Construction Planning Workbench: Software Testing at Woods Bagot David Marchant, Woods Bagot Pty Limited Gerardo Trinidad, CSIRO Manufacturing & Infrastructure Technology
Summary Woods Bagot undertook to test the various CPW modules in-house. They were able to successfully view and manipulate the models with the test data provided. They then proceeded to create an IFC file from an ArchiCAD model of the Brisbane City Council fit out project as a test of an actual project. The IFC file was an extraction of the whole model, which just included slabs and walls on Level 6 (See Figure 1). This file was successfully created using the “File/Save As� command in ArchiCAD and saving as an IFC version 2x edition 2. This saves the 3D building model as an IFC STEP file (See Figure 2).
Figure 1: Brisbane City Council Building (Level 6)
Figure 2: Saving an ArchiCAD model in IFC format
The resulting IFC file was imported into Express Data Manager (EDM). The imported IFC model is then pre-processed using: • •
Building element connectivity agent – Collision Detector Building element classification agent – Classifier
The process of creating an EDM repository, importing the model and performing the required pre-processing is a time consuming process. Hence, some knowledge of EDM may be necessary. To remedy this situation, a software utility called “EDM Interface” was implemented. After the pre-processing of the IFC model, an associated MS Access file is generated. The Prolog-based intelligence server (PINS) use this database. PINS applies a set of “knowledge rules” to determine a logical sequence of activities which it writes to tables in the MS Access database. Manual cleaning of the MS Access database is necessary because some steps of this process are not yet fully automated. Hence, some level of expertise in MS Access was required. Additional work is required in this case. The clean MS Access file is then designated as the ODBC data source, “cpw_store” and PINS is executed. This stage is the core process of CPW. No errors were observed in this stage. After the completion of the execution of PINS, the database defined by the ODBC data source, “cpw_store” can be viewed using MS Project.
Overview The construction-planning workbench provides a collection of software tools that allow users to generate a draft construction schedule from an IFC-based 3D building model. The ultimate goal is to fully automate this process. After the completion of the initial CRC CI project, Contract Planning Workbench (2002-056-C), an early prototype was completed. This early prototype was shown as being able to partially automate the generation of a draft construction schedule from an IFC-based building model. The CPW collection of software tools includes: • • • • •
Prolog-based Intelligence Server (PINS) Collision Detection Agent (Building Element Connectivity) Building Element Classification Agent Building Element Generator (EDM to MS Access) VRML Generator (EDM to VRML)
PINS Prolog-based intelligence server is the core process of CPW. It produces a list of building components (or building elements), the associated construction activities and
resources required. Figure 3, Figure 4, Figure 5 and Figure 6 show different stages of the PINS process.
Figure 3: PINS loading and analysing the building database
Figure 4: List of building components
Figure 5: List of associated construction activities
Figure 6: List of required resources
Importing BCC model into EDM Importing the BCC IFC model (IFC version 2x release 2) produces neither errors nor warnings. Note however, importing earlier IFC versions such as IFC version 2.0 may result in numerous warning messages. Current CRC-CI ICT applications such as CPW are not compatible with IFC versions before IFC version 2x release 2. Figure 7 and Figure 8 illustrate EDM Supervisor dialog boxes used to import an IFC data model into EDM.
Figure 7: Creating an EDM repository to store an IFC data model
Figure 8: Importing an IFC data model into EDM
EDM Interface The EDM Interface (See Figure 9) can be used to pre-processed IFC data models in EDM. It can also be used to prepare the MS Access database needed by CPW. The EDM interface opens a selected EDM database (See Figure 10) and allows users to select a particular IFC model or EDM repository (See Figure 11). The selected IFC model can be pre-processed using the [Run>Agents] menu as shown in Figure 12. The EDM Interface also allows the generation of the MS Access database needed by CPW as shown in Figure 13.
Figure 9: The EDM Interface
Figure 10: Opening an EDM database
Figure 11: Selecting an IFC model
Figure 12: Performing element connectivity analysis and element classification
Figure 13: Generating the MS Access database used by CPW