# BIM Visual Programming Tools Applications in Infrastructure Projects: A State-of-the-Art Review
## 3 Results and Discussion
### General Results Analysis  
This section presents and analyzes the following scenarios: (1) general search results, (2) results by document type, (3) contributions' geographical distribution, and (4) institution types that supported the reviewed publications. In general terms, this bibliographic review found a total of 153 studies. Of these, 127 studies were associated with architecture and buildings projects (83%) and 26 with infrastructure projects (17%). Both types of projects presented their first contribution in 2014. Figure 4 presents the temporal distribution of the studies reviewed in the following scenarios: (1) Figure 3(a) represents the papers' distribution between architecture projects (red bars) and infrastructure (green bars) projects. (2) Figure 3(b) shows the distribution between the number of studies that applied VP tools in BIM infrastructure projects (green bars) and those that applied BIM in infrastructure projects without VP tools (red bars). IN addition, this figure incorporates a column called the percentage ratio that indicates the relationship between the number of papers of infrastructure projects and architectural projects. The X and Y axes of the figures represent the number of papers and the year, respectively. (3) Figure 3(c) presents the distribution of publications found for each keyword in Table 1.  
Figure 3(a) shows that from 2014 to 2018, the number of papers that applied VP tools in architecture and buildings projects was higher than that in infrastructure projects. However, this trend was considerably reduced in 2019 and reversed in 2020. This change indicates that the interest in the research of VP tool applications in civil engineering projects is growing. Therefore, these applications offer an essential research focus for the future. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c} \hline \hline  & **First Filter** & **Second Filter** & **Third Filter** \\ \hline
1.1 Project type & 1.2 BIM Concepts & 1.3 VP tools & 2. Category & 3. Language \\ \hline Bridge(s) & BIM & VP & Engineering & \\ Road(s) & Building information modeling & Dynamo & Instrumentation & \\ \hline Highway(s) & Building information modelling & Grasshopper & Computer science & \\ \hline Tunnel(s) & Building information model(s) & Python & Construction building technology & Only works in English \\ \hline Architecture & Bridge information modeling & Transportation & \\ \hline Architectural & Bridge information model(s) & & Automation Control & \\ \hline Infrastructure(s) & Tunnel information modeling & & \\ \hline Building(s) & Tunnel information model(s) & & \\ \hline  & Road information modeling & & \\ \hline  & Road information model(s) & & \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 1: Keywords and filters considered in this bibliographic review. Figure 4: _Cont._  
The data in Figure 4b show that the interest in applying BIM methodology in infrastructure projects is growing. This trend is consistent, as indicated by the literature review studies of BIM applications for civil engineering projects [83; 84; 85; 86; 87; 88; 89]. In addition, this growth is also observed in Figure 4a. However, during the 2018-2020 period, the growth rate of VP tool applications in infrastructure was higher than that presented in Figure 4b, which only registers a growth peak of 3.55% in 2020; that is, although the research interest in these tools has steadied concerning architecture projects, these applications still have a reduced presence in the field of BIM infrastructure projects. This is explained because the main BIM applications in the civil engineering sector are already standardized by default in the leading BIM software [90; 91]. Therefore, they do not require automation by VP tools. However, overcoming these limitations has been the main reason for the growing interest in the application of VP tools in civil engineering projects.