DOI: 10.4231/7vw7-0129
title: Invariant Signatures of Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) Objects in Industry Foundation Classes (IFC)-based Building Information Modeling

description: &lt;p&gt;The invariant signature of an architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) object is defined as &quot;a set of intrinsic properties of the object that distinguish it from others and that do not change with data schema, software implementation, modeling decisions, and/or language/cultural contexts.&quot; &lt;a href="https://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/%28ASCE%29CO.1943-7862.0001943"&gt;(Wu et al. 2021)&lt;/a&gt;. We collected industry foundation classes (IFC)-based building information models (BIMs) and extracted architectural, engineering, and construction (AEC) objects (i.e., IFC objects) from these models. We then labeled each IFC object with its corresponding category of beams, columns, footings, slabs, and walls. We developed this dataset containing 1,900 AEC objects, including 790 beams, 412 columns, 354 footings (including footing piers), 79 slabs, and 265 walls, collected from 5 IFC instance models from two different sources: (1) the &ldquo;Common Building Information Model Files&rdquo; published by buildingSMARTalliance of the National Institute of Building Sciences (WBDG 2021), (2) Revit models exported as IFC data files. The duplex apartment model (Duplex_A) was selected from the first source; the Revit (Autodesk 2021) architectural sample model (Rac_basic), the Revit advanced structural sample model (Rst_advanced), the Revit basic structural sample model (Rst_basic), and the Revit technical school sample structural model (Tech_school) were selected from the second source. &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Whole Building Design Guide (WBDG). (2021). &ldquo;Common building information model files and tools.&rdquo; &lt;https: bim="" cobie="" common-bim-files="" www.wbdg.org=""&gt; (Jul 20, 2021).&lt;/https:&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Autodesk. (2021). &ldquo;Revit Sample Project Files.&rdquo; &lt;https: 2020="" caas="" cloudhelp="" enu="" files="" getting-started="" guid-61ef2f22-3a1f-4317-b925-1e85f138be88-htm.html="" knowledge.autodesk.com="" revit-getstarted="" revit-products="" support=""&gt; (Jul 20, 2021). &lt;/https:&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This dataset contains geometric, locational, and metadata signatures of each object. The invariant signatures can be used in a variety of automation tasks in the AEC domain such as automated quantity takeoff, automated structural analysis input generation, automated building code compliance checking, etc.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Related Publications:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Wu, J., and Zhang, J. (2018). &quot;&lt;a href="https://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/9780784481301.070" rel="nofollow noreferrer noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"&gt;Automated BIM object classification to support BIM interoperability&lt;/a&gt;.&quot; &lt;em&gt;Proc., ASCE Construction Research Congress&lt;/em&gt;, ASCE, Reston, VA, 706-715.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Zhang, J., Wu, J. (2019). &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="https://doi.org/10.4231/60V2-PJ72" rel="external" target="_blank"&gt;Building Information Modelling (BIM) data repository with labels&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;. Purdue University Research Repository. &lt;a href="https://doi.org/10.4231/60V2-PJ72" rel="external" target="_blank"&gt;doi:10.4231/60V2-PJ72&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Wu, J., and Zhang, J. (2019). &ldquo;&lt;a href="https://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/9780784482421.034" rel="nofollow noreferrer noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"&gt;Introducing geometric signatures of architecture, engineering, and construction objects and a new BIM dataset&lt;/a&gt;.&rdquo; &lt;em&gt;Proc., 2019 ASCE International Conference on Computing in Civil Engineering&lt;/em&gt;, ASCE, Reston, VA, 264-271.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Wu, J., and Zhang, J. (2019). &ldquo;&lt;a href="https://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/%28ASCE%29CP.1943-5487.0000858?_ga=2.29583295.1663657785.1567019920-167394469.1534795788" rel="nofollow noreferrer noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"&gt;New automated BIM object classification method to support BIM interoperability.&lt;/a&gt;&rdquo; &lt;em&gt;J. Comput. Civ. Eng.&lt;/em&gt;, 33(5), 04019033.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Wu, J., Akanbi, T., and Zhang, J. (2021). &ldquo;Constructing invariant signatures for AEC objects to support BIM-based analysis automation through object classification&lt;a href="https://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/%28ASCE%29CP.1943-5487.0000858?_ga=2.29583295.1663657785.1567019920-167394469.1534795788" rel="nofollow noreferrer noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"&gt;.&lt;/a&gt;&rdquo; &lt;em&gt;J. Comput. Civ. Eng.&lt;/em&gt;, in revision.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt; &lt;/p&gt;
description: A set of 1,900 IFC objects with their invariant signature values.