Development Of BIM-based Construction Cost Estimating Software

Up to now, construction cost estimating software have been developedand applied to assist the estimating work efficiently and accurately during thephase of bidding. However, there are still problems during the workingprocess due to the limitation of techniques and work mode, such as mass workon remodeling or model modification. Such problems cause low workingefficiency and making mistake easily. In this case, accomplishing estimatingtask still needs a lot of time for the estimators nowadays. Even the estimatorsneed to work overtime. With the development of Building InformationModeling (BIM), it is necessary to study on the BIM-based construction costestimating software in order to solve the shortcuts of existing software.This study succeeds the previous work of development of BIM-basedconstruction cost estimating software. It aims to detail the system design, develop thesoftware and apply the software to the actual project based on the work.Firstly, based on the research on mainstream BIM-based construction costestimating software abroad and feedback of the estimators, system requirements wereanalyzed. Secondly, based on the in-deepth analysis of the local quota specification,the modification on the IFC property sets was made and their version apply to thespecific regional were established. Thirdly, the method for automatically using theIFC data and the algorithm was formulated. Fourthly, several adjustments were madeon the existing system model, detailed system design was made and the software wasdeveloped by using several software development techniques. At last, the softwarewas applied to the actual IFC design data. The results showed that functions of thissoftware could meet the requirements of the estimating work during the phase ofbidding. In addition, compared to the traditional software, it showed huge potential toassist the estimating work more efficiently and accurately.The results of this study showed that BIM-based construction cost estimatingsoftware which has important significance to assist the estimating work more efficiently and accurately during the phase of biding, provides a good solution forproblems of the existing software. In addition, it also effectively verifies the broadvalue of BIM and IFC standard in the construction cost estimating domain.