The Regulatory Room of buildingSmart International held its second Open House on 26 January 2022. The aim is to share work done by the Room on advancing the practice of automated rule checking in the AEC industry; and to listen to the needs and suggestions of practitioners.
Key issues discussed:
One of the fundamental changes needed to advance automated rule checking within a BIM environment is to start sharing data, not documents.
Because IFC is vendor and software-independent, its use is essential in automated rule checking. Using IFC as a standard for data modeling and exchange enables the use of advanced AI tools to check for compliance with rules.
Progress is being made, notably in Finland, in issuing and using standardizing the information submitted within the IFC model to enable automated rule checking.
The liability associated with automated code checking is not much different from the liability within the current system. In fact, automated rule checking can catch (repeated) errors or omissions more effectively.
Currently, and in addition to promoting using IFC for automated code checking, the Regulatory room is building a set of common requirements and use cases for automated code checking. This can enable practitioners, government agencies and researchers develop methods, algorithms and work processes to transfer regulations into computer code. It will also enable identifying needs and pathways for making the business case for automated code checking.