BIM for Masonry: Development of BIM Plugins for the...

BIM for Masonry: Development of BIM Plugins for theMasonry Unit Database

Shani Sharif1, Russell Gentry21,2Georgia Institute of [email protected] [email protected]

Masonry Unit Database (MUD) is an integral part of Building InformationModeling for Masonry (BIM-M) initiative. MUD provides a data structureframework for storing the required data for digital representation of masonryunits. Specific information about masonry units such as price, geometry andphysical properties is needed throughout the lifecycle of a building project,including the design, construction, maintenance, and demolition stages. Thedevelopment of MUD contributes to enhancement of masonry BIM tools forpractitioners to incorporate up-to-date masonry product information into theirprojects. There are five main stages in the development of MUD: development ofprocess map of masonry building project lifecycle, data requirementidentification, physical design of database, design of data import structures, andfinally design of data export structures. This paper focuses on the development ofthe SQL based MUD, and a Revit-Dynamo data export plugin for this database.The developed plugin is especially beneficial as it provides a tool for fast andaccurate generation of the parametric and data enhanced masonry units as Revitfamilies on the fly from the stored dimensions and attributes in the database. Thegenerated masonry units with this method would be embedded in masonry wallsystems in BIM building project.

Keywords: BIM, Masonry, Relational Database, Building Object Model, SQL,Revit, Dynamo

INTRODUCTION: MUD AS A BOM PORTALBuilding Information Modeling for Masonry (BIM-M)is an initiative in North America to implement ma-sonry materials and systems in BIM software for AECindustries. This initiative is in nature similar to pre-vious endeavors for the development of Building In-formationModeling standards for other architecturaland construction systems including steel [1], precastconcrete [2], and cast-in-place concrete [3]. The BIM-

M initiative involves industry trade associations, allstakeholders inmasonry industry, BIMandother soft-ware providers to the AEC industry, and subject mat-ter experts (Sharif et al. 2015). The main goal of theproject is to develop a BIM data model for masonrywith embedded semantics to describe the charac-teristics and functions of building systems, facilitat-ing collaboration and information exchange acrossall disciplines involved in a building project.

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This paper focuses on the development of Ma-sonry Unit Database (MUD), one of the main sub-projects of the BIM-M that is a data structure frame-work for storing and sharing the required data fordigital representation of masonry units, includingclay brick, CMU, cast stone, and cut stone. The ne-cessity for the development of MUD derives from thefact that there are thousands of masonry productmanufacturers, where each producesmany productsto fulfill a wide range of architectural requirements(Arnold andWishart 2008). In general, building prod-ucts alongwith other constructionmaterials typicallyaccount for 40- 45% of the cost of all constructionwork (Kong et al. 2005). Specific information suchas price, geometry and physical properties is neededthroughout the lifecycle of a building, including thedesign, construction, maintenance, and demolitionstages. Consequently, access to the comprehensiveandupdatedmasonry products information is crucialfor AEC practitioners in anymasonry building project(Kong et al. 2005, Kong, Li, and Shen 2001).

While traditionallymasonry product informationwas available in paper-based catalogues, or recentlythe same type of data on the manufacturers' on-line websites, the advancement of BIM tools and on-line systems has provided more efficient means forpractitioners to acquire useful products informationdigitally. For the development of MUD, the ma-sonry units have to be defined as Building ObjectModels (BOM). There are certain required informa-tion for BOMs to be fully embedded into BIM mod-els, and enable material selection and comparison.Eastmanoutlines these primary required informationfor BOMs as: 2D or 3D geometric representations ofphysical products, parametric geometry (if not fixed),

material representation, connection locations and re-quirements with other systems, performance specifi-cations, maintenance cycle, and other specificationsused inproduct selection, andfinally Links toproductdistribution channels (Eastman et al. 2011).

The import of Building Object Models fromBOM libraries or portals into BIM design platformsand their integration into building projects sup-ports interoperability and interfacing with othertools for cost estimation, system analysis, and build-ing code and building program assessment applica-tions, among others. BOM portals serve as Web ac-cess points for building objects (Eastman et al. 2011).These portals primarily support hierarchical naviga-tion, search, download, and in some cases upload forBOM files. Some examples of product library por-tals are Autodesk SEEK, ARCAT, SmartBIM, NBS BIMlibrary, McGraw-Hill Construction Sweets Network,ArchiBase. The development of MUD as an instanceof a BOM Portal will provide a more efficient tool forpractitioners to acquire up-to-date product informa-tion about all range of masonry units for their BIMmasonry projects.

