ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: Building Information Models as product models and Building Information Modelling as a process which supports information management throughout the lifecycle of a building are becoming more widely used in the Architecture/Engineering/Construction (AEC) industry. In order to facilitate various urban management tasks (such as evacuation operations) and several processes of the construction life cycle (such as site selection) through better automation, information related to buildings needs to be represented in the geospatial environment, i.e. in form of geospatial information. Recent research in the field demonstrated that Building Information Models can be used as the information source when transferring building information into the geospatial environment. In fact although recent efforts have been successful in demonstrating the applicability of this information transfer, most of these efforts were not successful in, bringing up the industrial needs for the implementation, presenting the opportunities that the implementation might bring to the AEC and urban management domains and outlining the technical difficulties of the implementation. The review presented in this paper first focuses on outlining the strengths and weaknesses of using BIMs when acquiring building information and transferring it into the geospatial environment. The review later presents opportunities and threats this implementation might bring to AEC and Urban Management domains.
