Combining Geometry, Topology and Semantics for Generic Building Description and Simulations

2D and 3D virtual architectural models are the common ground of many studies, including environmental protection, energy saving, or human well-being. Building or urban environment simulations concern for instance heat transfer, lighting, and acoustics, each of them requiring physical parameters additionally to the geometric representation. Furthermore, geometry does not generally comply straightforwardly with physical parameters and users are forced to manually adapt the models before simulation. This paper proposes an overview of modeling and simulation studies that make use of topological representations, and discusses the advantages of a topological representation for various types of applications. Such a representation can be used not only to maintain the 3D model global coherence, but also to automatically retrieve walls, doors, or room volumes for instance. Based on the existing model of generalized maps, this paper also illustrates some examples of structure traversal that can be used for providing the users with adequate simulation data.