Integrating Legal and Physical Dimensions of Urban Environments

Building Information Models (e.g., IFC) and virtual 3D city models (e.g., CityGML) are revolutionising the way we manage information about our cities. However, the main focus of these models is on the physical and functional characteristics of urban properties and facilities, which neglects the legal and ownership aspects. In contrast, cadastral data models, such as the Land Administration Domain Model (LADM), have been developed for legal information management purposes and model legal objects such as ownership boundaries without providing correspondence to the object’s physical attributes. Integration of legal and physical objects in the virtual 3D city and cadastral models would maximise their utility and flexibility to support different applications that require an integrated resource of both legal and physical information, such as urban space management and land development processes. The aim of this paper is to propose a data model that supports both legal and physical information of urban environments. The methodology to develop this data model is to extend the core cadastral data model and integrate urban features into the data model. The outcome of the research can be utilised to extend the current data models to increases their usability for different applications that require both legal and physical information.