The Application and Development of Historical Building Information Modeling in Chinese Architectural Heritage: Sustainability Assessment and Prospects

Historical Building Information Modeling is a digital modeling technology applied to cultural heritage buildings. It has made remarkable progress in aspects such as data integration and management, digital protection of historical buildings, parametric and semantic modeling, multi-source data fusion, and interdisciplinary cooperation platforms. However, the sustainability of this technology has not been explored yet. This paper analyzes nearly a hundred related research achievements between 2010 and 2024 and finds that there is not only a lack of a review of the development and application of Historical Building Information Modeling (HBIM) technology in China, but also a serious shortage of discussions and explorations regarding its sustainability. Therefore, taking the development and application of Historical Building Information Modeling technology in China as the research scope, using relevant practical projects and research achievements in China, and combining a small number of the latest foreign achievements as cases, centering around the research question of the sustainability of Historical Building Information Modeling, this paper adopts the methods of review research and comparative research. It sorts out four development directions and the faced dilemmas in the development process of Historical Building Information Modeling in China and puts forward constructive suggestions for sustainable development, as well as a set of theoretical paths for the sustainability of HBIM technology based on Revit (version 23.0.1.318), Dynamo (version 2.17), Python (version 3.12.1) (Open 3D v0.18 and PointNet++), Network Attached Storage, and cloud-based collaboration platforms. The purpose is to provide a referable path for the sustainable development of Historical Building Information Modeling technology in China.