Connecting research on semantic enrichment of BIM - review of approaches, methods and possible applications

Semantic enrichment of BIM models is a process designed to add meaningful semantics to the information represented in a building model. Although semantic enrichment provides a valuable opportunity for BIM technology to reach its full potential, it is considered an emergent field of research. As such, the body of knowledge on the subject is incomplete and lacks formal definition of the process, possible applications, contributions, and computational approaches. In this work, an extensive literature review is performed to begin forming the body of knowledge in this field. A bibliometric analysis of relevant publications is implemented to identify previously explored approaches and methods for enrichment. Papers describing previous work in the field demonstrate the application of semantic enrichment to building information stored in accordance to the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) schema as well as based on a web ontology. A detailed content analysis illustrates the benefits of semantic enrichment for various tasks in the BIM domain, including improvement of data exchange routines, design analysis and processing data obtained by remote sensing techniques. A formal definition for "semantic enrichment of BIM" is suggested based on the common features identified during the literature review. This work discusses the significance of semantic enrichment to a BIM workflow, pinpoints its current research gaps and describes direction for future research.