Nimble BIM

• Title: Nimble BIM: A performance-based decision support framework for building design
• Project Period: 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2016
• Funding Source: MOE Academic Research Fund (AcRF) Tier 1
• Principal Investigator: Patrick Janssen (PI)
• Budget: SGD $148,892

Research Overview

The research project developed an alternative performance-based of Building Information Modelling (BIM) design approach that was more lightweight and flexible that conventional BIM approaches.

In the early stages of design, iterative decision making processes require that large numbers of design options and variants are rapidly generated and evaluated. Existing BIM systems are too cumbersome and data-intensive to support such iterative exploration. This research has developed alternative methods and tools that allow designs to work with building information models (bim) that are much more lightweight than traditional BIM models, but that nevertheless are still able to embed significant levels of semantic information.

The lightweight nBIM approach to performance-based design.

The Möbius Modeller, a Parametric Information Modeller (PIM) in the browser.

Research Outcomes

Key research outcomes include the following:

• The development of a ‘nimble BIM’ framework that allows designers to work with lightweight information models.

• A web application for parametric modelling, called the Möbius Modeller. The web application allows users to define procedures for generating complex 3D models. These procedures are defined using a visual programming approach that his more compact and less complex as compared to other existing approaches.

• A lightweight and flexible modelling approach, referred to as Parametric Information Modelling (PIM), that allows geometric and semantic information to be flexibly combined and integrated into parametric procedures. The semantic information is user-defined, and can be anything that is pertinent to the specific design task.

• A set of function libraries and data structure to support Parametric Information Modelling (PIM). These function libraries and data structures allow for the creation of integrated models that tightly couple geometric and semantic information.

• A set of demonstration case studies showing the feasibility and advantages of the ‘nimble BIM’ framework.