An Automated IoT Visualization BIM Platform for Decision Support in Facilities Management

Abstract

Building information modeling (BIM) is the digital representation of physical and functional characteristics (such as geometry, spatial relationship, and geographic information) of a facility to support decisions during its life cycle. BIM has been extended beyond 3D geometrical representations in recent years, and now includes time as a fourth dimension and cost as a fifth dimension, as well as such other applications as virtual reality and augmented reality. The Internet of Things (IoT) has been increasingly applied in various products (smart homes, wearables) to enhance work productivity, living comfort, and entertainment. However, research addressing the integration of these two technologies (BIM and IoT) is still very limited, and has focused exclusively on the automatic transmission of sensor information to BIM models. This paper describes an attempt to represent and visualize sensor data in BIM with multiple perspectives in order to support complex decisions requiring interdisciplinary information. The study uses a university campus as an example and includes several scenarios, such as an auditorium with a dispersed audience and energy saving options for rooms with different functions (mechanical/electric equipment, classrooms, and laboratory). This paper also discusses the design of a common platform allowing communication among sensors with different protocols (Arduino, Raspberry Pi), the use of Dynamo to accept sensor data as input and automatically redraw visualized information in BIM, and how visualization may help in making energy-saving management decisions.

Fostering Sustainability through Visualization Techniques for Real-Time IoT Data: A Case Study Based on Gas Turbines for Electricity Production

“…As [ 17 ] argues, visualizations may help in making energy-saving management decisions. A visualization of the incoming data can provide insights.…”

“…Several works have focused on IoT visualization. For example, in [ 17 ], a platform is proposed to transform sensor data to context-based visualized data. One sector in which the visualization of IoT sensors is used is in the Smart Cities domain.…”

Sensor Data Visualization for Indoor Point Clouds

“…Chang et al describe the design and implementation of a BIM-based sensor data visualization platform for assessing occupant comfort in a classroom, based on temperature data readings and visualization (Chang et al, 2018). Additionally, they map an RGB color-based scale to this data, over a finite element 3D mesh, placed at a given height in the BIM representation of the given classroom.…”

Live Data Visualization of IoT Sensors Using Augmented Reality (AR) and BIM

“…On the other hand, IoT and real-time sensing technologies are being increasingly used and applied in various platforms to enhance quality of life [8]. Vaccari (2015) [9] stated that IoT enables data streaming from network-connected devices to be delivered and transformed into other types of information to be included in virtual simulations.…”

“…IoT sensors and BIM virtual models were integrated to track the behavior of occupants and provided an opportunity to predict building performance. Previous studies on the integration of BIM and IoT are mainly focused on automating the transfer of sensor information to BIM models [8]. However, when integrating BIM and IoT, in addition to data transfer, special attention must be also paid to the visualization of sensor data.…”