A generic integrated geospatial BIM data model for the simulation, analysis and visualisation of Cities

Smart city-models have been recognised as a key development in order to plan and manage cities in a sustainable manner both currently and into the future. Indeed the recognition of the requirement for consistent, accurate and reliable data and information on how our cities are performing and may perform into the future has been recognised in the UK by the development of a 'Smart-city concept data model' by the British Standards Institution (BSI), in order to ensure data interoperability between organisations (PAS182). While such developments provide a framework for the exchange and management of data and information regarding cities, they need to be matched by significant developments in our ability to represent the key spatial and temporal relationships that exist between the many heterogeneous physical objects, assets and infrastructure components that comprise the complex 3-dimensional physical fabric of a city. Moreover, once such a representational framework has been developed we need a new generation of analytical tools that allow us to monitor, track, analyse and visualise the dynamics of the flows and movements taking place.

Critically, such tools need to be multi-scale with respect to their ability to represent the collection of objects, assets and networks that comprise a city; ranging from descriptions of the internal 3-dimensional layout of a buildings, through to aggregate measures of the flows and movements of resources that are required to service an entire city, such as electricity, gas and water supply. They also need to be multi-scale in terms of describing the connectivity and relationships that exist such that it is possible to monitor, track and analyse not only top-down exogenous inputs, but also understand the bottom-up flows that occur within and from buildings. Only by developing a system that can not only represent the key physical objects of cities, but also explicitly encode and analyse their connectivity and interactions will it be possible to develop integrated multi-scale urban planning and design approaches, ranging from entire cities to the detail of individual buildings and infrastructure.

This EPSRC CASE PhD will develop a spatial data model and resulting software system for an integrated GIS/BIM (Building Information Model) representation of cities across multiple scales. The research will extend work on geometric entity representation within existing accepted industry standards (e.g., IFC, CityGML and to a certain extent GeoBIM) to develop the urgently required data model and resulting software to represent the topological linkages between the internal flows of resources within individual buildings and their connectivity to the broad-scale fabric of a city, and in particular the infrastructure networks and systems they rely upon; such that it becomes possible to undertake multi-scale internal-building to city-scale analysis, simulation and visualisation. Proof of concept studies based on the Newcastle University Science Central development utilising data form the Ordnance Survey as well as building sensor data from the Urban Observatory and the SMART Grid lab will be developed. The PhD will be affiliated with the recently funded EPSRC programme grant MISTRAL (Multi-scale Infrastructure Systems Analytics; Barr Co-I (Newcastle PI)) with full access to the data held with the ITRC NISMOD-DB (National Infrastructure Modelling Database).