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3D and BIM Data Integration: What’s the Hurry?

Don Murray
April 7, 20082 min
3D and BIM are causing more than a stir in geospatial technology. They’re affecting the way construction is doing business and the way cities are planning their infrastructure and emergency...

3D and BIM are causing more than a stir in geospatial technology. They’re affecting the way construction is doing business and the way cities are planning their infrastructure and emergency response. The growing demand for 3D and BIM data is making an impact in these areas, creating a desire to join together 3D, BIM, and traditional spatial information for a more integrated data view. As part of this wave, increasing pressure for organizations to plan for a greener future is further encouraging critical infrastructure planning to turn to 3D and BIM data assets to help them achieve their goals.

Joe Francica of Directions Magazine recently examined this movement in his article entitled “3D, BIM and Going Green: Cities Are Challenged by a New Geospatial Revolution.” During his research for the article, he spoke with Geoff Zeiss who moderated a panel at the GITA Conference on Emergency Response and CAD, GIS, BIM Convergence. He validated the increased demand for 3D and BIM data and explained some of the challenges surrounding integrating this data.

At Safe Software, we are seeing exactly what Joe talks about. Anticipating this market shift, both ESRI Geodatabase and Oracle Spatial now support 3D data, enabling them to directly store BIM data. More of our clients are inquiring for a single tool that is capable of loading both traditional geospatial data (vector, raster) and building (BIM) data. This is exciting as more cities will now be able to use a single data store to hold all of their location information, opening the door to a whole new class of applications which can take advantage of this new “integrated data view.”

Take a read through his article, and leave a comment. Let us know what you think of the use of 3D and BIM data in critical infrastructure planning and other areas. In what ways are 3D and BIM data being integrated into your world?

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