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Visual language approach to representing KBimCode-based Korea building code sentences for automated rule checking
Journal of Computational Design and Engineering xxx (2018) xxx–xxx
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Computational Design and Engineering journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jcde
Visual language approach to representing KBimCode-based Korea building code sentences for automated rule checking Hayan Kim a, Jin-Kook Lee a,⇑, Jaeyoung Shin b, Jungsik Choi c a
Department of Interior Architecture and Built Environment, Yonsei University, Seoul, Republic of Korea Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology, Gyeonggi, Republic of Korea c Department of Architecture, Kyung Hee University, Gyeonggi, Republic of Korea b
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 3 April 2018 Received in revised form 30 July 2018 Accepted 18 August 2018 Available online xxxx Keywords: Visual language BIM (Building Information Modeling) Korea Building Act Building permit Design assessment
a b s t r a c t The Building Information Modeling (BIM) and its applications enable an automatic building permit process based on 3D building models and their associated information. A crucial part of the building permit process is the interpretation and transformation of natural language-based building regulation into a computer-readable and executable format. As other countries and their projects have developed a certain type of rule-translation methods, KBimCode, part of the KBim application series, has been developed and supported by the Korean government to ignite an automatic, BIM-based building permit system on top of the current e-submission system, which is called Seumter. The rule translation process usually employs a computer hard-coded approach because of its ease of implementation, and there have been advances in making the computer understand the natural language-based building regulations using parametric input tables and script languages. This project includes a step for developing a logic rule-based approach for translating natural language into computer-executable code. However, the main contribution of this study is the introduction of an approach to represent such text-based regulations using visual language for novice programmers, architects, and rule reviewers. This paper describes a KBimCode visual language that is easy-to-write and intuitive because it uses visual symbols instead of textual coding. Ó 2018 Society for Computational Design and Engineering. Publishing Services by Elsevier. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
1. Introduction Building Information Modeling (BIM) has been studied and applied not only for architecture-related industries but also other extended areas, such as engineering, construction, and facilities management. This strong, 3D-based information modeling and managing platform is utilized in various fields, from the early phase of design to construction and management phases. The BIM application is actively developed to conduct rule-checking for building permits (Eastman, Lee, Jeong, & Lee, 2009; Lee, Lee, Park, & Kim, 2016; Choi, Choi, & Kim et al., 2014). The conventional process of building permit provision mostly depends on architects and rule-experts checking 2D drawings and documents. BIM, which uses Computer Aided Design (CAD), can amazingly decrease the time and cost spent on the existing building permit system (Lee, Shim, & Ahn, 2012). Through the automatized checking
Peer review under responsibility of Society for Computational Design and Engineering. ⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (J.-K. Lee), [email protected] (J. Shin), [email protected] (J. Choi).
process for 3D building models and their included information, the computer immediately understands the information about a building’s design (Ding, Drogemuller, Jupp, Rosenman, & Gero, 2004; Greenwood, Lockley, Malsane, & Matthews, 2010). Various countries have executed projects for translating regulations related to building into a computer-readable format. Without this rule interpretation, the computer may have building information, but it cannot judge whether or not a design is appropriate for construction. Since building regulations differ from country to country, there are hundreds of regulations that define the rules for building. The Korea government has also conducted research on translating the Korea Building Act into a computer-readable code to establish a BIM-enabled automatic on-line building permit system. As part of this project, a rule interpretation step is included to translate the Korean natural language into a computer-readable building code called KBimCode. Therefore, a logic rule-based approach is developed to analyze sentences and structure them into a computer-readable format. The translated result is a script language, such as JAVA or Python, so that it may be understood by a computer. Other countries are also executing their own projects for advanced building permit systems using BIM. Countries such
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcde.2018.08.002 2288-4300/Ó 2018 Society for Computational Design and Engineering. Publishing Services by Elsevier. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Please cite this article in press as: Kim, H., et al. Visual language approach to representing KBimCode-based Korea building code sentences for automated rule checking. Journal of Computational Design and Engineering (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcde.2018.08.002
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H. Kim et al. / Journal of Computational Design and Engineering xxx (2018) xxx–xxx
as Singapore, USA, and Australia have begun a new era that utilizes BIM for an automated, flawless administrative building permit process. However, most studies are focused on a script language-based result. This type of result has a high threshold for the user, who requires a building rule-checking process but has little understanding of the computer-based process and the programming language. This causes the rule-checking process to require professional human resources. Therefore, the above users always require a rule-checking process with computer-related experts. This paper introduces KBim Visual Language (KBVL), a visual language-based approach utilizing visual symbols to generate a computer-readable building code. As in Fig. 1, the pros of KBVL can be summarized as its high approachability for users without programming knowledge due to its usage of visual symbols and its intuitiveness as a result of its user-defined level of visualization. This paper introduces and demonstrates how KBVL achieves the above advantages by identifying the features of building regulations by analyzing sentences, visualizing the components of sentences according to their function and grammar characteristics, defining the relationship between visual symbols, and demonstrating KBVL on actual building regulations.
2. Features of building regulation 2.1. Composing features of building regulation sentences Various types of building regulations exist, such as Requests For Proposal (RFP), global design guidelines, or Building Acts. These different types of regulations require a significant amount of time and money to make sure that a building satisfies every requirement. However, there is constancy in regulations regarding elements such as target objects, checking methods, and results, as well as the logical relationship between them. All regulations related to the building commonly include these to assess the building’s design. In this paper, the sentences of the Korea Building Acts have been analyzed to structure visualized building regulation components. Korea Building Acts are the most important and primary regulation established by the government. All buildings must satisfy these regulations to be built (Yu & Seoung, 2011). This act basically includes an enormous range of issues related to the building— design, structure, material, fire safety, facilities management, and so on. This information is not only directly described, but also referenced and delegated to other regulations. Therefore, this analysis is completed with understanding of the regulation relationship.
