Communicating Semantics through Model Restructuring and Representation

Building information modeling (BIM) has emerged as a significant tool to represent the various building components as objects with semantics. Two projects are described, which explore how BIM assists in reasoning and decisionmaking: spatial topology querying and green certification. Each project employs its own kind of "drawing board." One examines the provisions of building information models for analyzing spatial and network topologies through data extraction, data restructuring and representation; and the other explores capabilities for assessing designs for green certification through data extraction, data augmentation, and representation. BIM is examined in the context of green certifiability through the lenses of data requirement and extraction, suitable data structures for augmentation, and tools and processes. Perhaps, the single most important lesson learned from the two projects on spatial topology querying and green certification is that building information model–based processes need to be more knowledge intensive.