Procedural modeling of historic buildings' timber frames for HBIM based on carpenters' architectural rules

Abstract

The inherent complexity of historic buildings, particularly their internal structures, presents significant challenges to the efficiency of digital model creation. This paper aims to enhance modeling efficiency by automating the creation of timber frames using a procedural modeling method. It translates the architectural rules used by local carpenters into modeling rules for procedural modeling, allowing for the automatic generation of a digital model that closely resembles the actual timber frame with a few simple constraints. While some manual identification and correction are still necessary, the workload is significantly reduced compared to traditional methods, and the precision meets the requirements of HBIM. The results show that this approach greatly improves the efficiency of modeling large-scale historic buildings and serves as a valuable complement to traditional HBIM methods. Future research will focus on enhancing the integrity and diversity of the models, such as expanding the range of supported traditional building types.