Abstract
Abstract Background The architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry lacks a framework for capturing, managing, and exchanging project, product, and social information over the lifecycle of a building. The current tools have various limitations, such as lack of interoperability, slow to transfer huge building model files, and possibility of data inconsistency. Methods In this paper, we present a cloud-based BIM server framework namely Social BIMCloud that facilitates BIM information exchange through dynamic merging and splitting of building models. The data model of Social BIMCloud is based on but not limited to IFC. The data model of Social BIMCloud was further extended to accommodate social interactions, by studying the formal modes of communication in the AEC industry. An object-based approach to capture and manage social interactions in AEC projects through a BIM-based visual user interface was also developed and demonstrated. Results Social BIMCloud addresses the issues of inefficient data transfer speed and data inconsistency in a distributed environment by facilitating the storage and partial exchange of integrated nD BIM models. Data interoperability is facilitated through open BIM standards such as IFC and direct integration with construction software. High performance, scalability, fault tolerance, and cost effectiveness are facilitated through data partitioning, data replication strategies, multi-node structures, and pay-per-use tariff systems, respectively, through a cloud-based NoSQL database. Conclusion The Social BIMCloud framework helps to develop and exchange BIM models, which are rich in project information such as social interactions, cost, and energy analyses. This framework improves the communication efficiency between project participants, leading to better designs and less rework. The information captured by this framework could also be useful to determine important metrics such as industry trends, relationships among project participants, and user requirements.
Highlights
The architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry lacks a framework for capturing, managing, and exchanging project, product, and social information over the lifecycle of a building
Results and discussion we present two example scenarios demonstrating the two main features of the Social BIMCloud framework – (1) partial information exchange and (2) decision making though social interactions
Open Building information modeling (BIM) standards like IFC have been developed to facilitate interoperability and data consistency in the AEC industry, but due to the lack of a platform to facilitate object-based information exchange, information is still exchanged among project partners as BIM files
Summary
The architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry lacks a framework for capturing, managing, and exchanging project, product, and social information over the lifecycle of a building. The current tools have various limitations, such as lack of interoperability, slow to transfer huge building model files, and possibility of data inconsistency. Building information modeling (BIM) is increasingly being adopted in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry to represent, store, share, and manage building information. Huge size of BIM files, multi-domain fragmented nature of the industry, and file-based exchange of BIM information lead to problems like data transfer inefficiency, lack of interoperability, and data inconsistency. Data transfer efficiency can be improved by exchanging partial BIM files which are smaller in size and contain BIM information relevant to a specific project partner. BIMServer (Beetz et al 2010) facilitates partial updating and retrieval of BIM files only through partitions decided at the beginning of the project, and does not facilitate dynamic splitting and merging of BIM models
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