Integrating building and context information for automated zoning code checking: a review

Interoperability approaches have attracted much attention in the AEC/FM industry with the increased interest in Building Information Modeling (BIM) studies since 2000’s. Especially, the integration of BIM with GIS is crucial for areas, which need detailed information on buildings and their surroundings. Automated code compliance checking against zoning codes is an area that requires both zoning data and building design data. In an ideal automated zoning code checking process, building codes should be retrieved from the responsible authority, data regarding the neighborhood the project is located in should be retrieved directly from the local municipality’s GIS, and the building project should be supplied by the designer as a BIM file. The checking process should be able to work with a combination of GIS and BIM data and generate a compliance report. Although recent BIM-GIS integration efforts have been successful in some areas, BIM-GIS integration studies in the context of automated zoning code compliance checking are limited, and the data interoperability problem in this field still needs to be addressed. This paper intends to (1) provide a critical review and analysis of the current BIM and GIS integration studies for building permit processes, (2) present the opportunities that the implementation of integrating BIM and GIS might bring to the automated zoning compliance checking domain and (3) identify promising integration approaches for future efforts.