What are you prepared to do?

Headnote

Barry Gleeson and Martin Penney outline five major challenges in geo-enabling BIM

Over the next five years, building information modelling (BIM) will drive not just transformation of the built environment but of the geospatial industry as well. Its successful implementation will depend on collaboration between all participants. The surveying profession therefore needs to be at the forefront of geo-enabling BIM. What are we prepared to do about it?

The vision for the government's Digital Built Britain strategic plan is aligned with the rise of the Internet of Things, big data and a desire for smart cities, all underpinned by spatial context and geo-location. The geo-enabling of the internet - for example, with Google Maps or Bing Maps - and smart devices has taken place over the last five years.

Meanwhile, entrepreneurs and commercial ventures such as Uber are exploiting the maturity of the digital revolution in communications and commerce - mobile devices, user reviews and ratings, payment systems - by simply geo-enabling. Five years ago Uber was worth nothing; today, it is worth more than £50bn.

As a partner of the UK BIM Task Group, Survey4BIM - an open collective of geospatial professionals - has been looking at what it means to geo-enable BIM. It has identified five challenges: accuracy, metadata, interoperability, level of detail and generalisation.

These challenges are the building blocks for geo-enabling BIM Level 2. The benefits are clear: avoiding risk, reworking, delay, extra costs and clashes. We have assessed each of these building blocks in three ways. First, what is the maturity of each process in the context of UK BIM, rather than just geospatially? Second, where should it be to enable Level 2? Third, where on the BIM road map should this maturity be available?

Accuracy

Positional accuracy could be driven entirely by geospatial experts. BIM presents the broader challenge of design accuracy, but if it were handled in the same way as built accuracies and was adapted for construction or fabrication tolerances, a...