Infrastructure Engineering - Research Publications

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    The Feasibility of a BIM-Driven Approach to Support Building Subdivision Workflows-Case Study of Victoria, Australia
    Olfat, H ; Atazadeh, B ; Shojaei, D ; Rajabifard, A (MDPI, 2019-11)
    Cities are facing dramatic challenges due to population growth and the massive development of high-rises and complex structures, both above and below the ground surface. Decision-makers require access to an efficient land and property information system, which is digital, three-dimensional (3D), spatially accurate, and dynamic containing interests in land (rights, restrictions and responsibilities—RRRs) to manage the legal and physical complexities of urban environments. However, at present, building subdivision workflows only support the two-dimensional (2D) building subdivision plans in PDF or image formats. These workflows result in a number of issues, such as the plan preparation being complex, the examination process being labor intensive and requiring technical expertise, information not being easily reusable by all subdivision stakeholders, queries, analyses, and decision-making being inefficient, and the RRRs interpretation being difficult. The aim of this research is to explore the potential of using Building Information Modelling (BIM) and its open standards to support the building subdivision workflows. The research that is presented in this paper proposes a BIM-driven building subdivision workflow, evaluated through a case study in the state of Victoria, Australia. The results of the study confirmed that the proposed workflow could provide a feasible integrated mechanism for stakeholders to share, document, visualize, analyze, interpret, and reuse 3D digital cadastral data over the lifespan of a building subdivision project.
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    The Victorian digital Cadastre: Challenges and investigations
    Olfat, H ; Shojaei, D ; Briffa, M (CEUR, 2016-01-01)
    In 2011 the Digital Cadastre Protocol (ePlan) was introduced in Victoria. ePlan is a collaborative program between the Australian land authorities and the surveying industry, in conjunction with the Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying and Mapping (ICSM). ePlan is to replace paper and PDF plans with digital files based on a national standard. ePlan has been operational in Victoria for 2D (nonbuilding) plans since 2013 and several services such as validation, visualisation and digital data download have been built within the Victorian land authority - Land Victoria - systems. The Victorian ePlan project is faced with some challenges that will impact the uptake of this initiative among the cadastral surveyors, e.g. surveyors acceptance of adopting a new method of producing plans, quality of the visualisation service which converts the ePlan LandXML file into PDF as the legal title diagram and support for 3D building subdivision plans. In order to overcome the identified challenges, Land Victoria has defined several research programs. An ‘ePlan Engagement Program’ has commenced and aims to gain a greater understanding of surveying firms’ subdivision processes and how ePlan can fit into them and also means surveyors are participating in ePlan’s development. The design and development of a new online tool is also under investigation which aims to enable surveyors to improve the quality of the visualised PDF and define sheets, exaggerations and enlargements when required. Another ongoing research program is related to the technical aspect of a 3D digital cadastre for Victoria including 3D data modelling, validation and visualisation components. This paper aims to explore the current status of the Victorian ePlan implementation and discuss the identified challenges and ongoing investigations.
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    Assessment of the Australian digital cadastre protocol (ePlan) in terms of supporting 3D building subdivisions
    Shojaei, D ; Olfat, H ; Rajabifard, A ; Darvill, A ; Briffa, M (Elsevier, 2016-11-01)
    Population growth and lack of available land in urban areas have resulted in intensive property development both above and below ground. According to the ‘Cadastre 2034 Strategy’ published by the Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying and Mapping (ICSM) for Australia in 2014, the current digital cadastres have limitations in positional accuracy and do not adequately represent the three-dimensional nature of real property. This strategy highlights the fact that land parcels that are limited in vertical dimension are not adequately represented in the current digital cadastre. This makes it difficult to visualize security of tenure as it relates to a building or an apartment within a building. Since 2011, a national cadastral data model (ePlan Protocol) is being implemented in different Australian jurisdictions including Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland for 2D (non-building) plans of subdivision. Following the ICSM’s strategy, the ePlan Working Group has started to investigate the requirements for supporting 3D building subdivisions in ePlan. As part of this investigation and to assess the potential of the ePlan Protocol in terms of supporting 3D spatial units associated with land and property management, a research project was recently undertaken in Victoria, Australia. In this research, various building subdivision plans were investigated and modelled in ePlan and a number of technical and non-technical challenges were identified. Overall, the study confirmed that the ePlan Protocol is able to support 3D building subdivision plans, however curved shapes are not well handled. This paper also proposes future investigations for implementing a 3D digital cadastre in Victoria.
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    The current status and ongoing investigations of 2D and 3D digital cadastre (ePlan) in Victoria, Australia
    Olfat, H ; Shojaei, D ; Briffa, M ; Rajabifard, A (CEUR, 2017-01-01)
    EPlan is a collaborative program between the Australian land authorities and the surveying industry, in conjunction with the Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying and Mapping (ICSM) which aims to replace paper and PDF plans with digital files based on a national standard. ePlan was introduced in Victoria in 2011 and has been operational in this jurisdiction for 2D (non-building) plans since 2013. On average, one ePlan application is currently submitted to a digital plan lodgement portal every fortnight. The low uptake of ePlan is caused by a number of challenges which includes surveyors acceptance of adopting a new method of producing plans, the quality of the visualisation service which converts the ePlan LandXML file into PDF as the legal title diagram, and support for 3D building subdivision plans. This paper aims to explore the current status of ePlan implementation in Victoria and discuss the ongoing research programs developed to address the aforementioned challenges.