2.2. Visual language for building a regulation Text-based representation of information generally utilizes the primary and consecutive process. This representation method makes it hard to figure out the overall relationship between the components and the flow of information. Describing this language also requires specific vocabulary and syntactic knowledge of the programming language. To overcome this weakness, a script language-based method has emerged as an alternative because it uses building domain-specific words and vocabulary that is easy to find and understand (Lee, 2011). For the effective representation of information, a visual language has emerged (Whitley, 1997). Visual language represents the flow of information through visual symbols (Sprinkle & Karsai, 2004; Bardohl, 2002; Moody, 2009). Simultaneously, this method supports both the management of information and interactive programming (Costagliola, Delucia, Orefice, & Polese, 2002). The most crucial advantage of visual language is intuitiveness when defining the complicated relationship between components in the object-oriented method (Jung, Jung, Cho, & Lho, 2014). With defined functions and shapes, the user can intuitively understand the difference between symbols and methods and combine them. Visual language has been studied since the 1990s to prove its effectiveness in various fields, such as education, computer programming, and business modeling. One study proved that visual language has a higher level of achievement and understanding than other script language-based methods. In building-related fields, visual language was first used to represent a designer’s atypical ideas on the building model parametrically. As an example, in Fig. 2, Grasshopper (a) is a plug-in for the Rhinoceros 3D modeling program and the representative tools for the parametric modeling of the building graphics. Another example is Dynamo, which is a plug-in for Autodesk Revit, the BIM model-authoring and managing platform. Dynamo deals with not only graphical information but also an object’s properties, which reflect parametric information. Both plug-ins help users to freely generate nodes and connections to define their own parametric 3D models. Since visual language emerged in the building modeling fields, visual representation has not been limited to graphical modeling but also to representing building-related rules. Visual Bim Query Language (VBQL) (Wülfing, Windisch, & Scherer, 2014) and Visual Query Language for BIM (vQL4BIM) (Daum, 2015; Daum, Borrmann, & Kolbe, 2017) help users query the specific building object or required information through composing nodes. VBQL utilizes the docking method to combine nodes and vQL4BIM
Fig. 1. The syntactic and semantic features of the visual language-based approach.
Please cite this article in press as: Kim, H., et al. Visual language approach to representing KBimCode-based Korea building code sentences for automated rule checking. Journal of Computational Design and Engineering (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcde.2018.08.002
H. Kim et al. / Journal of Computational Design and Engineering xxx (2018) xxx–xxx
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Fig. 2. (a) Example of Grasshopper for Rhinoceros, and (b) example of Dynamo for Autodesk Revit.
utilizes the linking method to connect nodes. The nodes in these methods have different shapes according to their function and semantic features. Therefore, users can verify and distinguish the type of component intuitively. A HSSDR graph represents the relationship between spaces with nodes and the different kinds of node crossing connections (Grabska, ŁAchwa, & S´lusarczyk, 2012). Visual Compliance Checking Language (VCCL) (Preidel & Borrmann, 2015; Preidel & Borrmann, 2016) offers both a lowlevel of detail rule contents for regulation and a high-level overall data flow for regulation. All visual languages are focused on their own countries’ regulations and checking platforms. Furthermore, the rule-checking contents are limited to specific regulations and functions, which are themselves limited to querying objects and information. The visual language proposed in this paper utilizes KBim meta-DB, which is established from the analysis of the Korea Building Act. Therefore, all components are managed using the national standard.
3. Components of KBim visual language 3.1. KBVL specification 3.1.1. Background of KBVL The ultimate purpose of the KBVL is the automatic generation of a computer-readable KBimCode. KBimCode is based on KBimLogic, the logic rule-based mechanism used to translate natural language-based building regulations into a computer-readable code (Lee et al., 2016; Lee, Park, Kim, & Lee, 2015). Through this logic, sentences are decomposed as a minimum level of meaning units and re-composed with a logical structure to remove ambiguity and the vagueness of natural language. The final result of KBimLogic is KBimCode, a computer-readable script language about building regulations. KBVL is the visual language-based approach for generating KBimCode easily and intuitively. Through KBVL, a wide range of users can conduct building rule-checking with KBimCode (Fig. 3). In order to structure the components of KBVL, the sentences of the Korea Building Act were analyzed to identify the elements that
comprise building regulation generation. By analyzing over 15,000 sentences, components are classified into three types: (1) building objects, (2) methods for checking, and (3) reference and delegation information according to sentence relation. All classified components are accumulated in the KBim meta-DB, steadily managed, and updated with recent data. With this semantic structure, the visual components of KBVL are precisely structured as in the following section. Structured visual symbols can effectively enable users to choose functions and regulation actions for their required building code on demand. Thus it highly supports to make components pool of building related items, and alleviates unnecessary errors that may happen by using wrong methods irrelevant to the building rule-checking. Fig. 4 gives the overall process of KBVL application.
