FYPs/Thesis/Journal from Higher Education Institutions in Hong Kong

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Institution Title Type Date Author(s) Abstract Link
HKUST Mapping BIM schema and 3D GIS schema semi-automatically utilizing linguistic and text mining techniques Journal 01/2015 Cheng, J.C.P., Deng, Y.C., and Anumba, C. The interoperability between BIM (Building Information Modeling) and 3D GIS (Geographic Information System) can enhance the functionality of both domains. BIM can serve as an information source for 3D GIS, while 3D GIS could provide neighboring information for BIM to perform view analysis, sustainable design and simulations. Data mapping is critical for seamless information sharing between BIM and GIS models. However, given the complexity of todayÕs BIM schemas and GIS schemas, the manual mapping between them is always time consuming and error prone. This paper presents a semi-automatic framework that we have developed to facilitate schema mapping between BIM schemas and GIS schemas using linguistic and text-mining techniques. Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) in the BIM domain and City Geography Markup Language (CityGML) in the GIS domain were used in this paper. Entity names and definitions from both schemas were used as the knowledge corpus, and text-mining techniques such as Cosine Similarity, Market Basket Model, Jaccard Coefficient, term frequency and inverse document frequency were applied to generate mapping candidates. Instance-based manual mapping between IFC and CityGML were used to evaluate the results from the linguistic-based mapping. The results show that our proposed name-to-definition comparison could achieve a high precision and recall. Results using different similarity measures were also compared and discussed. The framework proposed in this paper could serve as a semi-automatic way for schema mapping of other schemas and domains. Link
HKUST A BIM-based web service framework for green building energy simulation and code checking Journal 06/2014 Cheng, J.C.P., and Das, M. Green building design has been a major trend in the last decade which has largely affected the AEC industry. As of 2013, for example, there were over 13,000 green buildings certified with LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environment Design) in the United States alone. Building Information Modeling (BIM) technolo- gy and computer simulations are adopted largely for green building design. However, while information sharing and automated, collaborative design review are important for the design of green buildings, the current way of BIM-based green building design relies mainly on individual file transfer and does not support collaboration in the distributed environment of construction projects. On the other hand, as the Internet becomes ubiquitous, the web provides convenient and cost-efficient means for multi-location cross-organizational collaboration. Energy analysis and validation against standard building codes are two major processes in green building design evaluation. This paper presents a modular web service based framework which integrates the information necessary for green building design, automates the building design evaluation processes, and facilitates simple updates on the building model on a common but distributed platform. This framework is based on BIM data models like gbXML (Green Building XML) which contain information for green building design like geometry of the building, material, and sensor information from more than one source. The BIM data models act as a single source of building information for all processes. Building design evaluation and updating are iterative in green building design and require information and inputs dispersed among various project participants. Since our framework follows a distributed architecture and is easily accessible from the Internet, it makes the information required to facilitate the iterative process and its results conveniently available to a multi-participant environment. The paper also presents an example scenario demonstrating the developed framework. Link
HKUST A BIM-based location aware AR collaborative framework for facility maintenance management Journal 07/2019 Chen, K., Chen, W., Li, C.T., and Cheng, J.C.P. Facility maintenance management (FMM) accounts for a large amount of the total cost of facilities’ lifecycle, illustrating the importance of improving FMM efficiency. Many mechanical facilities, like ventilation ducts above ceilings, are normally hidden, indicating the necessity of applying certain technology that can enable users to visualize and update the information of hidden facilities. Real-time location information is also needed so
that users can be aware of their current location and the surrounding facility can be displayed accordingly. Therefore, this paper aims to develop location aware augmented reality (AR) framework for FMM, with building information modeling (BIM) as the data source, AR for the interaction between users and facilities, and Wi-Fi fingerprinting for providing real-time location information. The developed framework has the following features: (1) a proposed softmax-based weighted K nearest neighbour (S-WKNN) algorithm is used for Wi-Fi fingerprinting to obtain the current location of users; (2) a room identification method, based on BIM, the obtained location, and ray casting algorithm, is proposed to identify which room the user is currently in; (3) according to the obtained location and the identified room, users can visualize and interact with their surrounding facilities through the AR devices; and (4) users in a remote location can visualize site situation and interact with site facilities in real time through video streaming and the shared database. At the end of the paper, an experiment was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the developed system. As shown by the experiment, the developed AR collaborative system can reduce the completion time of the designed task by around 65% compared with traditional 2D drawing-based method, and can provide a localization accuracy of around 1m
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HKUST Automatic transformation of different levels of detail in 3D GIS city models in CityGML Journal 07/2015 Deng, Y., and Cheng, J.C.P. 3D Geographic Information System (GIS) models are increasingly used for planning and analyses on a city level. Defining 3D GIS city models in different levels of detail (LoD) is often needed to browse and handle large models more efficiently. In this paper, a methodology framework for automatic transformation of different LoDs in CityGML is presented and illustrated. A new exterior shell extraction algorithm was developed from the Ray Tracing algorithm for classifying building surfaces as interior or exterior. A transformation framework among each LoD was developed based on the new exterior shell extraction algorithm. The transformation framework also includes an additional LoD called LoD3.5 that the authors proposed in this paper. The new LoD can satisfy the needs of applications which require information about interior rooms while maintaining a small data storage. The results show that the new exterior shell extraction algorithm can help achieve an automatic derivation of LoDs in CityGML. Link
HKUST Social BIMCloud: A distributed cloud-based BIM platform for object-based lifecycle information exchange Journal 03/2015 Das, M., Cheng, J.C.P., and Kumar, S. Background
The architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry lacks a framework for capturing, managing, and exchanging project, product, and social information over the lifecycle of a building. The current tools have various limitations, such as lack of interoperability, slow to transfer huge building model files, and possibility of data inconsistency.

