BIM Facilitated Web Service for LEED Automation

BIM Facilitated Web Service for LEED Automation

Wei Wu1 and Raja R.A. Issa2

1Department of Construction Management and Civil Engineering, Georgia Southern University, P. O. Box 8047, Statesboro, GA 30460-8047; PH (912) 478-0542; FAX (912) 478-1853; email: [email protected] 2Rinker School of Building Construction, University of Florida, P. O. Box 115703, Gainesville, FL 32611-5703; PH (352) 273-1152; FAX (352) 392-9606; email: [email protected]

ABSTRACT

BIM technology has been increasingly implemented in green building design and construction, noticeably in LEED projects. The advantages of using BIM on LEED projects reside in its information richness that is desirable to tackle the challenges posed by LEED certification, meeting the credit compliance and generating the documentation required in certification review. This research proposes a 3rd party web service relying on BIM as the information backbone to facilitate the LEED documentation generation and management. As a potential enhancement to LEED Online, this web service uses a structured database that feed on information coming directly from an integrated BIM model, enabled by information exchange protocols such as Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) and the Industrial Foundation Class (IFC). This paper explores the premises of this web service and proposes the preliminary architecture framework in two different scenarios. Keywords: BIM, LEED, ODBC, IFC, Web services

INTRODUCTION

BIM and LEED are arguably two of the most popular trends in current AEC&FM industry. With the market still in transformation, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC)’s LEED brand has become a new paradigm in the U.S. green building market. Stakeholders including legislators, developers, building owners, design professionals and contractors are engaged with LEED in one way or another and the business mode in building construction is affected correspondingly. LEED is not yet a building code, but quite a few states (e.g. Arizona and California) and governmental agencies (e.g. U.S. DOE and GSA) have mandated its implementation.

Earning LEED certification for a building is a challenging and tedious process, with two major tasks to accomplish: 1) meet the LEED rating system requirements; and 2) demonstrate such compliance with valid and comprehensive documentation. To streamline the process, USGBC launched a web-based platform called LEED Online in 2006 to help project teams manage LEED documentation.

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Copyright ASCE 2011 Computing in Civil Engineering 2011 Computing in Civil Engineering (2011)

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COMPUTING IN CIVIL ENGINEERING

“Through LEED Online, project teams can manage project details, complete documentation requirements for LEED credits and prerequisites, upload supporting files, submit applications for review, receive reviewer feedback, and ultimately earn LEED certification” (GBCI 2010). A major bottleneck of LEED Online, however, stems from the intrinsic deficiency of the traditional project delivery method of the building industry: fragmentation induced lack of interoperability. In terms of the LEED project delivery, this means redundancy in project documentation and data collection due to information inconsistency, which eventually causes the loss of productivity and profitability.

The boom in building information modeling (BIM) technology deployment seems to change the status quo. Despite the controversies remaining in defining what “BIM” exactly is, the consensus is reached on the integrity of the information captured in a building information model: everyone on the project team will be at the same page at any point and any change triggered by any party will be delivered in a consistent way to the rest of the team. In addition to being the information backbone, BIM implementation in LEED projects can be justified by the functionalities of current BIM authoring/analysis tools in building design and performance configuration including those required by the LEED rating system, e.g. whole building energy simulation. The bottom line is that practitioners of BIM and LEED have found opportunity to leverage the LEED process by integrating it with BIM.

This research focuses on the information flow in LEED project delivery, especially how information is generated, processed, delivered, managed and finally submitted to USGBC/GBCI (Green Building Certification Institute) for certification review. The goal is to propose a supplemental web service to LEED Online that feeds on information coming directly from BIM. The information exchange process is enabled by common protocols such as ODBC and IFC. By designing the appropriate schema, generic information in BIM could be manipulated and organized in the format that is compatible with LEED Online, and eventually the automation of the LEED process can be achieved.

LEED DOCUMENTATION

As a critical step in the certification workflow (Figure 1), USGBC/GBCI mandates the project team to prepare application with adequate documentation to demonstrate that the project has fulfilled the claimed LEED credits. Two major types of documentation are involved: 1) LEED Online templates and 2) supplemental submittal documentation.