3.1.2. Process of KBVL specification Structuring the visual symbols of KBVL requires premise analysis on current regulation structure and its target object’s features. Therefore, understanding and analysis of the current Korea Building Act is necessary to structure the detailed features of KBVL. The following phases have been used to generate symbol components in KBVL. First, the latest Korea Building Act sentences were analyzed to define the composing units of regulation sentences. Second, the composing units were classified according to their syntactic and semantic characteristics. Third, the relationship between composing units was verified for grouping and symbol categorization. Fourth, the integrity categories and relationships of the composing units (visual symbols) were verified by utilizing the visual language of the existing Korea Building Act. Sentences were analyzed to identify the features of composing units much more effectively. Over 15,000 sentences have been analyzed and filtered, eliminating meaningless sentences, such as ‘‘”. Sentences requiring final review from human resources were also eliminated from the pool of this research. Finally about 2000 sentences are targeted as the pool of this research. Semantic data pool of visual symbols are directly connected to the meta-DB which is composed of the analyzed components from those sentences. The structured visual symbols can generate various types
Fig. 3. Overall process and flow of KBVL application.
Please cite this article in press as: Kim, H., et al. Visual language approach to representing KBimCode-based Korea building code sentences for automated rule checking. Journal of Computational Design and Engineering (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcde.2018.08.002
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Fig. 4. Visual components; (A) Node, (B) Connection, and (C) Nesting of KBVL.
of building code according to the intent of generator’s rulechecking. Next, selected sentences were decomposed into a much smaller level of composition and categorized by their syntactic and semantic features. These sentences are first decomposed to the level of phrases to understand the target object and checking function. Therefore, each sentence was decomposed into phrases consisting of a noun and verb by eliminating unnecessary components. Finally, extracted components are categorized into two types: building objects and checking methods. Other necessary components define the relation of phases, such as IF, THEN, and ELSE. Various types of building objects are categorized as referring to the global standard building object categorization and Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) documents. Furthermore, common checking methods are separated into object type, result type, and method of checking. In the third step, those two types of components are accumulated into a database called KBim meta-DB and steadily managed to expand the scope of the visual language. After analysis, the components of building regulations are summarized into three types: object, method, and sentence relation. The fourth step is described in the Section 4 pilot test. 3.2. Node component 3.2.1. Rule node The rule node must include at least an object node and a method node. All visual components defining the rule are included in the nesting of the rule node. As in Fig. 4, the rule node has a simple appearance and reveals the rule name in a black rectangle node. A rule node can be expressed in a single node, but can also expand its nesting with all of the included components. This supports the user to control the level of detail of the visual language with same included contents. The input value of the rule node is a Boolean value that can be checked as true and false results. The output value is also Boolean value, which means that the rule node can be connected to the rule node again and can include any type of node connected to another type of node to generate rules and results in a Boolean value. An exclamation mark in front of a rule node refers to the negation of the overall rule node. 3.2.2. Object node The object node specifically queries a building object with specific properties, which are described with included nesting in the object node. If there is no nesting assigned in the object node,
the node queries all objects in the building model. The object node can have a lot of properties. For example, if there are no properties in the ‘‘Window” object node, this node queries all ‘‘Window” objects in the building model. However, if there are properties, such as that the window type is swinging and the window frame material is wood, this node queries swinging wooden windows in the building model. 3.2.3. Method node The method node executes a specific, designated function on the inputted object node. Each method’s functions are elaborately defined in KBim meta-DB. All of the method nodes have different function types, and therefore, the number of input ports is different from node to node. For example, the ‘‘getMaterial” method requires an object that is identified by its material. However, the ‘‘accessible” method requires two objects to find whether they are compatible with each other. The input port of the method node requires the object node and output port of the node to have Boolean values. Therefore, this node can be connected with the rule node to be defined as the name of a rule node. 3.2.4. Condition node The condition node defines the relationship between Boolean values. As such, this node can be connected to the output port of the rule node, method node, and itself. This node assigns IF, THEN, and ELSE relationships between Boolean values to define conditional and key statements and provides a Boolean value as an output port. If the rule node that is connected with the IF input port is true, then the rule connected with the THEN input port has to be checked and passed for the all of the rules to be considered passed. 3.3. Connection component As described in Fig. 4, the connection links the output port and the input port of the nodes. All nodes must be linked using this connection to transfer their included information. Particularly for the Boolean result transferring connection, ‘and’ and ‘or’ relationships can be generated as a logical operator. With the direction of the data flow being from right to left, this defines the logical relationship between Boolean results. 3.4. Nesting component The nesting component roles play an important function in the intuitiveness of the visual language. If all of the included nodes
Please cite this article in press as: Kim, H., et al. Visual language approach to representing KBimCode-based Korea building code sentences for automated rule checking. Journal of Computational Design and Engineering (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcde.2018.08.002
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must be expanded and described in a project, this is the same as a textual representation for the importance of context and the flow of regulation. Therefore, this nesting has specific nodes—a rule node and object node—to include all detail information and help the user control the level of representation by expanding and collapsing nesting. Too much detailed information can be hidden by collapsing the nesting and can also be verified by expanding the nesting.
