The reuse and integration of data give big opportunities, supported by the FAIR data principles. Seamless data integration from heterogenous sources has been an interest of the geospatial community for a long time. However, 3D city models, building information models, and information supporting smart cities present higher semantic and geometrical complexity, which pose new challenges never tackled in a comprehensive methodology. Building on previous theories and studies, this article proposes an overarching workflow and framework for multisource (geo)spatial data integration. It starts from the definition of use case-based requirements for the integrated data, guides the analysis of integrability of the involved datasets, suggesting actions to harmonize them, until data merging and validation. It is finally tested and exemplified in a case study. This approach allows the development of consistent, well-documented, and inclusive data integration workflows, for the sake of use case automation in various geospatial domains and the production of interoperable and reusable data.

Growing interest is awarded to the digitalization of the building permitting use case and many works are developed about the topic. However, the subject is very complex and many aspects are usually tackled separately, making it very hard for traditional literature reviews to grasp the actual progress in the overall topic. This paper unveils the detailed state of the art in Digital Building Permitting (DBP) by critically analysing the literature by means of a set of coding tags (research progress, implementation, affected DBP workflow steps, ambitions addressed) assigned by a multidisciplinary team. The executed research shows that the mainly addressed aspects of the digitalization of building permit process are the technologies to check the compliance of design proposals against regulations, followed by the digitalization of regulations. Improvable aspects identified in the entire building permit system are instead e.g. the involvement of officers, scalability of solutions and interoperability of data, intended both as data validation and as integration of geospatial data with building models.

In this chapter, we start from the typical concepts from Geographic Information System (GIS): data representation, acquisition, querying and analysis. We follow with the transition from 2 to 3D GIS and describe open standards such as CityGML and CityJSON and recent advances on 3D geospatial simulations, computing and real-time GIS and Internet of Things (IoT). Then we discuss the discrepancies in information management and modelling with respect to Building Information Modelling (BIM) and the related open standard, Industry Foundation Classes (IFC). We highlight the difference between Cartesian engineering coordinate systems and geospatial coordinate reference systems, contrast the procedural geometry definitions of IFC with the explicit geometries of GIS and look at implementation mechanisms such as boundary representations and polyhedral surface models and describe the semantic Level of Detail used in CityGML. The section that follows describes relevant processes supporting integration such as georeferencing, conversion of formats using semantic and geometric approaches and linking of heterogeneous information. We also highlight interoperability challenges that stem from consistency and validity of data, by interpreting the results of a recent benchmark on interoperability of the most common involved data formats (CityGML and IFC). We close with a conclusion and perspectives on the future with case studies on geo-enabled building permit checking and geospatial artificial intelligence and machine learning.

To support building permit issuing with automatic digital tools, the reuse of models produced by designers would make the process quicker and more objective. However, current studies and pilots often leave a gap with respect to the models as actually provided by architects, having varying quality and content. In this study, rather than taking a top down approach, we started from the available data and made the necessary inferences, which gave the opportunity to tackle basic and common issues often preventing smooth automatic processing. Specific characteristics of the IFC models were outlined and a tool was developed to extract the necessary information from them to check representative regulations. While the case study is specific in location, regulations and input models, the type of issues encountered are a generally applicable example for automated code compliance checking. This represents a solid base for future works towards the automation of building permits issuing.

Purpose: The study, within the Increasing Resilience of Cultural Heritage (ResCult) project, aims to support civil protection to prevent, lessen and mitigate disasters impacts on cultural heritage using a unique standardised-3D geographical information system (GIS), including both heritage and risk and hazard information. Design/methodology/approach: A top-down approach, starting from existing standards (an INSPIRE extension integrated with other parts from the standardised and shared structure), was completed with a bottom-up integration according to current requirements for disaster prevention procedures and risk analyses. The results were validated and tested in case studies (differentiated concerning the hazard and type of protected heritage) and refined during user forums. Findings: Besides the ensuing reusable database structure, the filling with case studies data underlined the tough challenges and allowed proposing a sample of workflows and possible guidelines. The interfaces are provided to use the obtained knowledge base. Originality/value: The increasing number of natural disasters could severely damage the cultural heritage, causing permanent damage to movable and immovable assets and tangible and intangible heritage. The study provides an original tool properly relating the (spatial) information regarding cultural heritage and the risk factors in a unique archive as a standard-based European tool to cope with these frequent losses, preventing risk.

