OGC Seeking Sponsors for a new IDBE Pilot linking Geospatial and Building Information Models

The OGC Integrated Digital Built Environment Pilot seeks to understand the current level of interoperability between Geospatial and BIM and forge a path for better integrated solutions.

22 July 2021: The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), together with buildingSMART International (bSI), invite organizations to express their interest in sponsoring the OGC Integrated Digital Built Environment Pilot. The Pilot will explore, through real-world use cases, the current state-of-the-art in geospatial and Building Information Model (BIM) data integration and forge a path for better integrated solutions. Responses are due September 30, 2021.

Over the last decade, impressive progress has been made in developing open standards for both geospatial and AECO (architecture, engineering, construction, and operations) views of buildings and city infrastructure. However, integration of the two views is still lacking. The geospatial community has its roots in a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) view of the world - that is, one that focuses on the analysis and visualization of geographic data. In contrast to this, the AECO community’s BIM view focuses on reliable digital representations of a building during its development with detailed plans for the entire lifecycle of construction, operation, and maintenance. 

With progress being made on both sides, the potential for data integration is better than ever before. The market for integrated full life-cycle geospatial/BIM data, including all phases of DBFM (Design, Build, Finance, Maintain) is constantly growing and there is an increasing demand for service provision throughout the entire lifecycle of DBFM projects. 

Both communities build on different data modeling approaches with respect to fundamental concepts, geometry, semantics, level-of-detail, and other aspects. With open standards such as CityGML, LandInfra/InfraGML, IndoorGML, and IMDF on the geospatial side and IFC (Industry Foundation Classes), ISO19650, and the emerging openCDE API on the BIM side maturing, it is now time to learn what level of interoperability is already achieved and how to expand this most efficiently. 

Sponsors of the IDBE Pilot will push forward the integration of both the geospatial and BIM perspectives and will benefit from the analysis of the current integration capabilities. The analysis is expected to lead to further joint standardization work between OGC and bSI. Thus, sponsors support the convergence of geospatial and BIM models, which will lead to substantial savings during the full design, build, finance, and maintain process.

Within the Pilot, the following questions shall be addressed: 

• Does the integration at an API level meet use case requirements?
• Where are the main integration hurdles and obstacles?
• What modifications need to be applied to existing standards to further satisfy the markets’ demands for integrated solutions? 

The OGC IDBE Pilot will be conducted under OGC's Innovation Program, a collaborative, agile, and hands-on prototyping and engineering environment where sponsors and OGC members come together to address location interoperability challenges while validating international open standards. Watch this short video on how OGC’s Innovation Program can benefit your organization.

Note that the goal of this pilot is not to achieve full integration of data between the geospatial and BIM sides (that may come in the future), but to understand the current level of interoperability and to forge a path for better integrated solutions.

If you are interested in sponsoring this exciting opportunity to enhance interoperability and integration potential between building information and geospatial models, visit the IDBE Pilot page on ogc.org to download the Call For Sponsors. Responses are due by September 30, 2021.

About buildingSMART International

buildingSMART International is a vendor-neutral and not for profit body that leads the development of open digital information flows across the built asset industry. Its mission is to proactively support industry participants who want to develop open standards for planning, design, procurement, assembly and operation of buildings and infrastructure worldwide. It provides the international network plus the necessary technical and process support. Its members, who range from across the built environment spectrum, collaborate under the buildingSMART organization. buildingSMART is engaged with other international standards bodies such as ISO, the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). Its core Industry Foundation Class (IFC) standards achieved ISO approval in 2012.

Visit buildingsmart.org for more info.

About OGC

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is a collective problem-solving community of experts from more than 500 businesses, government agencies, research organizations, and universities driven to make geospatial (location) information and services FAIR - Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable.

The global OGC Community engages in a mix of activities related to location-based technologies: developing consensus-based open standards and best-practice; collaborating on agile innovation initiatives; engaging in community meetings, events, and workshops; and more.

OGC's unique standards development process moves at the pace of innovation, with constant input from technology forecasting, practical prototyping, real-world testing, and community engagement.

OGC bridges disparate sectors, domains, and technology trends, and encourages the cross-pollination of ideas between different communities of practice to improve decision-making at all levels. OGC is committed to creating an inclusive and sustainable future.

Visit ogc.org for more info on our work.