A critical review of the integration of geographic information system and building information modelling at the data level

© 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. The benefits brought by the integration of Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are being proved by more and more research. The integration of the two systems is difficult for many reasons. Among them, data incompatibility is the most significant, as BIM and GIS data are created, managed, analyzed, stored, and visualized in different ways in terms of coordinate systems, scope of interest, and data structures. The objective of this paper is to review the relevant research papers to (1) identify the most relevant data models used in BIM/GIS integration and understand their advantages and disadvantages; (2) consider the possibility of other data models that are available for data level integration; and (3) provide direction on the future of BIM/GIS data integration.