Municipalities invest a lot of time and person-hours into manual building permit checks. With the increase in computational power and the use of Building Information Models (BIM) in the building design life cycle, several municipalities are investing in automating these checks using BIM and geo-data sets. However, few examples exist of tools effectively using geo-information with BIM. In order to address this gap, a project was developed with the municipality of Rotterdam (NL). In a previous phase, a tool was implemented, able to analyse the BIM data to extract the needed information for a few representative regulations. In order to extend and improve the previously developed tool, a web-based interface is now implemented and geo-data sets are integrated to the process allowing more powerful GeoBIM analysis. Three checks using both BIM and GIS data were implemented and tested: (i) The parcel limit check evaluates if the building's footprint derived from BIM falls within the parcel limit provided from the municipalities' parcel data sets. (ii) The height check evaluates the maximum building's relative height to the road's height. Finally, (iii) the road overhang check detects neighbouring roads to the parcel and evaluates the admissible overhang over that road. This paper presents these developments, including the type of input data that is needed for the checks, the tools for the three new GeoBIM checks (parcel limit check, height check, road overhang check) and the implementation in the web-based tool.

Industry Foundation Classes (IFC), the buildingSMART open standard for BIM, is underused with respect to its promising potential, since, according to the experience of practitioners and researchers working with BIM, issues in the standard’s implementation and use prevent its effective use. Nevertheless, a systematic investigation of these issues has never been carried out, and there is thus insufficient evidence for tackling the problems. The GeoBIM benchmark project is aimed at finding such evidence by involving external volunteers, reporting on various aspects of the behavior of tools (geometry, semantics, georeferencing, functionalities), analyzed and described in this article. Interestingly, different IFC software programs with the same standardized data sets yield inconsistent results, with few detectable common patterns, and significant issues are found in their support of the standard, probably due to the very high complexity of the standard data model. A companion article (Part II) describes the results of the benchmark related to CityGML, the counterpart of IFC within geoinformation.

Nowadays, cultural and historical built heritage can be more effectively preserved, val-orised and documented using advanced geospatial technologies. In such a context, there is a major issue concerning the automation of the process and the extraction of useful information from a huge amount of spatial information acquired by means of advanced survey techniques (i.e., highly detailed LiDAR point clouds). In particular, in the case of historical built heritage (HBH) there are very few effective efforts. Therefore, in this paper, the focus is on establishing the connections between semantic and geometrical information in order to generate a parametric, structured model from point clouds using ontology as an effective approach for the formal conceptualisation of application domains. Hence, in this paper, an ontological schema is proposed to structure HBH representations, starting with international standards, vocabularies, and ontologies (CityGML-Geography Markup Language, International Committee for Documentation conceptual reference model (CIDOC-CRM), Industry Foundation Classes (IFC), Getty Art and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT), as well as reasoning about morphology of historical centres by analysis of real case studies) to represent the built and architecture domain. The validation of such schema is carried out by means of its use to guide the segmentation of a LiDAR point cloud from a castle, which is later used to generate parametric geometries to be used in a historical building information model (HBIM).

Because of the need for new sustainable future alternatives, the re-inhabitation of rural areas, hinterlands, small historical urban centres and villages has become a unique real opportunity. Therefore, it is necessary to define and adopt new sustainable urban planning and building permits to follow this path. These processes involve both various actors and disciplines and a variety of spatial and semantic data. For this reason, the present research aims at providing a methodology to build the necessary spatial documentation of historical centres and villages by adopting an ontology-based workflow. Existing ontologies and conceptualisations have been considered together with classes and rules from city historical core regulations. A case study has been selected considering its available spatial datasets and national data models. The bottom-up approach here adopted aims at validating and enriching a reference ontology previously developed in the domain of historical centre by adding new concepts and relations from selected regulation plans and other existing ontologies and data models. Finally, the obtained ontology is also populated with instances of concepts and relations.

