Establishing an Appropriate Level of Detail (LoD) for a Building Information Model (BIM) – West Block, Parliament Hill, Ottawa, Canada

Abstract

ABSTRACT:In 2011, Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC) embarked on a comprehensive rehabilitation of the historically significant West Block of Canada's Parliament Hill. With over 17 thousand square meters of floor space, the West Block is one of the largest projects of its kind in the world. As part of the rehabilitation, PWGSC is working with the Carleton Immersive Media Studio (CIMS) to develop a building information model (BIM) that can serve as maintenance and life-cycle management tool once construction is completed. The scale and complexity of the model have presented many challenges. One of these challenges is determining appropriate levels of detail (LoD). While still a matter of debate in the development of international BIM standards, LoD is further complicated in the context of heritage buildings because we must reconcile the LoD of the BIM with that used in the documentation process (terrestrial laser scan and photogrammetric survey data). In this paper, we will discuss our work to date on establishing appropriate LoD within the West Block BIM that will best serve the end use. To facilitate this, we have developed a single parametric model for gothic pointed arches that can be used for over seventy-five unique window types present in the West Block. Using the AEC (CAN) BIM as a reference, we have developed a workflow to test each of these window types at three distinct levels of detail. We have found that the parametric Gothic arch significantly reduces the amount of time necessary to develop scenarios to test appropriate LoD.

The effect of acquisition error and level of detail on the accuracy of spatial analyses

“…at different LODs (Besuievsky, Barroso, Beckers, & Patow, 2014;Biljecki, Ledoux, & Stoter, 2017;Billger, Thuvander, & Wästberg, 2016;Brasebin, Perret, Mustière, & Weber, 2012;Deng, Cheng, & Anumba, 2016;Ellul, Adjrad, & Groves, 2016;Fai & Rafeiro, 2014;Neto, 2006;Peronato, Bonjour, Stoeckli, Rey, & Andersen, 2016;Strzalka, Monien, Koukofikis, & Eicker, 2015). In general, research has demonstrated that in certain spatial analyses the benefit of a finer LOD may be overestimated and even detrimental, as the potential small benefit may be countervailed by cost and complexity.…”

Digital Invasions: From Point Clouds to Historical Building Object Modeling (H-Bom) of a Unesco WHL Site

“…In literature, some works show several steps in 3D HBIM modeling (Murphy et al, 2013); these workflows use different software with the necessary format conversion and we mainly observe a 2D simplification with slices of point clouds to build up the 3D model. In some work related to H-BIM, some samples of reconstruction of the existing condition have been described, often suggesting the generation of a semantic model based on a constant comparison between the information included in the historical treatises and the profiles achievable from a point cloud (Apollonio et al, 2013;De Luca et al, 2005;Fai et al, 2014). Others, instead, suggest the setting up of a library of historical building object models (H-BOM) that currently does not exist starting from the digital survey of an artifact (Quattrini et al, 2015) considering also the possibility to reuse the component Biagini et al, 2014;Santagati et al, 2016).…”

Bim Automation: Advanced Modeling Generative Process for Complex Structures

“…Because of the risk of high cost for analysis and BIM generation, LoD should not be specified at the beginning of the generative process, but defined and limited in time based on the needs and goals of the projects. It was agreed that the components of the BIM should be developed in such a way that LoD could be easily added or subtracted in the future for cases where the users may opt for more (heritage record) or less (facilities management) information ( Fai S., 2014). Fig.…”

“…The qualitative value of the l should not be defined a priori but gradually reached during its life cycle. The primary objective to achieve an appropriate 'as built' model should be determined according to the project purposes (Fai S., 2014).…”

“…Modeling requires long generative time causing an increase in costs related to the construction of the model based and a slowdown of management processes for building rehabilitation. The improvement of coordination and production in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction industry (AEC) needs new approaches and methodologies to increase the flexibility of modeling for existing structures, maintaining the complexity of the 3D survey data (cloud-to-3D model) Fai S., 2011). The aim of this work is to introduce innovative features that can improve the generative model process through the support of new technologies and new digital tools, demonstrating how the application of this method can reduce the time of construction of complex models.…”