4. Pilot test
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Conditions 1 and 2 have to be connected with an ‘‘and” relationship as well as the IF part of the condition node. Rule A is referred to if Conditions 1 and 2 are passed, and Rule A has to be passed to satisfy the EDBA 35-1 regulation. 4.2. KBVL expression The KBVL expression of EDBA_35_1 regulation is as follows in Fig. 5: The KBVL automatically generates KBimCode from the relationship of the components, as follows (see Table 1):
4.1. Subject regulation 4.3. Result The subject regulation of the pilot test is the Enforcement Decree of the Building Act 35-1 (EDBA 35-1). The original text of the regulation is as follows: (Installation of Fire Escape Stairs) Direct stairs installed on the fifth or upper floor or the second or lower underground floor under Article 49 (1) of the Act shall be installed as fire escape stairs or special escape stairs according to the standards prescribed by Ordinance of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport. The same shall not apply to cases where main structural parts are made of a fireproof structure or noncombustible materials and fall under any of the following subparagraphs. The EDBA regulation is one of the most important Korea Building Acts and must be checked mandatorily for the building permit. This regulation includes all types of nodes, especially different types of reference regulation. This rule can be divided into three parts: [Condition 1] The same shall not apply to cases where main structural parts are made of a fireproof structure or noncombustible materials. [Condition 2] falls under any of the following subparagraphs. [Rule A] Direct stairs installed on the fifth or upper floor or the second or lower underground floor under Article 49 (1) of the Act shall be installed as fire escape stairs or special escape stairs according to the standards prescribed by Ordinance of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport.
As in described in Section 4.1, the subject of regulation has complicated object conditions and relationships with other regulation components. The KBVL representation in Fig. 5 shows two versions of the same regulation, EDBA_35_1. Both visual language-based approaches (A) and (B) have the same visual symbols for EDBA_35_1, but a different level of detail of visualization can be achieved by expanding nesting. (A) Represents the compact detail for Condition 1 and 2, which are connected by an IF condition node, and Rule A connects THEN to the condition node. This immediately indicates that Condition 1 and 2 are ‘‘IF” conditions with different conditions since an ‘‘!” is attached to Condition 2. It is also evident
Table 1 KBimCode of KBVL (EDBA_35_1). KBimCode of KBVL (EDBA_35_1) Check (EDBA_35_1) { IF (condition1 AND !condition2) THEN (Rule A) condition1 ( StructuralPart MainStrPart (. . .(omitted)) getMaterialType(MainSTRPart) = ‘‘fireResistantStructure” OR getMaterialType(MainSTRPart) = ‘‘nonCombustibility” )condition2 ( getResult(EDBA_35_1_1) = TRUE OR getResult(EDBA_35_1_2) = TRUE )Rule A ( Stair myStair (. . .(omitted)) getUsage(myStair) = ‘‘Escape” OR getUsage(myStair) = ‘‘SpecialEscape” )}
Fig. 5. KBVL representation of regulation EDBA_35_1.
Please cite this article in press as: Kim, H., et al. Visual language approach to representing KBimCode-based Korea building code sentences for automated rule checking. Journal of Computational Design and Engineering (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcde.2018.08.002
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that Rule A is a result key statement of this regulation and must be checked if the ‘‘IF” statement is true. If users require detailed information on any of the three rules, they can expand the nesting. The nodes included in the rules are revealed and verified by user according to their contents, as in Fig. 5(B), or by expanding the nesting of the ‘‘EDBA_35_1_1” rule node or another parent category. 5. Conclusion Building a rule-checking process has been developed with various BIM applications. The conventional rule-checking process is now partially automated with CAD, and with BIM, an automated and intelligent process is imminent. This paper introduces and demonstrates a visual language-based approach—KBVL—as an advanced approach to computer-readable building code generation. This method offers several visual symbols that must be connected and nested to automatically generate a computerreadable building code. Users who demand building rulechecking with BIM but are not familiar with computer programming can now easily approach rule-checking with this visual language. If the KBim meta-DB expands its included contents, not only for the Korea Building Code, but also other design guidelines or RFP, this visual language can reduce the complication of a wide range of regulations. Acknowledgments This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean Government (NRF2015R1C1A1A01053497). References Bardohl, R. (2002). A visual environment for visual languages. Science of Computer Programming, 44(2), 181–203. Choi, J., Choi, J., & Kim, I. (2014). Development of BIM-based evacuation regulation checking system for high-rise and complex buildings. Automation in Construction, 1(46), 38–49. Costagliola, G., Delucia, A., Orefice, S., & Polese, G. (2002). A classification framework to support the design of visual languages. Journal of Visual Languages & Computing, 13(6), 573–600.
