An essential application of digital building models in the sense of BIM is the automated or partially automated checking of the model contents. Model-based quality management increases the planning quality of the individual disciplines and enables interdisciplinary coordination between the models.

Due to the relevance of this use case, some software manufacturers have developed BIM checking software. One of these applications is the Solibri Model Checker. This checking software offers over 50 predefined checking rule templates that can be nested user-defined to perform various specific checks. But even this system reaches its limits at some point. Despite multiple nesting, numerous complex specifications and tasks cannot be checked with the standard checking rule templates of the Solibri Model Checker. Examples of this are the exposure verification in common rooms or the analysis of escape routes. For this reason, the team of the research unit Digital Building Process developed its own Solibri checking rule templates with various project partners. Solibri makes this possible via an API (application programming interface), with the help of which the checking software can be extended with individual checking rules based on the programming language JAVA.

Since March 2020, the team of the research unit Digital Building Process has been building up expertise in this area. The developed rules can be divided into two categories. The first category corresponds to actual checking rules, primarily developed for a specific use case and then generalised to be used universally. An example is the Free Standing Rule. It was initially developed to check whether a building is free-standing. Now it can be used for all kinds of horizontal distance checks. The second category includes rules that do not serve to check specific use cases but support the checking process itself. The team of the research unit Digital Building Process developed export and import rules to save intermediate results in CSV files.

By now, our BIM checking rule development has evolved from a research project to a product. In the summer 2023 the research unit Digital Building Process and the A-Null Bausoftware GmbH have published the Rule Expansion Package for Solibri Office, which contains 18 of the developed checking rule templates. The checking rule package is available on the website of the A-Null Bausoftware GmbH: LINK, opens an external URL in a new window.

If you are interested in individual API checking rule templates for a specific use case, you can send us an enquiry.