Developing a 3D intelligent object model for the application of construction planning/simulation in a highway project

This study proposes a 3D intelligent object model in highway construction to electronically represent a large amount of information in highway projects based on the international standard ISO 10303. Also known as STEP (Standard for the Exchange of Product), ISO 10303 is an open standard, and has been used for data exchange in building projects of the AEC industries. Motivated by the success from the building industry, this research attempts to apply an object based intelligent model in 3D highway modeling. In order to test the feasibility of the proposed approach, a prototype was developed and tested on a highway project in Seoul, Korea with a team led by Korean Institute of Construction Technology (KICT). The proposed 3D intelligent model was applied to build a 3D model and automatically derive cost/schedule estimates from the 3D object model. To develop a 3D object model in highway road construction, this paper explores different options such as Industry Foundation Classes (IFCs) and LandXML and establish a comprehensive object model for highway structures with different components such as roads, a bridge, and a tunnel as well as topographical representations that could be used for cost/schedule estimation.