Core domains to establish digital twins of the built environment are Building Information Modeling (BIM), Geographic Information System (GIS) and Internet of Things (IoT). RESTful Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) of these domains allow easy access to the digital twin. While multiple information models are reasonable since the focus of these domains is distinct, interoperability becomes a challenge. Therefore, in this paper we propose a hypermedia-driven RESTful API for digital twins of the built environment. While the GIS and IoT interfaces are covered by established standards, we define a RESTful interface for Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) models of the BIM domain. The APIs are interconnected with a federated approach though hypermedia navigation links. An evaluation by two use cases – a planning model and a structural health monitoring application – shows that the API can be used to navigate through the models crossing seamlessly the scope of the domains and overcoming barriers of interoperability.

中文翻译：

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超媒体驱动的 RESTful API，用于构建环境的数字孪生


建立建筑环境数字孪生的核心领域是建筑信息模型（BIM）、地理信息系统（GIS）和物联网（IoT）。这些领域的 RESTful 应用程序编程接口 (API) 允许轻松访问数字孪生。虽然多个信息模型是合理的，因为这些领域的重点不同，但互操作性成为一个挑战。因此，在本文中，我们提出了一种用于构建环境的数字孪生的超媒体驱动的 RESTful API。虽然 GIS 和 IoT 接口包含在既定标准中，但我们为 BIM 领域的工业基础类 (IFC) 模型定义了 RESTful 接口。 API 通过超媒体导航链接以联合方法互连。对两个用例（规划模型和结构健康监测应用程序）的评估表明，API 可用于导航模型，无缝跨越领域范围并克服互操作性障碍。