MUDDEVELOPMENT PROCESSIn this research, fivemain steps in thedevelopmentofa comprehensive Masonry Unit Database have beenidentified (Figure 1). First stage is the developmentof a process map for the representation of a BIM-enhanced masonry building project lifecycle, whichinvolves different stakeholders and the exchange ofinformation among them in different stages of theproject (Gentry et al. 2014, Witthuhn et al. 2014).Second, based on the defined exchange require-ments, the specific set of masonry data has to be

Figure 1Five stages of MUDdevelopment

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identified. Thedata requirementdetermineshow themain attributes of the masonry products have to beclassified (Sharif et al. 2015). These attributes in-clude geometry, material, physical properties, color,texture, manufacturer, suppliers, etc. The third stageis the design and implementation of the databasewhere all the masonry unit data is stored in a struc-tured system, which can be accessed by differentproject actors in different stages of a BIM project. Af-ter the development of the MUD back-end structure,at the next two stages, the front-ends ofMUD, the ac-cess structures for both data import and data exporthave to be designed and implemented.

PROCESS MODEL AND DATA REQUIRE-MENTSThe first step in the development of MUD is to as-sess the required information about masonry unitsto support a given design or construction processin different use scenarios and workflows in the life-cycle of a BIM building project (Figure 2). In thiscontext, workflows are defined as business processesthat involve stakeholders, exchanges of informationamong them, and their access to the MUD in dif-ferent stages. The main stakeholders can be cate-gorized into product manufacturers, product suppli-ers, trade associates, clients, and on the AEC side, ar-chitects, engineers (structure, mechanical, and en-ergy), contractors and fabricators. This research hasadopted a formal method for documenting theseprocesses using Business Process Modeling Notationor BPMN [4]. Detailed description of the complete

proposed workflow for BIM masonry projects hasbeen reportedby BIM-M research group (Gentry et al.2014). A segment of themasonry projectworkflow inthedesigndevelopment and constructiondocumen-tation phases for the structural design andmodelingis shown in figure 3. In this stage of the process forthe structural analysis of the project, structural engi-neers would need to query MUD for geometric, andmechanical and physical properties data of masonryunits that have been specified in the BIM model bythe project architects (Figure 3).

SCHEMADESIGN AND ERMODELThe main part of MUD is a database that stores allobject data in a structured system, which can be ac-cessed with different BIM building project actors viasoftware tools in different stages of a project. Basedon the information gathered from the stakeholdersand domain experts in the workgroups andmodeledin the process map, the masonry unit informationrequirements was classified in a conceptual schemain order to be use for database design. For the de-velopment of MUD, Entity-Relationship model (ERmodel) has been acquired that is a high-level con-ceptual schema with the ability to describe in detailthe entity types, relationships, and constraints ofma-sonry units (Navathe and Elmasri 2010). Conceptualschema is easier to understand and communicatewith nontechnical users, as concepts do not repre-sent implementation and storage details. Readabil-ity by nontechnical users is an important aspect thatensures the complete identification of users' data re-quirements and prevents any possible requirements

Figure 2Masonry designand constructionproject timelinewith project phasesand proposedmasonry materialworkflows


Figure 3Structuralengineeringanalysis andconstructiondocumentationworkflow

conflict. The complete developed ER model for MUDis shown in Figure 4.

DATABASE PHYSICAL DESIGN AND DATAINSTANTIATIONAt the next stage, the developed ERModel was trans-lated into SQL, a RelationalDatabase language, byus-ing Microsoft SQL Server environment as the RDBMS(Relational Database Management System) (Navatheand Elmasri 2010). The developed database includesthe requirements needed for MUD logical and physi-cal design choices and physical storage parameters,as well as detailed specification of data elements,data types, and indexing options. The MUD SQLdatabase is composed of the following tables: Unit,Geometry, Material, Physical Properties, Color, Tex-ture, Manufacturer, and Supplier (Figure 5).

