In Search of Open and Practical Language-Driven BIM-Based Automated Rule Checking Systems

Abstract

Significant progress has been made towards BIM-based automated rule-checking systems. There are multiple approaches that show varying potentials as crucial components for open and practical rule checking systems. However, in the current state, we are not yet quite there as they are still several barriers that prevent the needed shift from proof-of-concept to the real-world implementation. This paper reviews various language-based rule checking systems that have been proposed and assesses their potentials and gaps that need to be overcome for them to become practical. It introduces metrics of eleven criteria to analyze various approaches to assess their readiness for the real-world implementations. The criteria cover a wide range of aspects including language expressiveness, ease of use to define a rule, openness, level of maturity, and performance. These criteria help to identify gaps that currently exist that need to be overcome to allow a leap from a proof-of-concept to the real-world implementation. From the assessment, it is obvious that no one single approach is currently capable of covering the entire spectrum of requirements for automated rule-checking systems. The assessment also shows that the possibilities of combining two or more approaches may accelerate the realization of an open and practical language-driven automated rule checking system.