Towards City Information Modeling

Abstract

In the past two decades, building information modeling (BIM) has been widely adopted by architectural, engineering, and construction firms. Its technology is based on the integration and coordination of different disciplines and professions. It involves creating three-dimensional models containing data that can be organized and manipulated to serve design, construction, and operational phases. This raises the debate over how the existence of a platform that enables urban planners and decision makers of different disciplines is so crucial. Several research studies have recently been done to integrate BIM with geographic information systems (GIS) for numerous purposes, as illustrated by several case studies. This chapter comparatively analyzes different cases, given general acknowledgment of each. Problems and potentials of the existence of such integration will be defined, in order to estimate the need for such a platform. Finally, a model of integration between different disciplines was illustrated as a motivation for further studies in the future concerning this topic.