Daum, S., Borrmann, A., & Kolbe, T. H. (2017). A spatio-semantic query language for the integrated analysis of city models and building information models. In Advances in 3D Geoinformation (pp. 79–93). Cham: Springer. Daum, S. (2015). Simplifying the analysis of building information models using tQL4BIM and vQL4BIM. Ding, L., Drogemuller, R., Jupp, J., Rosenman, M., & Gero, J.S. (2004). Automated code checking. Eastman, C., Lee, J. M., Jeong, Y. S., & Lee, J. K. (2009). Automatic rule-based checking of building designs. Automation in Construction, 18(8), 1011–1033. Grabska, E., ŁAchwa, A., & S´lusarczyk, G. (2012). New visual languages supporting design of multi-storey buildings. Advanced Engineering Informatics, 26(4), 681–690. Greenwood, D., Lockley, S., Malsane, S., & Matthews, J. (2010). Automated compliance checking using building information models. The Construction, Building and Real Estate Research Conference of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. Paris: RICS. Jung, D. G., Jung, M. P., Cho, H. G., & Lho, Y. U. (2014). A development of the evaluation metrics and analysis of the object-oriented visual programming education using Alice programming. Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering, 18(3), 742–748. Lee, H., Lee, J. K., Park, S., & Kim, I. (2016). Translating building legislation into a computer-executable format for evaluating building permit requirements. Automation in Construction, 71, 49–61. Lee, H., Park, S., Kim, I., & Lee, J. K. (2015). A logical rule-based approach to the Korea architecture code sentences for BIM-enabled design assessment systems. Korea Design Knowledge Society, 34, 101–110. Lee, C. Y., Shim, U. J., & Ahn, Y. S. (2012). A basic study on review the classification system and the process of BIM information for an automatic review of building code. Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 13(5), 45–52. Lee, J.K. (2011). Building environment rule and analysis (BERA) language and its application for evaluating building circulation and spatial program (Doctoral dissertation, Georgia Institute of Technology). Moody, D. (2009). The ‘‘physics” of notations: toward a scientific basis for constructing visual notations in software engineering. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 35(6), 756–779. Preidel, C., & Borrmann, A. (2015). Automated code compliance checking based on a visual language and building information modeling. In ISARC. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Automation and Robotics in Construction (pp. 1). Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Department of Construction Economics & Property. Preidel, C., & Borrmann, A. ((ITcon). 2016). Towards code compliance checking on the basis of a visual programming language. Journal of Information Technology Construction (ITcon), 21(25), 402–421. Sprinkle, J., & Karsai, G. (2004). A domain-specific visual language for domain model evolution. Journal of Visual Languages & Computing, 15(3–4), 291–307. Whitley, K. N. (1997). Visual programming languages and the empirical evidence for and against. Journal of Visual Languages & Computing, 8(1), 109–142. Wülfing, A., Windisch, R., & Scherer, R.J. (2014). A visual BIM query language. eWork and eBusiness in Architecture, Engineering and Construction: ECPPM 2014. 2014 Aug. 18. p. 157. Yu, K. H., & Seoung, E. Y. (2011). The legislative study on the acts of architecture. Architecture & Urban Research Institute.
Please cite this article in press as: Kim, H., et al. Visual language approach to representing KBimCode-based Korea building code sentences for automated rule checking. Journal of Computational Design and Engineering (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcde.2018.08.002
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Computational Design and Engineering journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jcde
Visual language approach to representing KBimCode-based Korea building code sentences for automated rule checking Hayan Kim a, Jin-Kook Lee a,⇑, Jaeyoung Shin b, Jungsik Choi c a
Department of Interior Architecture and Built Environment, Yonsei University, Seoul, Republic of Korea Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology, Gyeonggi, Republic of Korea c Department of Architecture, Kyung Hee University, Gyeonggi, Republic of Korea b
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 3 April 2018 Received in revised form 30 July 2018 Accepted 18 August 2018 Available online xxxx Keywords: Visual language BIM (Building Information Modeling) Korea Building Act Building permit Design assessment
a b s t r a c t The Building Information Modeling (BIM) and its applications enable an automatic building permit process based on 3D building models and their associated information. A crucial part of the building permit process is the interpretation and transformation of natural language-based building regulation into a computer-readable and executable format. As other countries and their projects have developed a certain type of rule-translation methods, KBimCode, part of the KBim application series, has been developed and supported by the Korean government to ignite an automatic, BIM-based building permit system on top of the current e-submission system, which is called Seumter. The rule translation process usually employs a computer hard-coded approach because of its ease of implementation, and there have been advances in making the computer understand the natural language-based building regulations using parametric input tables and script languages. This project includes a step for developing a logic rule-based approach for translating natural language into computer-executable code. However, the main contribution of this study is the introduction of an approach to represent such text-based regulations using visual language for novice programmers, architects, and rule reviewers. This paper describes a KBimCode visual language that is easy-to-write and intuitive because it uses visual symbols instead of textual coding. Ó 2018 Society for Computational Design and Engineering. Publishing Services by Elsevier. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
1. Introduction Building Information Modeling (BIM) has been studied and applied not only for architecture-related industries but also other extended areas, such as engineering, construction, and facilities management. This strong, 3D-based information modeling and managing platform is utilized in various fields, from the early phase of design to construction and management phases. The BIM application is actively developed to conduct rule-checking for building permits (Eastman, Lee, Jeong, & Lee, 2009; Lee, Lee, Park, & Kim, 2016; Choi, Choi, & Kim et al., 2014). The conventional process of building permit provision mostly depends on architects and rule-experts checking 2D drawings and documents. BIM, which uses Computer Aided Design (CAD), can amazingly decrease the time and cost spent on the existing building permit system (Lee, Shim, & Ahn, 2012). Through the automatized checking
Peer review under responsibility of Society for Computational Design and Engineering. ⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (J.-K. Lee), [email protected] (J. Shin), [email protected] (J. Choi).