Methods
In this paper, we present a cloud-based BIM server framework namely Social BIMCloud that facilitates BIM information exchange through dynamic merging and splitting of building models. The data model of Social BIMCloud is based on but not limited to IFC. The data model of Social BIMCloud was further extended to accommodate social interactions, by studying the formal modes of communication in the AEC industry. An object-based approach to capture and manage social interactions in AEC projects through a BIM-based visual user interface was also developed and demonstrated.

Results
Social BIMCloud addresses the issues of inefficient data transfer speed and data inconsistency in a distributed environment by facilitating the storage and partial exchange of integrated nD BIM models. Data interoperability is facilitated through open BIM standards such as IFC and direct integration with construction software. High performance, scalability, fault tolerance, and cost effectiveness are facilitated through data partitioning, data replication strategies, multi-node structures, and pay-per-use tariff systems, respectively, through a cloud-based NoSQL database.

Conclusion
The Social BIMCloud framework helps to develop and exchange BIM models, which are rich in project information such as social interactions, cost, and energy analyses. This framework improves the communication efficiency between project participants, leading to better designs and less rework. The information captured by this framework could also be useful to determine important metrics such as industry trends, relationships among project participants, and user requirements.
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HKUST A semi-automated approach to generate 4D/5D BIM models for evaluating different offshore oil and gas platform decommissioning options Journal 07/2017 Cheng, J.C.P., Tan, Y., Song, Y., Liu, X., and Wang, X. Background
Offshore oil and gas platforms generally have a lifetime of 30 to 40 years, and platform decommissioning is a major issue because many of the existing offshore oil and gas platforms are reaching the end of their service life. There are many possible options for decommissioning offshore oil and gas platforms, and each decommissioning option can be implemented using different methods and technologies. Therefore, it is necessary to have a clear understanding and in-depth evaluation of each decommissioning option before commencing platform decommissioning. 4D and 5D building information modeling (BIM) has been commonly used in the building industry to analyze constructability and to evaluate different construction or demolition plans. However, application of BIM in the oil and gas industry, especially for the platform decommissioning process, is still limited.
Methods
This paper suggests and demonstrates the application of 4D and 5D BIM technology to simulate various methodologies to realize various selected offshore platform decommissioning options, thereby visualizing and evaluating different options, considering both the time and resources required for decommissioning process. One hundred and seventy-seven offshore platform decommissioning options are summarized in this paper. A new approach to create multiple 4D/5D BIM models in a semi-automated manner for evaluating various scenario options of OOGP decommissioning was proposed to reduce the model creation time as current way of 4D/5D BIM model creation for each OOGP decommissioning option is time consuming.

Results
In the proposed approach, an OOGP BIM model relationship database that contains possible 4D/5D BIM model relationships (i.e. schedules for different decommissioning methods) for different parts of an OOGP was generated. Different OOGP decommissioning options can be simulated and visualized with 4D/5D BIM models created by automatically matching schedules, resources, cost information and 3D BIM models. This paper also presents an illustrative example of the proposed approach, which simulates and evaluates two decommissioning options of a fixed jacket platform, namely Rig-to-Reef and Removal-to-Shore. As compared to the traditional approach of 4D/5D BIM model generation, the proposed semi-automated approach reduces the model generation time by 58.8% in the illustrative example.

Conclusions
The proposed approach of semi-automated 4D/5D BIM model creation can help understand the implication of different decommissioning options as well as applied methods, detecting potential lifting clashes, and reducing 4D/5D BIM model creation time, leading to better planning and execution for the decommissioning of offshore oil and gas platforms. In addition, with the proposed semi-automated approach, the 4D/5D BIM model can be generated in a more efficient manner.
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