Building Information Modelling (BIM) is becoming a standard in Architecture, Building and Construction (ABC) industries. It provides a method for a unified representation of information about building throughout its lifecycle – from the design phase to the building maintenance. At the design phase the focus is usually on fulfilling the requirements and applicable norms and standards. One of the issues that is considered to be very important deals with the accessibility of buildings. While the design tools usually support the legal requirements for accessibility for disabled persons, little effort has been observed to address the quality of the access routes in terms of time, length and convenience of the route to be taken. This paper introduces a method of searching routes accessible for disabled people in public buildings, which is based on the building-related knowledge. This knowledge is stored in graph-based representations of buildings. A graph model of the considered building is effectively created by extracting information about the building from the IFC file, which is an interoperable BIM standard. The information about the topology of spatial layouts of buildings is stored in the graph representation together with characteristics of elements ensuring access between spaces. This model allows for homogenous encoding of both spatial and non-spatial information of different types, which is necessary for route calculation. Attributes assigned to graph nodes encode types of spaces and their sizes. Attributes of graph edges represent costs of moving between spaces, which depend on width of openings, equipping stairs with ramps, door types and their opening directions. As for people moving around on wheelchairs easiness of passing a route between two places can depend on the route direction, the directed graphs are used to represent building layouts. The optimal routes accessible for disabled are specified using the modified algorithm of graph search for single-source minimum-cost paths, where costs of passing through different spaces and between them are considered. This approach is applied to find best routes to a chosen room starting from all possible building entrances. The proposed application offers intelligent knowledge-based navigation, which is based on the graph representation of buildings. The system is aimed to aid people to decide about the routes they should take using mobile devices. It enables them to select from all accessible routes the one which requires the lowest effort in traversing it. Apart from the user interface allowing for visualization the results of design analysis in respect to the accessible routes, a visual tool dedicated for designers, which shows on the floor layout the actual route a disabled person has to take, is proposed. Offering a designer such a visualization can shift the focus of the design from mere existence of accessible routes to existence of quality routes for disabled. The presented examples illustrate the proposed approach by depicting the found accessible routes on the building layout. Building-specific knowledge, which is extracted from the IFC file and stored in the graph building representation, is used to find the best routes accessible for disabled people. The search for these routes is performed by a knowledge-based graph-search procedure, which takes into consideration costs of passing through different spaces and between them. There is a possibility of adding in future more elements which can be treated as different obstacles in moving around the building.

中文翻译：

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使用基于BIM / IFC的构建图模型对残疾人的可访问性进行推理

建筑信息模型（BIM）正在成为建筑，建筑和施工（ABC）行业的标准。它提供了一种在整个生命周期（从设计阶段到建筑物维护）中统一表示建筑物信息的方法。在设计阶段，重点通常是满足要求以及适用的规范和标准。被认为是非常重要的问题之一涉及建筑物的可及性。尽管设计工具通常支持残疾人无障碍设施的法律要求，但是在时间，路线长度和便利性方面，人们几乎没有做出任何努力来解决无障碍通道的质量。本文介绍了一种在公共建筑中搜寻残疾人无障碍路线的方法，基于与建筑物相关的知识。这些知识存储在基于图形的建筑物表示中。通过从IFC文件（这是一种可互操作的BIM标准）中提取有关建筑物的信息，可以有效地创建所考虑建筑物的图形模型。有关建筑物空间布局拓扑的信息与确保空间之间访问的元素特征一起存储在图形表示中。该模型允许对不同类型的空间和非空间信息进行均质编码，这对于路径计算是必需的。分配给图节点的属性对空间的类型及其大小进行编码。图形边缘的属性表示空间之间移动的成本，该成本取决于开口的宽度，为楼梯配备坡度，门的类型及其打开方向。对于坐轮椅移动的人来说，在两个地方之间通过路线的难易程度取决于路线的方向，有向图用于表示建筑物的布局。使用改进的图搜索算法为单源最小成本路径指定了可供残障人士使用的最佳路线，其中考虑了穿越不同空间及其之间的成本。此方法适用于从所有可能的建筑物入口开始找到通往选定房间的最佳路线。所提出的应用程序提供了基于智能知识的导航，该导航基于建筑物的图形表示。该系统旨在帮助人们决定使用移动设备应该走的路线。这样一来，他们便可以从所有可访问的路线中选择一种耗费最少的路线。除了允许可视化关于可访问路线的设计分析结果的用户界面外，还建议使用专用于设计人员的可视化工具，该工具在地板布局上显示残疾人必须走的实际路线。为设计师提供这种可视化效果可以将设计的重点从仅存在可访问路线转变为存在针对残疾人的优质路线。所呈现的示例通过在建筑物布局上描绘找到的可到达路线来说明所建议的方法。从IFC文件中提取并存储在图形建筑物表示形式中的特定于建筑物的知识，用于查找残疾人可以使用的最佳路线。这些路线的搜索是通过基于知识的图搜索过程执行的，该过程考虑了穿越不同空间以及它们之间的成本。将来可能会添加更多元素，这些元素可被视为在建筑物中移动时的不同障碍。