process for 3D building models and their included information, the computer immediately understands the information about a building’s design (Ding, Drogemuller, Jupp, Rosenman, & Gero, 2004; Greenwood, Lockley, Malsane, & Matthews, 2010). Various countries have executed projects for translating regulations related to building into a computer-readable format. Without this rule interpretation, the computer may have building information, but it cannot judge whether or not a design is appropriate for construction. Since building regulations differ from country to country, there are hundreds of regulations that define the rules for building. The Korea government has also conducted research on translating the Korea Building Act into a computer-readable code to establish a BIM-enabled automatic on-line building permit system. As part of this project, a rule interpretation step is included to translate the Korean natural language into a computer-readable building code called KBimCode. Therefore, a logic rule-based approach is developed to analyze sentences and structure them into a computer-readable format. The translated result is a script language, such as JAVA or Python, so that it may be understood by a computer. Other countries are also executing their own projects for advanced building permit systems using BIM. Countries such
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcde.2018.08.002 2288-4300/Ó 2018 Society for Computational Design and Engineering. Publishing Services by Elsevier. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Please cite this article in press as: Kim, H., et al. Visual language approach to representing KBimCode-based Korea building code sentences for automated rule checking. Journal of Computational Design and Engineering (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcde.2018.08.002
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as Singapore, USA, and Australia have begun a new era that utilizes BIM for an automated, flawless administrative building permit process. However, most studies are focused on a script language-based result. This type of result has a high threshold for the user, who requires a building rule-checking process but has little understanding of the computer-based process and the programming language. This causes the rule-checking process to require professional human resources. Therefore, the above users always require a rule-checking process with computer-related experts. This paper introduces KBim Visual Language (KBVL), a visual language-based approach utilizing visual symbols to generate a computer-readable building code. As in Fig. 1, the pros of KBVL can be summarized as its high approachability for users without programming knowledge due to its usage of visual symbols and its intuitiveness as a result of its user-defined level of visualization. This paper introduces and demonstrates how KBVL achieves the above advantages by identifying the features of building regulations by analyzing sentences, visualizing the components of sentences according to their function and grammar characteristics, defining the relationship between visual symbols, and demonstrating KBVL on actual building regulations.
2. Features of building regulation 2.1. Composing features of building regulation sentences Various types of building regulations exist, such as Requests For Proposal (RFP), global design guidelines, or Building Acts. These different types of regulations require a significant amount of time and money to make sure that a building satisfies every requirement. However, there is constancy in regulations regarding elements such as target objects, checking methods, and results, as well as the logical relationship between them. All regulations related to the building commonly include these to assess the building’s design. In this paper, the sentences of the Korea Building Acts have been analyzed to structure visualized building regulation components. Korea Building Acts are the most important and primary regulation established by the government. All buildings must satisfy these regulations to be built (Yu & Seoung, 2011). This act basically includes an enormous range of issues related to the building— design, structure, material, fire safety, facilities management, and so on. This information is not only directly described, but also referenced and delegated to other regulations. Therefore, this analysis is completed with understanding of the regulation relationship.
2.2. Visual language for building a regulation Text-based representation of information generally utilizes the primary and consecutive process. This representation method makes it hard to figure out the overall relationship between the components and the flow of information. Describing this language also requires specific vocabulary and syntactic knowledge of the programming language. To overcome this weakness, a script language-based method has emerged as an alternative because it uses building domain-specific words and vocabulary that is easy to find and understand (Lee, 2011). For the effective representation of information, a visual language has emerged (Whitley, 1997). Visual language represents the flow of information through visual symbols (Sprinkle & Karsai, 2004; Bardohl, 2002; Moody, 2009). Simultaneously, this method supports both the management of information and interactive programming (Costagliola, Delucia, Orefice, & Polese, 2002). The most crucial advantage of visual language is intuitiveness when defining the complicated relationship between components in the object-oriented method (Jung, Jung, Cho, & Lho, 2014). With defined functions and shapes, the user can intuitively understand the difference between symbols and methods and combine them. Visual language has been studied since the 1990s to prove its effectiveness in various fields, such as education, computer programming, and business modeling. One study proved that visual language has a higher level of achievement and understanding than other script language-based methods. In building-related fields, visual language was first used to represent a designer’s atypical ideas on the building model parametrically. As an example, in Fig. 2, Grasshopper (a) is a plug-in for the Rhinoceros 3D modeling program and the representative tools for the parametric modeling of the building graphics. Another example is Dynamo, which is a plug-in for Autodesk Revit, the BIM model-authoring and managing platform. Dynamo deals with not only graphical information but also an object’s properties, which reflect parametric information. Both plug-ins help users to freely generate nodes and connections to define their own parametric 3D models. Since visual language emerged in the building modeling fields, visual representation has not been limited to graphical modeling but also to representing building-related rules. Visual Bim Query Language (VBQL) (Wülfing, Windisch, & Scherer, 2014) and Visual Query Language for BIM (vQL4BIM) (Daum, 2015; Daum, Borrmann, & Kolbe, 2017) help users query the specific building object or required information through composing nodes. VBQL utilizes the docking method to combine nodes and vQL4BIM
Fig. 1. The syntactic and semantic features of the visual language-based approach.
Please cite this article in press as: Kim, H., et al. Visual language approach to representing KBimCode-based Korea building code sentences for automated rule checking. Journal of Computational Design and Engineering (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcde.2018.08.002
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Fig. 2. (a) Example of Grasshopper for Rhinoceros, and (b) example of Dynamo for Autodesk Revit.
utilizes the linking method to connect nodes. The nodes in these methods have different shapes according to their function and semantic features. Therefore, users can verify and distinguish the type of component intuitively. A HSSDR graph represents the relationship between spaces with nodes and the different kinds of node crossing connections (Grabska, ŁAchwa, & S´lusarczyk, 2012). Visual Compliance Checking Language (VCCL) (Preidel & Borrmann, 2015; Preidel & Borrmann, 2016) offers both a lowlevel of detail rule contents for regulation and a high-level overall data flow for regulation. All visual languages are focused on their own countries’ regulations and checking platforms. Furthermore, the rule-checking contents are limited to specific regulations and functions, which are themselves limited to querying objects and information. The visual language proposed in this paper utilizes KBim meta-DB, which is established from the analysis of the Korea Building Act. Therefore, all components are managed using the national standard.
