Role-Based Digital Model View Generation for BIM

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Solution Overview

Problem

The creation and maintenance of purpose-specific model views for building information models (BIM) are cumbersome due to redundant representations and the difficulty in keeping them up-to-date, requiring significant manual effort.

Innovation Solution

A method that generates digital model views by assigning building element specifications to roles, allowing for the automatic adaptation of model views to user or application-specific rights, functions, or properties, using a knowledge graph to store and manage building element and relationship information, enabling flexible and efficient generation of role-specific views.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Adaptability or versatility

If purpose-specific model views are created manually from building models, then specific views can be generated, but the process requires significant manual effort and time

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvepurpose-specific model viewsVSAvoidmanual effort
Core Design Contradiction:
Adaptability or versatilityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The patent applies preliminary action by pre-defining role assignments for building elements during the initial model creation. Each building element is tagged with roles (e.g., 'fire safety', 'cleaning', 'occupancy') in advance, so that when a specific view is needed, the system can automatically retrieve and display only the relevant elements for that role, eliminating the need for manual view creation each time.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The patent implements universality by creating a single building model that serves multiple purposes through role-based filtering. The same building model can generate different purpose-specific views (escape plans, cleaning schedules, occupancy plans, fire safety plans) by applying different role filters, eliminating the need to create separate models for each purpose.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #6Universality (Multi-functionality)

2Adaptability or versatility

If multiple purpose-specific model views are maintained separately, then specific views can be generated, but consolidation becomes complicated when building models change

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvemodel viewsVSAvoidconsolidation process
Core Design Contradiction:
Adaptability or versatilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent merges multiple purpose-specific views into a single unified building model with role-based metadata. Instead of maintaining separate models for different purposes, all views are consolidated in one model where building elements are tagged with multiple roles. This allows automatic generation of any purpose-specific view from the unified model, simplifying consolidation when changes occur.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #5Merging (Combining)

Solution Approach 2:

The system performs preliminary action by pre-assigning multiple roles to each building element during model creation. This advance tagging ensures that when the building model changes, all purpose-specific views automatically update because they all draw from the same unified model with pre-defined role assignments, eliminating manual consolidation efforts.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

3Productivity

If building elements are assigned to multiple roles, then role-specific views can be automatically generated, but the data structure becomes more complex

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveautomatic view generationVSAvoiddata structure
Core Design Contradiction:
ProductivityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent adds another dimension to the building element data structure by incorporating role metadata. Instead of organizing data only by building element type, the system adds a role dimension that allows elements to be categorized and retrieved based on their functional roles (fire safety, cleaning, occupancy, etc.). This multidimensional organization enables automatic view generation while keeping the underlying structure manageable through standardized metadata fields.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #17Another dimension (Dimensionality change)

Data Source

PatentEP3879423A1Method and device for generating digital model views for buildings
Publication Date: 2021.09.15 SIEMENS SCHWEIZ AG
  • EP3879423A1 patent drawingFigure 1
  • EP3879423A1 patent drawing

AI summary

A computer-implemented method for generating digital model views (RMV) for a building, wherein a digital building model (BM) of the building is read in, building element data (BEI, BE2) about building elements and relationship data (BA) about relationships between building elements are extracted from the digital building model (BM) and stored according to their respective relationships. Furthermore, one or more building element data sets (BE1, BE2) are assigned to different roles (R1, R2) intended for grouping rights, functions, or properties of users (USR) or applications (APP). When a model view (RMV) is requested, a role (R1) associated with the request is determined, and those stored building element data sets (BE1, BE2) that are assigned to the determined role (R1) are selected as role-specific building element data sets.Using the selected, role-specific building element data (BE1, BE2) and the relationship data assigned to them, a role-specific digital model view (RMV) is then generated and output.