Ordnance Survey Supports Singapore's Smart Technology World Status
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Ordnance Survey Supports Singapore's Smart Technology World Status

The UK’s mapping agency Ordnance Survey International (OSI) has been contracted to support the National University of Singapore and the Singapore Government in a project to continue the country’s vision of being a world leader in smart technology. The two-year project will address the automation challenge of converting IFC-BIM building and construction industry data into CityGML, an open standardised data model and exchange format that stores digital 3D models of cities and landscapes.

The automated conversion to be developed in this project is expected to reduce costs in creating and updating semantically enriched 3D city models. The primary objective is the development of a methodology and algorithms that automate the conversion of IFC-BIM models into CityGML building models while ensuring complete and near-lossless mapping.

James Crawford, a technical product manager at Ordnance Survey who will be based in Singapore working on the project, views this as an exciting opportunity to help Singapore with its status as one of the places in the world to live and do business. According to Crawford, ever-increasing levels of collaboration across government agencies, private companies and citizens will be necessary to help achieve this vision, and one of the first steps is through the continued investment and development of digital standards.

In his view, standards are an important piece of this puzzle because they are an effective means to removing ‘barriers’ – i.e. they enable and support a common understanding across domain groups, industry sectors and organisations. Without first establishing a common set of tools, language and technologies, the actors in these different systems cannot collaborate (i.e. cross those ‘barriers’) to a level that will be necessary in order to achieve this vision.

Patrick Janssen, associate professor at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Department of Architecture, comments on the close relationship with Ordnance Survey International, having worked with them on previous projects. He describes OSI as having the skillset and experience in data processing, as well as access to a talented and committed development community. They also have a thorough understanding and considered approach to consultancy and collaboration, which Janssen believes will be crucial to the successful delivery of this project.

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