An Approach of Automatic SPARQL Generation for BIM Data Extraction

• Main Authors: Dongming Guo, Erling Onstein, Angela Daniela La Rosa
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-12-01
• Series: Applied Sciences
• Subjects: building information modelling (BIM); ifcOWL; data extraction; semantic; SPARQL generation
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/10/24/8794

Generally, building information modelling (BIM) models contain multiple dimensions of building information, including building design data, construction information, and maintenance-related contents, which are related with different engineering stakeholders. Efficient extraction of BIM data is a necessary and vital step for various data analyses and applications, especially in large-scale BIM projects. In order to extract BIM data, multiple query languages have been developed. However, the use of these query languages for data extraction usually requires that engineers have good programming skills, flexibly master query language(s), and fully understand the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) express schema or the ontology expression of the IFC schema (ifcOWL). These limitations have virtually increased the difficulties of using query language(s) and raised the requirements on engineers’ essential knowledge reserves in data extraction. In this paper, we develop a simple method for automatic SPARQL (SPARQL Protocol and RDF Query Language) query generation to implement effective data extraction. Based on the users’ data requirements, we match users’ requirements with ifcOWL ontology concepts or instances, search the connected relationships among query keywords based on semantic BIM data, and generate the user-desired SPARQL query. We demonstrate through several case studies that our approach is effective and the generated SPARQL queries are accurate.