Outdet: An Algorithm For Extracting The Outer Surfaces Of Building Information Models For Integration With Geographic Information Systems

The integration of Building Information Modelling (BIM) and geographic information systems (GIS) is a promising but challenging topic to solve problems in construction industry. However, loading and rendering rich BIM geometric data and large-scale GIS spatial information in a unified system is still technologically challenging. Current efforts mainly simplify the geometry in BIM models, or convert BIM geometric data to a lower level of detail (LOD). By noticing that only exterior features of BIM models are visible from outdoor observation points, culling BIM interior facilities can dramatically reduce the computational burden whenvisualizing BIM models in GIS. This study explores the outline detection problem and presents the OutDet algorithm, which selects representative observation points, transforms & projects the BIM geometric data into the same coordinate system, and detects the visible facilities. Empirical study results show that OutDet can cull a large portion of unnecessary features when rendering BIM models in GIS. The use of outlines of BIM models is not an alternative but rather a supplementary approach for current solutions. Jointly using LOD and outer surface can help improve the efficiency of integrated BIM-GIS visualization.Because OutDet retains BIM geometry and semantics, it can be applied to more BIM-GIS applications..