As-Built BIM for a Fifteenth-Century Chinese Brick Structure at Various LoDs

Abstract

Building information modeling (BIM) has received significant research attention in the field of built heritage. As-built BIM refers to a BIM representation of the “as-is” conditions of built heritage at the time of a survey. Determining the level of development (LoD) is crucial for as-built BIM owing to its relevance to model effects and modeling efforts. This study addresses this issue from the viewpoint of a brick structure based on a case study of a fifteenth-century ruin in Nanjing, China. Three LoDs are proposed based on the combined use of a commercial platform and auxiliary tools: A host model linked with raster images composed using orthoimage and relief maps (LoD 1), an as-built volume with semantic skins (LoD 2), and a brick-by-brick model with custom industry foundation class parameters at local areas (LoD 3). The results reveal that LoD 1 caters to an efficient web-based workflow for brick-damage annotations; as-built dimensions can be extracted from LoD 2; and LoD 3 enables attributes, such as damage types, to be attached at the brick level. In future studies, the detection of brick shapes is expected to automate the process of as-built surface mapping.