Knowledge-based data enrichment for HBIM: Exploring high-quality models using the semantic-web

Abstract In the last decade, the paradigm Historical Building Information Modeling (HBIM) was investigated to exploit the possibilities offered by the application of BIM to historical buildings. In the Cultural Heritage domain, the BIM-oriented approach can produce 3D models that are data collector populated by both geometrical and non-geometrical information related to various themes: historical documents, monitoring data, structural information, conservation or restoration state and so on. The realization of a 3D model fully interoperable and rich in its informative content could represent a very important change towards a more efficient management of the historical real estate. The work presented in these pages outlines a novel approach to solve this interoperability issue, by developing and testing a workflow that exploits the advantages of BIM platforms and Semantic-Web technologies, enabling the user to query a repository composed of semantically structured and rich HBIM data. The presented pipeline follows four main steps: (i) the first step consists on modeling an ontology with the main information needs for the domain of interest, providing a data structure that can be leveraged to inform the data-enrichment phase and, later, to meaningfully query the data. (ii) Afterwards, the data enrichment was performed, by creating a set of shared parameters reflecting the properties in our domain ontology. (iii) To structure data in a machine-readable format, a data conversion was needed to represent the domain (ontology) and analyze data of specific buildings respectively; this step is mandatory to reuse the analysis data together with the 3D model, providing the end-user with a querying tool. (iv) As a final step in our workflow, we developed a demonstrative data exploration web application based on the faceted browsing paradigm and allowing to exploit both structured metadata and 3D visualization. This research demonstrates how is possible to represent a huge amount of specialized information models with appropriate LOD and Grade in BIM environment and then guarantee a complete interoperability with IFC/RDF format. Relying on semantically structured data (ontologies) and on the Linked Data stack appears a valid approach for addressing existing information system issues in the CH domain and constitutes a step forward in the management of repositories and web libraries devoted to historical buildings.