Figure 1. GBCI’s project certification overview (GBCI 2010). A LEED Online template is a dynamic Portable Document Format (PDF)

document created by USGBC using the Adobe LifeCycle Designer. It is mandatory and project teams must fill in the prescribed information relevant to the LEED credits applied for. Despite the various LEED rating systems available, each LEED credit

Project Registration

Prepare Application

Submit Application

Application Review

Certification

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actually specifies what kind of submittals are expected from the project team. In contrast, supplemental submittal documentation is optional and project teams only use it to address issues they feel necessary to help increase the chances of achieving the applied for credits.

Straightforward as it seems to be, the challenges in preparing LEED documentation come from the chaos in information management that is intrinsic to the traditional project delivery model, as illustrated in Figure 2A. Without a centralized information source, project members are on their own in data collection and documentation preparation. When project evolves, they respond to the progress asynchronously, exacerbated by overwhelming redundancy during information exchange. Consequently, inaccuracy or even loss of information will take place and make the documentation error-prone. In contrast, with BIM, the project team will have an integral information source that they can rely on when it comes to preparing LEED documentation, as illustrated in Figure 2B. Without extra efforts to ponder whether they are looking at the latest-greatest drawings, or wonder if the required regional materials are furnished into the building, an investigation of the building information model will answer all these questions.

A. Documentation-centric model

B. Information-centric model

Figure 2. Information management in AEC-FM industry (Sjøgren 2007).

BIM MATURITY

An essential promise of BIM is to catalyze changes to reduce the industry’s fragmentation, improve its efficiency/effectiveness, and lower the high costs of inadequate interoperability. However, companies and organizations embrace and practice BIM at different levels, and the benefits they are able to recoup may vary significantly. The term “BIM maturity” was used by Succar (2008) to describe the stages that organizations will experience when implementing BIM gradually and consecutively, as illustrated in Figure 3.

Regardless of the segregation of these stages, real-world situation might be intermixed as there are leaders and pioneers, followers as well as laggers. The importance of identifying these maturity stages, however, resides in that it provides a general framework of BIM implementation, reminds the industry where it is at and

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directs where it should head for. It also reveals where improvement is needed in terms of keeping BIM as a technology to advance. It is believed that BIM Stage 1 and Stage 2 reflect the status quo for most of the industry, and Stage 3 is the next immediate goal to embark on, which is also the focus of this research.

Figure 3. BIM maturity in stages – linear view (Adapted from Succar 2008).

INFORMATION EXCHANGE

The maturity of BIM also dictates how many resources a company or a project team has access to in a project setting, especially in LEED project delivery. The capacity of current BIM authoring and analyzing tools has made previously laborious process cost-effective to conduct in order to achieve the desired building performance. Wu and Issa (2010) summarized popular BIM solutions and their possible application in LEED for New Construction projects at the credit level. Formulating an effective strategy to take advantage of appropriate tools in streamlining the sustainability oriented design and construction is critical to the success of LEED certification. Documentation on the other hand, requires stewardship in management of information produced along with the project progress.

Information exchange protocols adopted by a company to communicate with business partners as well as the data format used internally may be consistent with the company’s culture and thus resistant to transit. Nevertheless, “for a BIM implementation strategy to succeed, it must be accompanied by a corresponding cultural transformation strategy”. A painstaking process as the transition is, it is inevitable and the benefits are tangible, “the more flexibly information can be exchanged, the greater the likelihood that it can be preserved in a useful form for the long term (Smith and Tardif 2009).”

A whole range of data exchange and storage options already exists, and Industry Foundation Classes (IFCs) protocol is a major initiative of open-standard data formats that has been supported by many BIM software applications. The IFCs framework involves comprehensive efforts in building semantics and ontologies that is essential to accurate interpretation and exchange of building information, and so far is still a work in progress. The most updated information about IFCs can be found at http://www.buildingsmart.com/bim.

