One of the primary reasons masonry has not been included in BIM software is the sheer complexity of the material.
For starters there is the problem of managing the large number of units possible in a commercial masonry project. A block job may have several hundred thousand units and a large brick job can have more than a million units. Each unit has a unique location and orientation in the model, making unit model building a huge labor task. A variety of bond patterns are available to arrange the units in the building and sometimes several patterns are combined.
Beyond this, many options exist for material and several are typically combined in a single job. There may be natural stone, manufactured stone, clay brick, concrete masonry, and within each option there can be many colors and textures, making the models even more complex.
If that weren’t enough of a challenge, an additional layer of complexity is added by shape variation. Consider a very simple case of a wall of 8,816 standard concrete masonry units all in the same color and texture. Within that product there may be 75 percent solid units, bond beam units, open end units, double open end units, solid bottom units and on and on it goes.
Finally, additional layers such as making the job ground face or adding bullnose corners compound the problem. One can easily appreciate how much information must be tracked in a quality masonry model to get useful data. Each of the layers of complexity described above impact cost, so unless they can be tracked in the model, accurate cost data cannot be generated.
The dynamics of modeling are such that it is relatively easy to model materials that represent a small number of dissimilar objects regardless of complexity. Consider a revolving door which likely has only a few instances. It is also not difficult to model a very large number of homogeneous items as is the case for hundreds of thousands of roof tiles. But for masonry models which have both large number and great variation, the task becomes exponentially complex—especially for architectural masonry.
It is not difficult for BIM designers to generate data, even for masonry. The real challenge for modeling masonry is quality data. While a stretcher—a basic unit in the field of a wall—may have a given cost, a corner unit of the same material can be three or four times as expensive in some architectural applications. Accurately accounting for these variations in product is essential to generate useful Quantity Takeoff (QTO) data for masonry.
Challenges abound in incorporating masonry into BIM. There are no easy answers, and no shortcuts, just as there is little value in a model unless it is high quality and can take into account the complex layers of data required.
Work is already underway to develop a comprehensive digital library of masonry units and accessories with a first-generation BIM(-M) software for masonry anticipated sometime in 2017 or 2018.
Industry watchers expect this will have a significant impact on the way masonry buildings are designed, constructed, and maintained. Are you be ready for this shift in the industry? Download BIM Comes to Masonry today.
