Geographic Information Systems and Building Information Modeling have developed side-by-side over a period of more than three decades, with civil engineers, architects and contractors using both types of data to better inform airport, transit, road and even general building projects.
Despite these parallels, the twain have never met over those years of development. GIS captures and creates opportunity for analysis of spatial and geographic information, while BIM, with its related parameters focused on a building’s tolerances and construction phasing, captures the interactions of a building and its infrastructure.