For the fulfillment of the MUD physical design,the database was instantiated with data for about90 masonry units (Clay Brick, and CMU) from vari-ous manufacturers, in order to test the data require-ments and relationships. As a result, the database

data structure was edited to be able to incorporateall possible masonry unit requirement and data for-mats.

MUDACCESS: DATA IMPORT AND EXPORTSTRUCTURESAfter the initiation of the central RDBMS for MUD,data import and export structures for automated ac-cess to the database have be to be developed. MUDcan work with two different types of access gates:web based front-ends, and plugins for BIM platforms,bothwith direct access to the database for data read-/write (Figure 6).

The data input structure would be accessed bythemasonry productmanufacturers, material suppli-ers, trade associates, in addition to database man-agers. Producers and suppliers of the masonry prod-ucts can import and update their products informa-tion into the database, which later can be accessby the other stakeholders involved in the masonryprojects. Although at the current stage, the datawrite is performed by database managers, in the fu-


Figure 4MUD Complete ERModel


ture development of MUD two automated system ofdata import is envisioned. First a web-based front-end with direct connection to the database, and sec-ond a plugin for BIM platforms with access to thedatabase for extraction of masonry unit informationfrom masonry unit 2D or 3D models and import toMUD SQL database.

After the compilation of newor the update of theexisting data of masonry units by product manufac-turers and suppliers, BIM-M users need to access thisinformation for the project development and embedin the BIM models. The same as the data importtools thedataexport canbeperformed throughweb-based application or plugins for BIM software tools.

Development of MUD Hosting and SearchWebsiteAt the current stage, two main export access gatesfor MUD are under development. First, a web-basedaccess platform that would provide search, view andcompare of masonry units for the users. As the de-veloper of product hosting and searchwebsite, COD-IFYD company has been collaborate on this stage ofthe project. CODIFYD has incorporated the devel-oped SQL MUD database by Georgia Tech team, intotheir XML based search tool, Bridge. They populatedthe new web-based version of MUD with more than1000 modules from two main masonry manufactur-ers with 3D, and color and texture images. This MUDweb-based front-end can be accessed online [5].

Figure 5MUD Microsoft SQLServer interface,showing thegenerated diagramsof MUD entities andtheir relationships


Figure 6MUD structure andthe data import andexport structures

Development ofMUDBIM PluginThe second option for exporting data from MUDis the direct transport of inquiry result from thedatabase into a BIM tool such as Autodesk Revit inform of 3D geometric models. We acquired Dynamo,as a special plugin developer for BIM and specificallyRevit. The developed Dynamo plugin is based on aPython script with the capability to connect to SQLManagement systems and run SQL queries to importstored dimensions and attributes from the databaseinto the Dynamo environment, generate 3D modelsbased on the imported data, and export the geom-etry as a Family object in Revit Architecture (Figure8). In this plugin, the main entity used for the 3Dparametric generation ofmasonry units is the Geom-etry entity in MUD. This entity contains attributes forthe parametric representation of both CMU and claybrick masonry units (Figure 7). Different data entries

for attributes in each query for a specific masonryunit, alongwith thedefined conditional rules definedin both SQL and Python, results in the on the fly gen-eration of each single unit in the Revit environment(Figure 8). For the development ofMUD,we classifiedtheunits' geometry in threegeneral categories: regu-lar masonry unit geometry, special masonry unit ge-ometry, and custom masonry unit geometry (Sharifet al. 2015).

"Regular" masonry units can be fully identifiedand categorizedbasedon their parametric attributes.These units are producedbymostmasonrymanufac-turers with almost identical size and shape, althoughwith different tolerances. Based on the assigned val-ues to these attributes, each masonry unit can beidentically 3D generated with the stored data in theMUD. CMU general units have parent families includ-ing stretcher, pier, corner, return corner, sash, corner


