A fuzzy extension of the semantic Building Information Model

•We propose a fuzzy extension of BIM ontologies ifcRDF and ifcOWL.•Imprecise knowledge representation and retrieval is supported.•Relevant use cases: information integration, fuzzy query and parametric modeling

The Building Information Model (BIM) has become a key tool to achieve communication during the whole building life-cycle. Open standards, such as the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC), have contributed to expand its adoption, but they have limited capabilities for cross-domain information integration and query. To address these challenges, the Linked Building Data initiative promotes the use of ontologies and Semantic Web technologies in order to create more formal and interoperable BIMs. In this paper, we present a fuzzy logic-based extension of such semantic BIMs that provides support for imprecise knowledge representation and retrieval. We propose an expressive fuzzy ontology language, and describe how to use a fuzzy reasoning engine in a BIM context with selected examples. The resulting fuzzy semantic BIM enables new functionalities in the project design and analysis stages—namely, soft integration of cross-domain knowledge, flexible BIM query, and imprecise parametric modeling.