Another approach for interoperable information exchange is through the Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) mechanism, which is also popular and supported by major software vendors. Unlike IFC, ODBC aims to create a software interface for accessing database management system (DBMS) independent of programming

• Status of AEC industry before the implementation of BIM (manual, 2D or 3D CAD)

Pre-BIM

• Object-based MODELING

BIM Stage 1• Model-based

COLLABORATION

BIM Stage 2

• network-based INTEGRATION

BIM Stage 3• Integrated Project

Delivery, the long-term goal of BIM implementation

IPD

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languages, database systems and operating systems, in other words, direct exchange of information at the metadata level.

The major challenge for seamless information exchange in either the IFCs or ODBC scenario is to ensure the integrity of information without distortion or loss during transfer. For IFCs, it demands the richness of vocabularies. International Framework of Dictionary (IFD) in the IFCs framework is dedicated to capture building semantics and ontologies including those unique ones in LEED projects. In the ODBC case, software vendors shall be prudent to allow users to manipulate the internal database of the software without compromising its intended functionalities, yet have the adequate freedom to export/import the data catering to their needs.

LEED AUTOMATION: NETWORK-BASED BIM-LEED INTEGRATION

LEED Automation is an effort to implement BIM in LEED projects at the Stage 3 maturity level: network-based integration. USGBC’s official announcement explicitly outlines the characteristics of such integration: “LEED Automation works similarly to an app. It will perform three key functions for LEED project teams and users of LEED Online by seamlessly integrating third-party applications to 1) provide automation of various LEED documentation processes; 2) deliver customers a unified view of their LEED projects; and 3) standardize LEED content and distribute it consistently across multiple technology platforms” (USGBC 2010).

BIM Stage 3 is a perfect fit for this proposition for it has all the ingredients required to fulfill these three functions: 1) documentation generation is a built-in functionality of popular BIM solutions in the market; 2) a building information model for a LEED project is more than a unified view to the customers but a valuable reservoir of information for the project over its life cycle; 3) the essence of LEED, its features broken down at the building component level together with the relationships between them, are distributed to and shared by project members via a network in standardized data format, regardless of how sparsely they are geographically located and what software packages they are dealing with individually. BIM Stage 3 models become interdisciplinary n-dimensional models allowing complex analyses at the early stages of virtual design and construction. The model deliverables extend beyond semantic object properties to include business intelligence, lean construction principles, green policies and whole lifecycle costing (Succar 2008).

The network-based BIM-LEED integration is semantically-rich and can be hypothetically achieved through model server technologies using proprietary, or non-proprietary, open formats (e.g. BIMserver.org), single integrated/distributed federated databases (e.g. Autodesk’s RDBLink, Laiserin 2003) and/or SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions (e.g. Onuma Planning System, Wilkinson 2008). The prerequisites for this integration include: 1) the maturity of network/software technologies allowing a shared interdisciplinary model to provide two-way access to project stakeholders; 2) the readiness of a competent information exchange format to lubricate the process.

BIM FACILITATED WEB SERVICE

This research looks at two possible approaches to propose the framework of the network-based BIM-LEED integration differentiated by the interoperability strategy implemented: the IFC approach and the ODBC approach. Figure 4 shows a brief roadmap from the process perspective of BIM and LEED integration, of the key

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steps in LEED project delivery using BIM. No matter which approach is adopted, the network-based integration kicks off when the model information flow is triggered. ODBC Approach. ODBC enables information exchange in the most primitive format: generic data that is platform independent. Basically, through ODBC, users can potentially extract the building information as data in a tabular format that can be easily opened in ubiquitous database management software such as MS Access. With extended function of the database management software, project stakeholders can then manipulate the data to conduct calculation and analysis that are often impossible to perform in the BIM software environment.

