Building Information Modelling (BIM) has become an emerging digital technology in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry. There is a growing demand on applying BIM for sustainable design including the building energy simulation (BES). Lack of sufficient interoperability has caused barriers to utilize the information from BIM for BES. In this study, the interoperability between BIM and four different BES tools (i.e., Ecotect, EQUEST, Design Builder and IES-VE) was explored by using a case study of a residential building in the design stage. The misrepresented information from BIM to multiple BES tools were identified based on six different categories of building information parameters. The research proposed an approach of creating gbXML file with an improved integrity of information in BIM. Overall, this study would lead to further work in developing platforms for improving the information transformation from BIM to BES.
Kim S. , Woo, J. H. (2011 December), Analysis of the differences in energy simulation results between building information modeling (BIM)-based simulation method and the detailed simulation method. In: Proceedings of the Winter Simulation Conference, pp. 3550–3561.
Azhar S. , Brown J., Sattineni A. (2010, June), A case study of building performance analyses using building information modeling. In: Proceedings of the 27th international symposium on automation and robotics in construction (ISARC-27), Bratislava, Slovakia, pp. 25–27.
Moon H. J. , Choi M. S., Kim S. K., Ryu S. H. (2011, November), Case studies for the evaluation of interoperability between a BIM based architectural model and building performance analysis programs. In: Proceedings of 12th Conference of International Building Performance Simulation Association, Vol. 2011.
Ham Y. , Golparvar-Fard M. (2015), Mapping actual thermal properties to building elements in gbXML-based BIM for reliable building energy performance modeling. Automation in Construction, 49, 214–224.
Young N. W. , Jones S. A., Bernstein H. M., Gudgel J. (2009), The business value of BIM-getting building information modeling to the bottom line. Bedford, MA: McGraw-Hill Construction, 51.
Kim J. B. , Jeong W., Clayton M. J., Haberl J. S., Yan W. (2015), Developing a physical BIM library for building thermal energy simulation. Automation in Construction, 50, 16–28.
Steel J. , Drogemuller R., Toth B. (2012), Model interoperability in building information modelling. Software & Systems Modelling, 11(1), 99–109.
Cemesova A. , Hopfe C. J., Mcleod R. S. (2015), Passiv- BIM: Enhancing interoperability between BIM and low energy design software. Automation in Construction, 57, 17–32.
O’Donnell J. T. , Maile T., Rose C. (2013), Transforming BIM to BEM: Generation of building geometry for the NASA Ames sustainability base BIM. Simulation Research Group.
DesignBuilder Software Ltd. (2016), DesignBuilder Revit – gbXML Tutorial. Available at: http://www.designbuilder.co.uk/downloads/db_revit_tutorial_v1.pdf (Accessed: 5 July 2018).
Integrated Environmental Solutions Ltd. (2014), BIM + Building Performance Analysis Using Revit 2014 and IES <Virtual Environment>. Available at: https://www.iesve.com/corporate/media-center/white-papers/general/revit-white-paper-2014.pdf (Accessed on 5 July 2018).
Autodesk (2015), Autodesk Revit 2015. Available at: https://www.autodesk.com/education/free-software/revit (Accessed on 1 September 2015).
Autodesk (2011), Autodesk Ecotect Analysis. Available at: http://usa.autodesk.com/ecotect-analysis/ (Accessed on 1 September 2015).
Hirsch J. (2009), The Quick Energy Simulation Tool. Available at: http://doe2.com/equest/index.html (Accessed on 1 September 2015).
DesignBuilder Software Ltd. (2014), DesignBuilder. Avail able at: https://designbuilder.co.uk/ (Accessed on 1 September 2015).
Integrated Environmental Solutions Ltd. (2015), VE-For- Students. Available at: https://www.iesve.com/software/download/ve-for-students (Accessed on 1 September 2015).
Green Building XML (gbXML) Schema Inc. (2018), About gbXML: some backgroud info and the organizations involved. Available at: http://www.gbxml.org/About_GreenBuildingXML_gbXML (Accessed on 5 July 2018).
Green Building XML (gbXML) Schema Inc. (2018), Software list: software tools that integrate with gbXML. Available at: http://www.gbxml.org/Software_Tools_that_Support_GreenBuildingXML_gbXML (Accessed on 5 July 2018).
Green Building XML (gbXML) Schema Inc. (2018), What is the difference between IFC and gbXML? Available at: http://community.gbxml.org/forums/topic/what-is-thedifference-between-ifc-and-gbxml/ (Accessed on 5 July 2018).
Dong B. , Lam K. P., Huang Y. C., Dobbs G. M. (2007, September), A comparative study of the IFC and gbXML informational infrastructures for data exchange in computational design support environments. In: Tenth International IBPSA Conference, pp. 1530–1537.
Autodesk Knowledge Network (2015), Specify the Green Building Studio Project for Energy Analysis. Avail able at: http://help.autodesk.com/view/RVT/2015/ENU/?guid=GUID-2B7F5C32-1C33-4CE4-B763-BFED-6399C2D3 (Accessed on 27 Jun 2016).
Osello A. , Cangialosi G., Dalmasso D., Di Paolo A., Turco M. L., Piumatti P., Vozzola M. (2011), Architecture data and energy efficiency simulations: BIM and interoperability standards. In: Proceedings of Building Simulation 2011: 12th Conference of International Building Performance Simulation Association, Sydney, 14–16 November.
Hetherington R. , Laney R., Peake S., Oldham D. (2011), Integrated building design, information and simulation modelling: the need for a new hierarchy. In: Building Simulation 2011, 14–16 Nov 2011, Sydney, Australia.
Pauwels P. , Van Deursen D., Verstraeten R., De Roo J., De Meyer R., Van de Walle R., Van Campenhout J. (2011), A semantic rule checking environment for building performance checking. Automation in Construction, 20(5), 506–518.
Karan E. P. , Irizarry J. (2015), Extending BIM interoperability to preconstruction operations using geospatial analyses and semantic web services. Automation in Construction, 53, 1–12.
Integrated Environmental Solutions Ltd. (2014), IES Virtual Environment & Compliance with ASHRAE 90.1 2004, 2007, and 2010 Appendix G Performance Rating Method. Available at: https://www.iesve.com/software/virtual_environment_prm_compliance.pdf (Accessed on 5 July 2018).
Dimitriou V. , Firth S. K., Hassan T. M., Fouchal F. (2016), BIM enabled building energy modelling: development and verification of a GBXML to IDF conversion method. Proceedings of the 3rd IBPSA-England Conference BSO 2016, Newcastle, 12th–14th September 2016, p. 1126.