LBD Server: Visualising Building Graphs in Web-Based Environments Using Semantic Graphs and GlTF-Models

Abstract

Over the last years, Building Information Modelling (BIM) has been increasingly adopted in building projects for its benefits to collaboration and associated risk mitigation. Recent work is trying to make this data available over the web (web-based BIM applications). Most notable in making building data web-ready is the linked building data (LBD) initiative. This group has worked on a number of vocabularies and ontologies, thereby starting from a linked data approach (RDF graphs), aiming at representing building data on the web. Yet, a platform is needed that allows to manage the available linked building data, including 3D geometric visualisation, which is the topic of this article: a LBD server. The LBD server is a web-based application which allows users to upload building data and visualise their geometric representation in a graphical user interface, thereby also enabling to link to this data.