sash, bond beam, conduit, lintel, open end, header,starter, and subtype groups such as bullnose, scored,ribbed (circular, rectangular). The clay bricks havetwo major categories of molded bricks and extrudedbricks, and with parent families including thin brick,face brick, structural brick, pavers, etc. The 3D mod-els of three regular units generatedwithDynamoplu-gin and based on queries from the MUD are shownin Figure 8. "Special" masonry units inherit most ofthe attributes from the regular unit geometry. How-ever these units have some special geometric fea-tures unique to these units. They are usually pro-duced by one specific manufacturer based on theirsystem of fabrication or particular preferences. Al-though these units can be partially represented bythe parametric attributes that are defined for regu-lar units, defining a set of parametric attributes tocover all their geometric aspects for a complete rep-resentationwould be impractical, adding extensivelyto the complexity of the database data model. Con-sequently, in MUD they will be matched with theirclosest regular unit geometry counterparts. " Cus-tom" masonry units are custom designed by the re-quest of the project architect or they are specific toa manufacturer or have such complex geometry thatthey cannot be represented parametrically. Most ofcast stone and cut stone units will be categorized inthis group. Geometry of these units is one of a kind,usually complex and includes almost none of the ge-ometric attributes of the regular masonry units. Pa-rameterizing their geometric features forMUDwouldnot be practical. Consequently, these units have tobe representedwith B-rep (Boundary representation)or CSG (Constructive Solid Geometry) models andto be stored as string data format or 3D files in thedatabase.

Figure 7Parametricrepresentation ofmasonry unitgeometry in MUD

Figure 8MUD BIM DynamoPlugin


FUTURE STEPSThe next step in the development of the Revit Dy-namo plugin for MUD is the representation of othermasonry unit attributes that are defined in the MUDschema, information regarding color, texture andphysical (mechanical and thermal) properties. InMUD, the color and texture of each unit is parame-terized in Color and Texture entities for digital repre-sentation of these characteristics.

Based on the images of each masonry unit colorprovided by the manufacturers, the color of the unitis analyzed into RGB and HSV format. Based on thisdata, a human readable name is assigned to eachcolor for classification and comparisonpurposes (Fig-ure 9) [6]. In the same manner, the surface texture ofmasonry units can be classified based on its ampli-tude, and categorized into more generalized texturegroups, glazed, smooth, textured and rough (Figure10). However, it should be taken into account that allthe detailed attributes for representation of masonryunits in MUD may not be required in all LODs (LevelOf Development) in BIM masonry projects. Conse-quently, the final MUD BIM plugin should have thecapabilities for the representation of masonry unitswith different detail levels for LOD 100 to 400, con-ceptual design to fabrication details.

In addition, at the current stage, MUD just rep-resents masonry units with regular geometry, in-cluding clay brick and CMU. However, MUD shouldhave the capability to incorporate all range of ma-sonry units with custom and one of a kind geo-metric shapes which would include cut stone, andcast stone. The infrastructure for representing theseunits in the database has to be designed and imple-mented.

Figure 9Parametricrepresentation ofmasonry unit colorin MUD


Figure 10Parametricrepresentation ofmasonry unittexture in MUD

CONCLUSIONSThis paper outlined the required steps in the devel-opment of a database for masonry units for BIM-M and discussed the development of a Revit Dy-namo plugin for parametric representation of ma-sonry units in BIM software tools. The main outcomeof the MUD in BIM environment would be the incor-poration of masonry unit geometry models in differ-ent LOD levels into BIM masonry wall assemblies, in-cluding different masonry units and arrangements.This is an important aspect of the future research forBIM-Mmasonry wall project and BIM-M specificationproject. For this purpose, the database should be ex-tended to masonry accessories, mortar, grout, ties,and joint reinforcement. The current data model fo-cuses on the attributes of masonry units, and so theschema will need to be extended to include the at-tributes of accessories, as well as the dependenciesbetween units and accessories.

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Kong, SC, Li, H, Liang, Y, Hung, T, Anumba, C and Chen,Z 2005, 'Web services enhanced interoperable con-struction products catalogue', Automation in con-struction, 14(3), pp. 343-352

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Sharif, S, Gentry, TR, Eastman, C and Elder, J 2015'Masonry Unit Database Development for BIM-Masonry', 12th North American Masonry Conference,Denver, Colorado

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[1] http://dcom.arch.gatech.edu/aisc/[2] http://dcom.arch.gatech.edu/pci[3] http://dcom.arch.gatech.edu/aci/[4] http://www.bpmn.org[5] http://apps.codifyd.com/searchUi-playground/sea

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[6] http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/color_summarizer/


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