From Point Clouds to IFC-Compliant BIM: A Pipeline for Geometric Modeling of Arch Dam Bodies

Abstract Dams are vital infrastructure for water resource management, flood control and hydropower generation, yet their long-term safety is increasingly challenged by aging structures and limited monitoring practices. As-built building information modeling (BIM) provides precise digital representations of existing conditions and supports life cycle management. However, conventional BIM pipelines, largely developed for buildings and standardized infrastructure, are not well-suited to hydraulic structures with highly customized geometries such as arch dams. To address this limitation, an Industry Foundation Class (IFC)-compliant BIM approach for geometric modeling of arch dam bodies using point cloud data is proposed. First, IFC-compliant templates are primarily designed for dam bodies, enabling standardized and expressive digital modeling of dam structures. A reconstruction pipeline is then proposed for geometric modeling of the dam body from unstructured point cloud data, integrating semantic segmentation with parametric geometric modeling techniques. The effectiveness of the proposed pipeline is demonstrated through a case study on a masonry arch dam, where point clouds captured by mobile laser scanning are processed to generate IFC-compliant BIM models. Results indicated that the method enables accurate reconstruction of complex dam geometries while ensuring interoperability within the BIM environment.