Automatic infrastructure visual inspection using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) enhances efficiency and safety. However, existing approaches lack context-aware path planning capabilities, often leading to redundant inspections without focus. To address this limitation, this study introduces a novel infrastructure inspection paradigm that integrates 3D coverage path planning (3D-CPP), real-time data interpretation, and inspection information management, to generate and refine 3D-CPP progressively based on recorded information and real-time observation. The proposed paradigm consists of two main components. First, a graph-based information management system named Semantic-PolygonGraph is developed to incorporate static information from Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) alongside dynamically accumulated inspection data. Second, leveraging this structured representation, a progressive 3D-CPP method is proposed to generates an adaptive inspection path that dynamically refines itself based on task requirements, historical records, and real-time observations, prioritizing regions exhibiting superficial damage. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed paradigm, this study introduces a data quality assessment metric to quantify the trade-off between inspection cost and data quality. Simulated case studies demonstrate that the proposed approach improves data quality with limited increase of inspection costs, highlighting its potential for long-term infrastructure maintenance.

Digitalisation is transforming various economic sectors, with the digital twin (DT) being a key manifestation for complex systems. While numerous studies focus on sector-specific DTs, few offer comparative analyses across domains. This paper delivers three major contributions: (1) A six-dimensional characterisation framework that systematically captures DT development processes across conceptual (twinning objects, purposes, system architectures) and implementation (data, modelling, services) dimensions; (2) Cross-domain comparative analysis of DTs across five representative domains (agriculture, manufacturing, construction, healthcare, smart cities) using this framework, revealing universal commonalities in DIKW-based intelligence progression and identifying three key differentiators—digitalisation capability, cost-benefit dynamics, and socio-ethical risks—that explain domain-specific variations in DT maturity and adoption; and (3) A unified Digital Twin Platform-as-a-Service (DT-PaaS) solution that standardises common processes, tools, and applications while accommodating domain-specific variations through interoperable data models, reusable modelling libraries, and cross-domain service orchestration. A case study demonstrates that the proposed DT-PaaS framework enables connected DT ecosystems with capabilities for data synchronisation, co-simulation, collaborative learning, and coordinated decision-making across sectors. This research establishes the first systematic cross-domain DT comparison methodology and provides practical pathways for knowledge transfer between mature and emerging DT domains, ultimately supporting more efficient and interoperable digital transformation.

BIM standard development is central to the performance and behavior of BIM model application across transmission, visualization, and information management perspectives. Tremendous effort has been made to ease the implementation of IFC data model in practice. Yet, the complexity of IFC data model hurdles the implementation of the import and export functionality by software vendors. To overcome this, buildingSMART introduced the concept of Model View Definitions to define which parts of an IFC data model need to be implemented for a specific data exchange scenario. With such, the certification of compatibility for software products with the IFC standard is formed. The Model View Definition is use case orientated to determine whether the specific information should be included in an IFC partial model. With the creation of ad-hoc, project-specific Exchange Requirements increasing, associated MVD development requires much more work to incorporate standard development. To resolve this issue, this paper attempts to exploit the potential of information entropy which has proven itself extremely crucial in many other industries in terms of information management, and then integrates it with sandpile simulation to propose a Top-down hierarchy to structure as well as interpret IFC partial model via Model View Definition. The proposed information entropy shifted MVD development approach would manage to unify the MVD development process that enables the reduction on confusion for various end users, specific organization, or project needs. Moreover, to better translate the BIM standard topology into sandpile simulations, a new notion system is proposed. Sandpile simulations are further implemented to prove their applicability, during the simulation, self-organized criticality is identified, and the existence of chaos is observed.