various purposes such as, building and construction analysis, urban planning, tourism, cadastre, homeland security, etc. Researchers suggested that the best approach for such integration is harmonised semantics, which will allow formal mappings between the design (BIM) and real world (GIS) models. Although many geometric models have been developed in both domains, the number of semantic models is relatively few. Two most prominent semantic models in the design and real worlds are currently IFC and CityGML. Several studies demonstrate the transfer of information from IFC models into the CityGML but the literature is lacking a formal and descriptive framework for automatic generation of buildings in CityGML using the IFC models. This paper presents preliminary ideas for defining a semantic mapping, which will allow automatic transformations between the two models.