Semantically rich 3D models at the building scale have long been established through Building Information Modelling (BIM), which has become a standard in interdisciplinary planning practice. By contrast, City Information Modelling (CIM) at the urban scale has yet to reach comparable consolidation or widespread use. Existing frameworks vary in focus and integrate a multitude of different datasets, yet they typically operate at similar scales: large urban areas or even entire cities. Consequently, these models often support only low levels of detail, with buildings represented as simple volumes and public space reduced to terrain surfaces. Between the building and urban scales lies a critical but underrepresented level: the street or neighbourhood scale. The spatial characteristics of streets are central to urban quality of life, shaping potential uses, social interaction, mobility, and environmental performance. It is therefore crucial to understand and capture the built environment at this level. Detailed modelling of streetscapes offers a unique opportunity to represent fine-grained physical and perceptual characteristics, enabling digital environments that more authentically reflect human experience. Such models facilitate comprehensive analyses and the identification of potentials within street spaces – factors that are increasingly vital in the context of climate change, where street-level morphology and materiality directly affect heat exposure, shading, ventilation, and overall resilience. This paper provides a review of the existing CIM frameworks and presents the implementation of a City Information Model on a micro-urban scale using the SSSEIC method as a framework for qualitative (and quantitative) streetscape analysis. The method provides a systematic approach to describing and evaluating the spatial configuration and perceptual attributes of streets, bridging the gap between CIM and BIM to form a consistent modelling logic at the street scale. It includes street uses and surfaces, underground installations (pipes and cables), facades of the adjacent buildings and organisation of the ground floor area including uses, all objects in public space (street furniture), and ecological aspects which inlcude all plants and green spaces. Through this comprehensive structure, the SSSEIC method supports the creation of a semantically rich micro-urban CIM that serves both as an analytical tool and as a foundation for future design processes.
Tobisch et al. (Thu,) studied this question.