Data Exchange Method of Railway Engineering Information Model for GIS Applications

In order to realize interoperability and information sharing between different platforms, we propose a model data exchange method (called RIMTrans) supporting level of details (LoDs) and scene construction, based on multiple information separation and independent storage. First, parameters describing geometric features were extracted from elements of the Railway Engineering 3D Information Model (RIM), and the Mesh data needed for Geographic Information Systems (GIS) was transformed by fast meshing. Second, the mapping relationship between Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) and RIM semantics was established to ensure the integrity of semantic information during the data exchange process. Third, the attribute definition and description mode specified by IFC were used as the standard exchange format to realize the transmission of attribute information. Finally, RIMs were simplified as mult-level detailed GIS models from the geometric, attribute, and semantic aspects. By selecting a case area of a railway engineering design work station, we adopted the RIMTrans method to carry out the format conversion experiment of the design phase information model. The results show that the data exchange method proposed in this paper is flexible and controllable. The integrity of the railway project semantic information in the 3D model is up to 85%. Compared with the traditional operation mode, the conversion time of the RIM is reduced by 70%, and the accuracy when RIM is integrated into the 3D scene is as high as 100%.