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    3D Digital Cadastre Journey in Victoria, Australia
    Shojaei, D ; Olfat, H ; Briffa, M ; Rajabifard, A (Copernicus GmBH, 2017-10-23)
    Land development processes today have an increasing demand to access three-dimensional (3D) spatial information. Complex land development may need to have a 3D model and require some functions which are only possible using 3D data. Accordingly, the Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying and Mapping (ICSM), as a national body in Australia provides leadership, coordination and standards for surveying, mapping and national datasets has developed the Cadastre 2034 strategy in 2014. This strategy has a vision to develop a cadastral system that enables people to readily and confidently identify the location and extent of all rights, restrictions and responsibilities related to land and real property. In 2014, the land authority in the state of Victoria, Australia, namely Land Use Victoria (LUV), has entered the challenging area of designing and implementing a 3D digital cadastre focused on providing more efficient and effective services to the land and property industry. LUV has been following the ICSM 2034 strategy which requires developing various policies, standards, infrastructures, and tools. Over the past three years, LUV has mainly focused on investigating the technical aspect of a 3D digital cadastre. This paper provides an overview of the 3D digital cadastre investigation progress in Victoria and discusses the challenges that the team faced during this journey. It also addresses the future path to develop an integrated 3D digital cadastre in Victoria.
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    Geometrical data validation in 3D digital cadastre: A case study for Victoria, Australia
    Shojaei, D ; Olfat, H ; Faundez, SIQ ; Kalantari, M ; Rajabifard, A ; Briffa, M (Elsevier, 2017-11-01)
    Data ambiguity and invalidity can cause significant expensive issues in the cadastral domain (e.g. legal disputes). An automated data validation can significantly help to reduce the potential issues. Quality assurance has been comprehensively investigated in various domains, however, the validation of 3D cadastral data is still in its early development. The availability of various regular and irregular shapes for 3D cadastral objects and modern building designs has resulted in a critical need for developing validation rules to ensure data validity and quality. The land registry in Victoria, Australia, is investigating the technical requirements for implementing a 3D digital cadastre. The study of 3D cadastral data validation requirements has been part of this ongoing investigation. This study is being undertaken in three main phases including 1) developing geometrical validation rules, 2) developing non-geometrical validation rules, 3) implementing an online service to validate 3D cadastral data. This paper aims to discuss the initial outcomes of the first phase of the aforementioned study which has focused on developing geometrical validation rules for 3D cadastral objects. The paper reviews the development of four geometrical validation rules which have been formalised using mathematical expressions to check the individual 3D parcels and their relationships with adjoining or neighbouring parcels. The first validation rule checks the compatibility of the cancelled parcel against the created parcels. The second rule deals with parcel collision detection which is required for flagging unacceptable intersection of 3D objects. The third rule ensures the faces forming a 3D parcel are flat. The fourth validation rule assures 3D objects are watertight. The paper concludes with a discussion around the impacts of the proposed validation checks on the subdivision process and future research for the Victorian 3D digital cadastre.
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    Tackling the challenges of visualising digital cadastral plans: The Victorian cadastre experience
    Olfat, H ; Jani, A ; Shojaei, D ; Darvill, A ; Briffa, M ; Rajabifard, A ; Badiee, F (Elsevier, 2019-04-01)
    ePlan, as a digital cadastral data initiative, is a collaborative program between the land authorities and the surveying industry which aims to replace paper and PDF cadastral plans and surveys with digital data in LandXML format. ePlan has been adopted by Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. ePlan has been operational in the State of Victoria for 2D plans since 2013. The ePlan files are automatically converted into PDF plans by the ePlan visualisation service within the Victorian state’s digital lodgement portal, namely Surveying and Planning through Electronic Applications and Referral (SPEAR). Cadastral plan in PDF format forms part of the legal title in Victoria. Presently, ePlan, in terms of development, has limitations in visualising detailed, complex and large scaled 2D plans. The visualised plan from the LandXML file must comply with accepted Victorian survey drawing standards as the plan is a source for plan certification by council, forms part of a contract of sale, and when the plan is registered by the State of Victoria land authority, Land Use Victoria (LUV), it becomes the title diagram. In addition, through significant engagement with the Victorian Surveying industry, LUV has received feedback from surveyors that they would like to have the ability to enhance the presentation of visualised plans to create enlargements, define additional sheets, exaggerate the position of lines, and move the placement of visualised labels. These enhancement provisions would provide greater scope to ensuring plans complied with the aforementioned drawing standards. A Licensed Surveyor, the creator of the LandXML file is also duty bound to sign the visualised plan. In addressing the abovementioned problem, a research methodology, including the conceptual, choice of technology, development and evaluation phases has been defined and implemented at LUV. The ‘conceptual’ phase considered the business and technical requirements for developing a tool to support surveyors to enhance the presentation of the visualised ePlans. The ‘choice of technology’ phase focused on defining the most suitable technologies for developing the tool. In the ‘development’ phase, the tool was implemented within SPEAR. The surveyors’ feedback on the tool usability was collected as part of the ‘evaluation’ phase. The main outcome of this research has been the ePlan Visualisation Enhancement Tool (VET) developed within SPEAR based on OpenLayers technology, which enables surveyors to improve the presentation of auto-generated cadastral plans. The evaluation phase showed that end users were generally satisfied by the usability of VET and identified the areas that need further improvement. This paper first provides an overview of the ePlan project in Victoria with a focus on the research problem and objective. The relevant interstate and international experiences are then reviewed. Next, the paper discusses the research methodology including the above four phases in detail. The outcomes of the evaluation phase are then discussed. The paper concludes with some discussions around the approach taken for this research, the surveyors’ feedback and the future directions.