3. Components of KBim visual language 3.1. KBVL specification 3.1.1. Background of KBVL The ultimate purpose of the KBVL is the automatic generation of a computer-readable KBimCode. KBimCode is based on KBimLogic, the logic rule-based mechanism used to translate natural language-based building regulations into a computer-readable code (Lee et al., 2016; Lee, Park, Kim, & Lee, 2015). Through this logic, sentences are decomposed as a minimum level of meaning units and re-composed with a logical structure to remove ambiguity and the vagueness of natural language. The final result of KBimLogic is KBimCode, a computer-readable script language about building regulations. KBVL is the visual language-based approach for generating KBimCode easily and intuitively. Through KBVL, a wide range of users can conduct building rule-checking with KBimCode (Fig. 3). In order to structure the components of KBVL, the sentences of the Korea Building Act were analyzed to identify the elements that
comprise building regulation generation. By analyzing over 15,000 sentences, components are classified into three types: (1) building objects, (2) methods for checking, and (3) reference and delegation information according to sentence relation. All classified components are accumulated in the KBim meta-DB, steadily managed, and updated with recent data. With this semantic structure, the visual components of KBVL are precisely structured as in the following section. Structured visual symbols can effectively enable users to choose functions and regulation actions for their required building code on demand. Thus it highly supports to make components pool of building related items, and alleviates unnecessary errors that may happen by using wrong methods irrelevant to the building rule-checking. Fig. 4 gives the overall process of KBVL application.
3.1.2. Process of KBVL specification Structuring the visual symbols of KBVL requires premise analysis on current regulation structure and its target object’s features. Therefore, understanding and analysis of the current Korea Building Act is necessary to structure the detailed features of KBVL. The following phases have been used to generate symbol components in KBVL. First, the latest Korea Building Act sentences were analyzed to define the composing units of regulation sentences. Second, the composing units were classified according to their syntactic and semantic characteristics. Third, the relationship between composing units was verified for grouping and symbol categorization. Fourth, the integrity categories and relationships of the composing units (visual symbols) were verified by utilizing the visual language of the existing Korea Building Act. Sentences were analyzed to identify the features of composing units much more effectively. Over 15,000 sentences have been analyzed and filtered, eliminating meaningless sentences, such as ‘‘
Fig. 3. Overall process and flow of KBVL application.
Please cite this article in press as: Kim, H., et al. Visual language approach to representing KBimCode-based Korea building code sentences for automated rule checking. Journal of Computational Design and Engineering (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcde.2018.08.002
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Fig. 4. Visual components; (A) Node, (B) Connection, and (C) Nesting of KBVL.
of building code according to the intent of generator’s rulechecking. Next, selected sentences were decomposed into a much smaller level of composition and categorized by their syntactic and semantic features. These sentences are first decomposed to the level of phrases to understand the target object and checking function. Therefore, each sentence was decomposed into phrases consisting of a noun and verb by eliminating unnecessary components. Finally, extracted components are categorized into two types: building objects and checking methods. Other necessary components define the relation of phases, such as IF, THEN, and ELSE. Various types of building objects are categorized as referring to the global standard building object categorization and Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) documents. Furthermore, common checking methods are separated into object type, result type, and method of checking. In the third step, those two types of components are accumulated into a database called KBim meta-DB and steadily managed to expand the scope of the visual language. After analysis, the components of building regulations are summarized into three types: object, method, and sentence relation. The fourth step is described in the Section 4 pilot test. 3.2. Node component 3.2.1. Rule node The rule node must include at least an object node and a method node. All visual components defining the rule are included in the nesting of the rule node. As in Fig. 4, the rule node has a simple appearance and reveals the rule name in a black rectangle node. A rule node can be expressed in a single node, but can also expand its nesting with all of the included components. This supports the user to control the level of detail of the visual language with same included contents. The input value of the rule node is a Boolean value that can be checked as true and false results. The output value is also Boolean value, which means that the rule node can be connected to the rule node again and can include any type of node connected to another type of node to generate rules and results in a Boolean value. An exclamation mark in front of a rule node refers to the negation of the overall rule node. 3.2.2. Object node The object node specifically queries a building object with specific properties, which are described with included nesting in the object node. If there is no nesting assigned in the object node,
the node queries all objects in the building model. The object node can have a lot of properties. For example, if there are no properties in the ‘‘Window” object node, this node queries all ‘‘Window” objects in the building model. However, if there are properties, such as that the window type is swinging and the window frame material is wood, this node queries swinging wooden windows in the building model. 3.2.3. Method node The method node executes a specific, designated function on the inputted object node. Each method’s functions are elaborately defined in KBim meta-DB. All of the method nodes have different function types, and therefore, the number of input ports is different from node to node. For example, the ‘‘getMaterial” method requires an object that is identified by its material. However, the ‘‘accessible” method requires two objects to find whether they are compatible with each other. The input port of the method node requires the object node and output port of the node to have Boolean values. Therefore, this node can be connected with the rule node to be defined as the name of a rule node. 3.2.4. Condition node The condition node defines the relationship between Boolean values. As such, this node can be connected to the output port of the rule node, method node, and itself. This node assigns IF, THEN, and ELSE relationships between Boolean values to define conditional and key statements and provides a Boolean value as an output port. If the rule node that is connected with the IF input port is true, then the rule connected with the THEN input port has to be checked and passed for the all of the rules to be considered passed. 3.3. Connection component As described in Fig. 4, the connection links the output port and the input port of the nodes. All nodes must be linked using this connection to transfer their included information. Particularly for the Boolean result transferring connection, ‘and’ and ‘or’ relationships can be generated as a logical operator. With the direction of the data flow being from right to left, this defines the logical relationship between Boolean results. 3.4. Nesting component The nesting component roles play an important function in the intuitiveness of the visual language. If all of the included nodes
Please cite this article in press as: Kim, H., et al. Visual language approach to representing KBimCode-based Korea building code sentences for automated rule checking. Journal of Computational Design and Engineering (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcde.2018.08.002
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must be expanded and described in a project, this is the same as a textual representation for the importance of context and the flow of regulation. Therefore, this nesting has specific nodes—a rule node and object node—to include all detail information and help the user control the level of representation by expanding and collapsing nesting. Too much detailed information can be hidden by collapsing the nesting and can also be verified by expanding the nesting.
