Image-Based Technologies for Constructing As-Is Building Information Models for Existing Buildings

Building Information Model (BIM) has proved to be a data-rich, object-oriented, intelligent and parametric digital representation of a building to support diverse activities throughout the life-cycle of the building. Despite the growing use of BIM for new construction projects in recent years, most existing buildings today often do not have complete as-is information documents, nor existed meaningful BIM. Thus, incomplete or even incorrect information in as-is records is still one of the main reasons for the low-level efficiency in facilities management for existing buildings. Furthermore, as-is BIM modeling for existing buildings is considered to be a time-consuming and expensive process, which requires great effort, time, costs and skilled workers. Convenient, efficient and economical approaches with high accuracy to constructing an as-is BIM would be essentially the foremost step for effective operations and maintenance of existing buildings. To this end, this study aims at categorizing and analyzing the state-of-the-art technologies in image-based BIM construction processes as the first step. For effective review, a general framework for image-based as-is BIM construction processes is proposed with the following key steps: 1) data capturing and processing; 2) object recognition; and 3) as-is BIM modeling. Detailed comparative analyses of methods commonly used in each step were conducted and a prospective model is proposed. Finally, based on the prospective model, knowledge gaps and future development of image-based as-is BIM construction processes are identified. This paper presents the results of systematic review and analyses for image-based as-is BIM construction processes, contributing to the development and widespread adoption of this technology in the construction industry