BIM2BEM

There is an urgent need in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industries for new programs and methods of producing reliable energy simulations leveraging Building Information Modelling (BIM) technology. Current methods and programs for running energy simulations require manual data transformations from design documents to energy simulation tools, often requiring subjective decision making by the energy modeller. As a result the development of energy simulation models are time consuming, require expert intervention and lack interoperability between BIM and energy simulation software. A massive opportunity exists to automate, where possible, the creation of model inputs based on existing semantic data contained in BIM. 

It is vital to improve on current limitations as design decisions are often made without the aid of energy modelling leading to the design and construction of non-optimised buildings with respect to energy efficiency. 

The goal of this project is to develop a practical and sufficiently accurate energy simulation system which can be implemented quickly by architects and designers and is easy to use and understand. The system shall be fully integrated into Zutec’s Cloud Platform. There are two core components: 

• The set of algorithms for data transformation, mapping and integration between the ZuTec cloud database and the building energy performance simulation engine;

• Visualisation of simulation results within the ZuTec BIM visualisation environment.

Key information

Start date: March 2015 
End date: March 2016 
Source of funding: Enterprise Ireland 
IRUSE contact: Luis M. Blanes