Compatibility study between building information modeling and acoustic simulation software

Abstract

Geometric and non-geometric data from Building Information Models (BIM) need to be manually reconstructed in acoustic simulation software to examine building acoustic performance. This process is time-consuming, error-prone, and the accuracy of acoustic analysis results will depend on the expertise of the user. The process is also unidirectional (i.e., from BIM to the acoustic software); meaning that simulation outputs can’t be easily retrieved back to the BIM. Thus, over the last decade, several attempts have been made to integrate acoustic analysis into BIM-related software during the conceptual design phase. This paper aims to facilitate the interoperability between BIM and acoustic simulation engine by improving the information exchange between them. A case study with an educational space at Concordia University in Montreal is carried out to validate the developed system and examine the practicality and efficiency of this process in action. The paper will investigate: 1) extraction of geometry data from the BIM software; 2) enriching the BIM with data regarding acoustic absorption coefficients, via an external database; 3) calculation of acoustic qualities including reverberation time, and 4) visualization of the simulation results in the BIM software.