BIM, GIS and semantic models of cultural heritage buildings

Even though there has been a great development of using building information models in the AEC (Architecture/Engineering/Construction) sector recently, creation of models of existing buildings is still not very usual. The cultural heritage documentation is still, in most cases, kept in the form of 2D drawings while these drawings mostly contain only geometry without semantics, attributes or definitions of relationships and hierarchies between particular building elements. All these additional information would, however, be very providential for the tasks of cultural heritage preservation, i.e. for the facility management of heritage buildings or for reconstruction planning and it would be suitable to manage all geometric and non-geometric information in a single 3D information model. This paper is based on the existing literature and focuses on the historic building information modelling to provide information about the current state of the art. First, a summary of available software tools is introduced while not only the BIM tools but also the related GIS software is considered. This is followed by a review of existing efforts worldwide and an evaluation of the facts found