Standardised data formats and data models are essential for data integration and interoperability, which in turn adds value to data by allowing its reuse in multiple contexts. For this reason, in recent years extensive efforts have been focused on standards development. When representing the built environment, 3D city models and Building Information Models are particularly relevant, and their integration is now required to underpin use cases that cover the full life-cycle of a built asset, including design and planning as well as operations and management, and to support legal applications such as cadastral systems. For those kinds of data, CityGML by the Open Geospatial Consortium and Industry Foundation Classes by buildingSMART are the most popular reference standards. However, many users report, often through informal channels, the difficulties of working with these formats. This paper summarizes the outcomes of the GeoBIM Benchmark 2019, a scientific initiative funded by ISPRS and EuroSDR to collect insights into the most relevant issues encountered in the management of CityGML and IFC within existing software. Alongside data management (import, visualisation, analysis, export) problems, issues of particular consequence in terms of integration relate to georeferencing IFC files and the conversions among the two kinds of formats and models. Thus, the benchmark was designed to explore these tasks in available software. Following analysis of the benchmark results, a key outcome is the impossibility to find clear patterns in the behaviour of tools, which consequently means there is no consistency in the implementation of standards. Although the results could seem disappointing, the criticality in managing these standards as they are was described and this awareness can be the starting point for further research or further standards development. Finally, this project was useful to gather a wide community around this topic, and the discussion about the GeoBIM-related issues was definitely pushed.

This research aims at the study of the (dynamic) relationship between the World Heritage sites and the related human settlements development. Geographical Information Systems (GIS) can be useful to represent the involved information and to analyze such relationship. However, an effective harmonized structure and unique storage of possibly heterogeneous datasets is necessary to enable it. This initial step is the focus of this paper. First, the description of the structure of the related datasets and the assessment of the availability, quality, and consistency of the available information about the Heritage sites and properties is presented. Among those requirements, the quality of the associated spatial information is critical (e.g. kind of shape, accuracy, georeferencing). Second, considering the structure of the available datasets concerning the world heritage, together with the HERILAND research requirements, a global world heritage GIS is designed. The classification and data model to manage the WH list falls within the wider issue of structuring the cultural heritage documentation, involving both the definition of the semantic content and the geometric representation. In order to comply with the important requirement of data interoperability in science and to strengthen the outcomes of the research, some standardized data models and classifications are considered.

Among the digitalization processes which are being raised in Europe and in the world, the building permit process is seen as one of the priorities by municipalities, governmental institutions and standardization organizations. However, in current practice, the building permit issuing as well as the integration of geoinformation with BIM (GeoBIM) suffers from a number of complex sub-issues. These issues still remain and prevent the development of successful methodologies. In this paper, the building permit use case is explored within a project in close collaboration with the municipality of Rotterdam. A very specific case study in Rotterdam was selected as a starting point, which allowed us to develop the needed methodology for the implementation of an effective tool. In this paper we highlight the interpretation and formalization of regulation for building height, overhang and tower ratio. While these rules are specific to a zoning plan in Rotterdam, we believe that the methodology and encountered issues in formalizing the rules, applying the rules on delivered models and integrating various data sources (BIM and GIS specifically) are general to most building codes.

OGC CityGML is an open standard for 3D city models intended to foster interoperability and support various applications. However, through our practical experience and discussions with practitioners, we have noticed several problems related to the implementation of the standard and the use of standardized data. Nevertheless, a systematic investigation of these issues has never been carried out, and there is thus insufficient evidence for tackling the problems. The GeoBIM benchmark project is aimed at finding such evidence by involving external volunteers, reporting on various aspects of the behavior of tools (geometry, semantics, georeferencing, functionalities), analyzed and described in this article. This study explicitly pointed out the critical points embedded in the format as an evidence base for future development. A companion article (Part I) describes the results of the benchmark related to IFC, the counterpart of CityGML within building information modeling.

Architectural, built heritage and historical buildings embody cultural heritage value and-as known-they need to be studied, documented, persevered and represented. Although there are many fields involved in these activities, none of these considered individually can fully represent the heritage with a complete level of detail and information. The present work aims to investigate the different levels of detail and granularity among different communities involved in historical buildings tasks to semantically define different concepts. In this context, ontologies are considered as an effective solution for the formal conceptualization of the domains involved, providing a common language for knowledge sharing and reuse. The study starts from existing knowledge (standards, vocabularies, thesauri, classifications) and conceptualisations for regional, urban and architectural heritage and geographic information for various tasks (restoration, documentation and heritage studies, risk prevention, heritage asset and facility management, education and tourism, urban planning and energy refurbishment/performance). A specific use case involving historical buildings in fortified centres across different levels of detail is described to show how existing knowledge and standards conceptualisation need to be integrated and extended.