# OpenBIM: An Enabling Solution for Information Interoperability
## 4 Engineering Information Interoperability Research Supported by OpenBIM
### Information Extension  
OpenBIM covers a large range of industry information, such as building components information. But for some fields, such as road, bridge, and port field, openBIM is still not enough to support specific research. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out information extension to meet the requirements. For example, in road domain, based on the IFC framework, [PERSON] et al. added the main building components of road structures to the IFC, and developed an IFC expansion model for road structures, thus extending the BIM technology of road structures [67]. In bridge domain, [PERSON] et al. proposed a possible extension of the existing IFC-Bridge draft, in which an object-oriented data model was used to capture the geometric description of the parameters, and then it will be converted into an EXPRESS pattern and integrated with the current IFC-Bridge draft. The proposed neutral data structure lays the foundation for exchanging parameter bridge models among different software applications [68].  
OpenBIM standard can also be used for attribute information extension. For example, [PERSON] et al. investigated whether IFC and COBie can provide facility manager with required assets data and information from a perspective of a whole life cycle by focusing on some specific use cases including asset registration and service life plan. The result showed that though IFC and COBie cannot meet all the information requirements of asset registration and service life plan by default, they permit users to add some unsupported information in the form of attribute sets by using Revit shared parameters [69].  
In addition to domain information extension and attribute information extension, openBIM can also make great contributions in the field of semantic information extension. For example, the lack of semantic clarity in mapping entities, attributes, and relationships leads to multiple expressions of the same information when mapping between different federate modellings. Based on this consideration, [PERSON] et al. examined IFC from a viewpoint of ontological framework to make the definition of IFC more accurate, consistent, and unambiguous. Ontology would build interoperability of BIM by providing formal and consistent classification and structure to extend IFC and define subsets as MVD [70]. To solve the problem in existing application of BIM tools, [PERSON] et al. proposed a new approach which can infer meaningful concepts from BIM model automatically. What is more, the proposed approach can also enrich IFC files and achieve MVD validation by checking spatial topology of elements [71]. In the aspect of achieving automatic verification, [PERSON] et al. extended ifcOWL ontology with bsDD vocabulary, and compared MVDXML and Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL) technologies for conformance checking of IFC models [72].  
The framework of using openBIM for information extension is shown in Figure 14.  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c} \hline
**Classification** & **Literature** & **OpenBIM Transformation** \\ \hline Use openBIM only & [PERSON] et al. [61] & IFC to BIMRL \\  & [PERSON] et al. [62] & IDM to MVD \\ \hline  & [PERSON] et al. [63] & IFC EXPRESS to OWL \\ openBIM combined with ontology & [PERSON] et al. [64] & LandXML to RDF \\  & [PERSON] et al. [65] & OWL/XML to mvdXML \\  & [PERSON] et al. [66] & IFC EXPRESS to OWL \\ \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table}
Table 5: Literature related to information exchange by openBIM transformation.