| dc.description.abstract | The building information model (BIM) technology is a new way to design buildings, and every aspect of buildings can be stored in the BIM database. BIM changes not only the traditional design process but the project stakeholders’ responsibilities. Hence, other software applications such as facility management, disaster mitigation, and energy savings should use BIM as the base data representing their buildings and add customized functionalities into BIM so that the goal regarding comprehensive life cycle information management of buildings can be achieved.
The model-driven architecture (MDA) technology is a software development method. It relies on Unified Modeling Language (UML) as a template to describe a software application. Designers can use UML to design, and MDA will transform the model into the codes that can be used to build the real application. Both BIM and MDA are not new technologies. However, no research exists to explore the integration of the two technologies.
In this study, an application for handling data of a transit station was generated by using the integrated approach, i.e., BIMAppBuilder. This application’s model consisted of two parts: one was from BIM data and another was designed in the traditional way to describe the new functionalities of the application. The Revit2UML tool was developed to help the transformation process from Revit (a BIM drafting tool) to Umbrello (a UML drafting tool). The Parser tool was developed to help complete the static code-generation aspect of the object model, while the Code Maker tool was for the dynamic aspect, e.g., sequence diagrams. The Project Builder tool was developed to synthesize all the codes generated and create a Visual Studio project for Revit Addin. Therefore, BIMAppBuilder includes the above four tools, and a socket-based software service tool, Revit Remote Service, was being developed to further simplify the efforts of developing a BIM-related software service. It can be expected that future BIM-related applications can be automatically generated by using BIMAppBuilder, and with a few modifications for the codes generated, a distributed software service for BIM data retrieval and update can be realized by using Revit Remote Service. Since BIM can be applied in each phase of a building’s life cycle, the proposed approach may help creation of these applications efficiently and effectively, especially for the operation and maintenance phase of a building.
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