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    Utilizing a Building Information Modelling Environment to Communicate the Legal Ownership of Internet of Things-Generated Data in Multi-Owned Buildings
    Atazadeh, B ; Olfat, H ; Rismanchi, B ; Shojaei, D ; Rajabifard, A (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute ( M D P I AG), 2019-11-01)
    In multi-owned buildings, a community of residents live in their private properties while they use and share communal spaces and facilities. Proper management of multi-owned buildings is underpinned by rules related to health, safety, and security of the residents and visitors. Utilizing Internet of Things (IoT) devices to collect information about the livable space has become a significant trend since the introduction of first smart home appliances back in 2000. The question about who owns the IoT generated data and under what terms it can be shared with others is still unclear. IoT devices, such as security camera and occupancy sensors, can provide safety for their owners, while these devices may capture private data from the neighborhood. In fact, the residents are sometimes not aware of regulations that can prevent them from installing and collecting data from shared spaces that could breach other individuals’ privacy. On the other hand, Building Information Modelling (BIM) provides a rich 3D digital data environment to manage the physical, functional, and ownership aspects of buildings over their entire lifecycle. This study aims to propose a methodology to utilize BIM for defining the legal ownership of the IoT generated data. A case study has been used to discuss key challenges related to the ownership of IoT data in a multi-owned building. This study confirmed that BIM environment can facilitate the understanding of legal ownership of IoT datasets and supports the interpretation of who has the entitlement to use the IoT datasets in multi-owned buildings
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    Strategic Actions for Increasing the Submission of Digital Cadastral Data by the Surveying Industry Based on Lessons Learned from Victoria, Australia
    Olfat, H ; Shojaei, D ; Briffa, M ; Maley, S ; Rajabifard, A (MDPI, 2018-02-01)
    ePlan, as a digital cadastral data initiative, is a collaborative program between the land authorities and the surveying industry which aims to replace paper and PDF cadastral plans and surveys with digital data. ePlan is currently operational in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. ePlan was introduced in the State of Victoria in 2011 and has been operational in this jurisdiction for 2D plans since 2013. On average, one ePlan application is currently submitted to a digital plan lodgment portal every two weeks. The low uptake of ePlan is caused by several technical and non-Technical challenges. This paper provides an overview of cadastral information transitioning from paper to digital in Victoria. The research methodology to identify the challenges in Victoria for the adoption of ePlan is then described. This is followed by a discussion on the identified challenges. The paper then proposes a generic framework of strategic actions to increase the uptake of digital cadastral data based on the lessons learned from Victoria. The initiatives suggested by this framework to address the ePlan challenges in Victoria and increase its uptake are also introduced. The paper concludes with a direction for future research.
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    Design and Development of a 3D Digital Cadastre Visualization Prototype
    Shojaei, D ; Olfat, H ; Rajabifard, A ; Briffa, M (MDPI AG, 2018-10-01)
    The massive property development of high-rises and complex structures above and below the ground surface in cities indicates the lack of land and high demand to use spaces. However, the existing land and property administration systems are mainly two dimensional and not capable of efficiently managing these complex spaces. As ownership rights on plans are recorded in paper or PDF, understanding these rights and making effective decisions and analyses can be difficult without having experience in the art of reading and interpreting plan information. This paper attempts to address these issues by presenting a prototype for visualizing three-dimensional land and property information. The aim of this prototype is to illustrate and communicate the requirements and benefits of a 3D digital cadastre platform. The prototype is a web-based application and includes functionality to display both legal and physical data, interact with 3D models, display administrative data, identify objects and search objects, visualize cross-sections, and undertake measurements in 3D. For this prototype, a multi-story building was selected as a case study and its 3D model was imported into the prototype to display ownership rights. The prototype was then evaluated by various stakeholders and their feedback was considered for future enhancement.