What is Coordinate System

Historically and traditionally, location based information merely represents a feature’s location in a real world setting. Advances in information technology (IT) and data collection techniques have revolutionised the Geographical Information System or Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) industry. The relatively recent explosion in data storage and processing capabilities has led to more detailed and accurate data being collected. This provides a far greater data rich environment and more opportunities for exploiting this information. It is not enough to only know where something is. Questions like but what is it, what’s nearby and what are the associated attributes’ are more relevant now. A data rich Geospatial Information System allows for detailed spatial (location based) queries to be performed to explore and analyse these geographical relationships. In parallel to this information explosion, the built environment has started to embrace this revolution. In essence, a building is a component of a larger group of features which is linked by infrastructure and other elements to create a holistic system. The common factors which connect this system together all have an associated location. When viewing a building in isolation it is clear that it is made up of a number of different individual features. Information about these features is a key part to its design, construction, operation and maintenance. The term (BIM) Building Information Modelling refers to the information system which is developed to manage built features. Of course a building doesn’t float in space; it is closely related to other features and infrastructure. This chapter will explore the value of integrating BIM and Geospatial Information Systems into a single system, why this is important, and how this can be achieved.