4. Pilot test
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Conditions 1 and 2 have to be connected with an ‘‘and” relationship as well as the IF part of the condition node. Rule A is referred to if Conditions 1 and 2 are passed, and Rule A has to be passed to satisfy the EDBA 35-1 regulation. 4.2. KBVL expression The KBVL expression of EDBA_35_1 regulation is as follows in Fig. 5: The KBVL automatically generates KBimCode from the relationship of the components, as follows (see Table 1):
4.1. Subject regulation 4.3. Result The subject regulation of the pilot test is the Enforcement Decree of the Building Act 35-1 (EDBA 35-1). The original text of the regulation is as follows: (Installation of Fire Escape Stairs) Direct stairs installed on the fifth or upper floor or the second or lower underground floor under Article 49 (1) of the Act shall be installed as fire escape stairs or special escape stairs according to the standards prescribed by Ordinance of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport. The same shall not apply to cases where main structural parts are made of a fireproof structure or noncombustible materials and fall under any of the following subparagraphs. The EDBA regulation is one of the most important Korea Building Acts and must be checked mandatorily for the building permit. This regulation includes all types of nodes, especially different types of reference regulation. This rule can be divided into three parts: [Condition 1] The same shall not apply to cases where main structural parts are made of a fireproof structure or noncombustible materials. [Condition 2] falls under any of the following subparagraphs. [Rule A] Direct stairs installed on the fifth or upper floor or the second or lower underground floor under Article 49 (1) of the Act shall be installed as fire escape stairs or special escape stairs according to the standards prescribed by Ordinance of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport.
As in described in Section 4.1, the subject of regulation has complicated object conditions and relationships with other regulation components. The KBVL representation in Fig. 5 shows two versions of the same regulation, EDBA_35_1. Both visual language-based approaches (A) and (B) have the same visual symbols for EDBA_35_1, but a different level of detail of visualization can be achieved by expanding nesting. (A) Represents the compact detail for Condition 1 and 2, which are connected by an IF condition node, and Rule A connects THEN to the condition node. This immediately indicates that Condition 1 and 2 are ‘‘IF” conditions with different conditions since an ‘‘!” is attached to Condition 2. It is also evident
Table 1 KBimCode of KBVL (EDBA_35_1). KBimCode of KBVL (EDBA_35_1) Check (EDBA_35_1) { IF (condition1 AND !condition2) THEN (Rule A) condition1 ( StructuralPart MainStrPart (. . .(omitted)) getMaterialType(MainSTRPart) = ‘‘fireResistantStructure” OR getMaterialType(MainSTRPart) = ‘‘nonCombustibility” )condition2 ( getResult(EDBA_35_1_1) = TRUE OR getResult(EDBA_35_1_2) = TRUE )Rule A ( Stair myStair (. . .(omitted)) getUsage(myStair) = ‘‘Escape” OR getUsage(myStair) = ‘‘SpecialEscape” )}
Fig. 5. KBVL representation of regulation EDBA_35_1.
Please cite this article in press as: Kim, H., et al. Visual language approach to representing KBimCode-based Korea building code sentences for automated rule checking. Journal of Computational Design and Engineering (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcde.2018.08.002
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that Rule A is a result key statement of this regulation and must be checked if the ‘‘IF” statement is true. If users require detailed information on any of the three rules, they can expand the nesting. The nodes included in the rules are revealed and verified by user according to their contents, as in Fig. 5(B), or by expanding the nesting of the ‘‘EDBA_35_1_1” rule node or another parent category. 5. Conclusion Building a rule-checking process has been developed with various BIM applications. The conventional rule-checking process is now partially automated with CAD, and with BIM, an automated and intelligent process is imminent. This paper introduces and demonstrates a visual language-based approach—KBVL—as an advanced approach to computer-readable building code generation. This method offers several visual symbols that must be connected and nested to automatically generate a computerreadable building code. Users who demand building rulechecking with BIM but are not familiar with computer programming can now easily approach rule-checking with this visual language. If the KBim meta-DB expands its included contents, not only for the Korea Building Code, but also other design guidelines or RFP, this visual language can reduce the complication of a wide range of regulations. Acknowledgments This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean Government (NRF2015R1C1A1A01053497). References Bardohl, R. (2002). A visual environment for visual languages. Science of Computer Programming, 44(2), 181–203. Choi, J., Choi, J., & Kim, I. (2014). Development of BIM-based evacuation regulation checking system for high-rise and complex buildings. Automation in Construction, 1(46), 38–49. Costagliola, G., Delucia, A., Orefice, S., & Polese, G. (2002). A classification framework to support the design of visual languages. Journal of Visual Languages & Computing, 13(6), 573–600.
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Please cite this article in press as: Kim, H., et al. Visual language approach to representing KBimCode-based Korea building code sentences for automated rule checking. Journal of Computational Design and Engineering (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcde.2018.08.002