BIM on Building Site (BOB)

BOB

IM on Building Sites or “BoB” is an innovative project to improve the use of BIM and planning on construction sites. Industry partners Balloon Inc. (camera hardware, related software algorithms) and D-studio (BIM management and integration services) share forces with construction companies Willemen Groep NV and Bouwbedrijf Dethier and academic partners from IMEC research centers in Antwerp (IDLab MOSAIC) and Ghent (IPI and IDLab Data Science Lab). BoB is an IMEC.ICON project, with funding from VLAIO, in which a consortium of industrial and academic partners is working together to improve the automatic registration of construction activities in the field and bridge the gap between the virtual model and construction reality.

The team is applying new techniques, using a combination of smart camera capture, advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) algorithms and linked data methods, to match these live data streams from the construction site with semantic data from BIM.

The project results will improve efficiency on future construction sites, increase construction schedule accuracy and ensure higher quality as-built information at completion.

For D-studio, this means an expansion of innovation activities and expansion into applying AI and ML for information management, in addition to the ongoing VLAIO-funded BIMcradleQ innovation project. These innovations further strengthen D-studio in their data-driven project information management.

Challenges

Connecting different types of data
Linking recognized activities with objects and tasks
Image matching research: provide support for matching images from the on-site camera with synthetic 3D views of the models.
Develop an operational solution for each future project and integrate it with the BIMCradle platform or as part of a new product.

In collaboration with IDLab-DSLab, D-studio will work on the
design of the metadata model for hosting the wide variety of
information from data streams of design, planning and monitoring activities.
The goal is to evolve beyond current document-based processes
and achieve a more complete integration of object-level project information, in an object metadata repository.

D-studio also works on validating and enriching
datasets, creating connectors to and from the metadata model, and
preparing a technology demonstration.