Implementation of a data integration service for building and urban planning

There is an increasing need to seamlessly integrate the relevant datasets at both building and urban scales. This paper gives an account of the development of a Data Integration Service (DIS) to implement the integration of Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) building models with urban datasets. It employs the Mediator loose integration method and Open GIS Consortium (OGC)'s Web Service architecture. Also, the Building Feature Service (BFS) is defined and developed to retrieve information for the IFC building model. A conceptual prototype was developed as a proof of concept. This Web-based DIS can support the sharing and integration of geospatial and building information for building and urban planning. This research shows that the integration of building information from construction and urban domains can enrich the semantic description of buildings within the urban built environment. Using a Web-based DIS instead of file exchange has the potential to make the data accessing and sharing much easier and more effective for professionals working at both building and urban scales.