To share the extracted information through ODBC over the network, a WAMP (Windows, Apache, MySQL and PHP) solution is investigated, where Windows is the operating system, Apache is the web server, MySQL is the database and PHP is the web scripting language. Figure 5 illustrates the architecture of the proposed web service oriented to LEED automation using Autodesk Revit as the sample BIM solution. In this scenario, MySQL is the data infrastructure of this web application. All information contained in the “Project Module” and “LEED Module” can be entered into the MySQL database. For the “BIM Module”, it is possible to export the Revit’s internal database through ODBC into a MySQL database. Revit as a BIM authoring tool has a graphical user interface (GUI) that sits on top of a database. In essence, any instance of the model components is the graphical representation of a certain cluster of data underneath the GUI. Schedules/quantities are evidence of the database’s presence. Depending on the tasks to be performed, users can authorize the “Application Service” to trigger the query in MySQL to manipulate the database and produce the desired outcomes.

Figure 4. BIM-LEED integration process roadmap.

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Figure 5. Architecture of network-based BIM-LEED integration: ODBC scenario.

However, there is a huge bottleneck of current ODBC support in BIM

authoring tools: during the export, none of the customized data, e.g. shared parameters as in Autodesk Revit, will be exported. Such constraints significantly compromise the potential of ODBC as a data exchange mechanism in LEED projects, since most LEED-relevant information is not recognized by the software without special input from the project team. For instance, in order to takeoff the wood materials that are FSC certified, a shared parameter called “FSC” needs to be created first to tag such wood in the building information model. Later on in the LEED documentation stage, those tagged wood materials can be identified, summarized and priced in order to apply for the corresponding LEED credit. While after the ODBC export, the “FSC” tag is lost and it is no longer possible for the project team to tell which are FSC certified wood materials that should be counted into the calculation. IFC Approach. Using IFC as the interoperability protocol is a prevailing trends in BIM implementation. Leading software solutions have been IFCs compatible for a while. Bi-directional IFC support is a relatively new development, and is essential for more rigorous information exchange using the IFC framework. Unlike the “raw data” flow in the ODBC scenario, data in the IFC format is semantically-rich and bears the hierarchy as well as full body of properties that are inherent in the building industry. For instance, the information for a door in the building information model expressed in the IFC format will contain not only the semantics of door: Ifcdoor, but also its geometry: IfcPositiveLengthMeasure, its relationship with the host wall: IfcRelContained-InSpatialStructure, and the whole portfolio or its property: Pset_DoorCommon (buildingSMART International Ltd 2010). This is indisputably conducive to retain the integrity of the project information. Figure 6 illustrates the proposed web service in the IFC scenario.

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Figure 6. Architecture of network-based BIM-LEED integration: IFC scenario.

The IFC approach has the potential to overcome the barriers that encountered in the ODBC scenario as long as its ontology and semantic representation of “LEED parameters” are fully developed. The most recent version of IFC 2x4 RC has significantly improved in addressing such needs. For example, a series of new entities that deals with material definition: IfcMaterialDefinition, material profiles: IfcMaterialProfile, material relationship: IfcMaterial-Relationship and material usage: IfcMaterialUsageDefinition have been added into the IFC framework, and can be expected to accommodate semantic needs in a LEED project that aims for credits in the materials & resources category.

CONCLUSION

This research investigated the premises of a BIM facilitated web service to achieve LEED automation, and proposed the framework of this web service in two different scenarios. It is believed that current technology is ready for the industry to experiment with the prototype of network-based BIM-LEED integration. The semantic comprehensiveness of IFC, BIM server development, and the LEED API are among the highest priorities to look at in the next step of research. Well documented case studies of LEED projects are highly desirable to help validate and improve the framework as well as the functionality of the proposed web service.

REFERENCE

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GBCI. (2010). “Certification Guide: LEED for New Construction.” Green Building Certification Institute, <http://www.gbci.org/main-nav/building-certification/certification-guide/leed-for-new-construction/about.aspx> (Dec. 23, 2010).

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Smith, D.K., and Tardif, M. (2009). Building information modeling: A strategic implementation guide for Architects, Constructors, and Real Estate Asset Managers, Wiley, Hoboken, New Jersey.

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USGBC. (2010). “USGBC Announces ‘LEED Automation’ to Streamline and Create Capacity for LEED Green Building Projects.” U.S. Green Building Council, <http://www.usgbc.org/Docs/News/LEED%20Automation.pdf> (Dec. 23, 2010)

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BIM Facilitated Web Service for LEED Automation

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