Automatic Concrete Formwork Quantity Takeoff Using Building Information Modeling
Automatic Concrete Formwork Quantity Takeoff Using Building Information Modeling
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ABSTRACT: Quantity takeoff using building information modeling (BIM) gains more popularity in recent years
because of its speed, reliability, and accuracy over the traditional 2D-based method. However, if building elements
do not exist in the BIM model, the material quantities cannot be extracted from them. Concrete formwork is a
building element that is usually absent from the BIM model because it is a temporary component used during a
construction process to form a concrete structure. This makes quantity takeoff of the concrete formwork difficult
and time-consuming because construction practitioners have to calculate its quantity manually or have to create
a specific BIM model that has concrete formwork for the quantity extraction. The quantity of concrete formwork
is the surface area of the formworks that are used as molds. This paper presents a method that automatically
calculates the quantities of concrete formwork from the surfaces of reinforced concrete (RC) elements. The RC
elements, which are foundations, columns, beams, slabs, walls, and stairs, are imported from a BIM model. They
are combined and the overlapping regions are removed before extracting their surfaces. Then the surfaces that
represent the concrete formworks are selected and the areas are calculated. The validation was done by applying
an actual building construction project as a case study. The results show that the proposed method provides the
accurate quantities of concrete formwork when compared to the quantities from the 3D model that the surfaces
represented the formworks were selected manually. With this method, construction practitioners can get the
quantities of concrete formwork without creating formwork elements in a BIM model or calculating them manually.
The time spent on manual calculation or creating formwork models is saved and the human errors are reduced.
KEYWORDS: Building Information Modeling (BIM), Quantity takeoff, BIM-based quantity takeoff, Concrete
formwork
1. INTRODUCTION
Quantity takeoff is a process of measuring and calculating quantities of building elements or work tasks in a
construction project (Holm et al., 2005). It is an important task in the construction process because the measured
quantities are used for several other tasks such as cost estimating, cost control, project scheduling, project
management, and material purchase (Firat et al., 2010). Traditionally, quantity takeoff is a manual process that
requires construction practitioners’ knowledge and effort. They have to measure and calculate different building
elements based on 2D construction drawings and their interpretation, which is time-consuming and error-prone
(Monteiro and Martins, 2013).
The emergence of Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology introduces a new approach for quantity
takeoff called BIM-based quantity takeoff. A virtual building is designed and constructed as a digital 3D model,
which carries computable graphics and data attributes in its model elements (Sacks et al., 2018). The quantity of
each building model element can be extracted directly from the BIM model. Therefore, BIM-based quantity takeoff
provides more reliability, accuracy, and speed than the traditional quantity takeoff method (Bečvarovská and
Matějka, 2014; Sacks et al., 2018; Sattineni and Bradford, 2011). However, if some building elements are not
created in a BIM model, the quantity of those building elements cannot be extracted.
Concrete formwork, temporary molds that are used to form concrete, is one of the building elements that is usually
not present in the BIM model (Olsen and Taylor, 2017). This is because it is a temporary component used during
the construction process, which will not exist when the building is complete. Furthermore, there is no specific tool
in general BIM software products for modeling concrete formwork (Monteiro and Martins, 2013). Construction
practitioners have to measure and calculate the quantity of concrete formwork manually. Otherwise, they have to
create a concrete formwork model using alternative BIM elements to extract its quantity from the BIM model.
Both methods are time-consuming and error-prone, especially in a large scale building in which the geometry of
concrete formwork is complex.
The objective of this research is to develop a new method that automatically calculates the quantity of concrete
formwork from any structural BIM model. The main contribution of this paper is to propose a method that can
calculate the quantity of concrete formwork from a BIM model that does not contain formwork elements. The
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Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Construction Applications of Virtual Reality (CONVR2019)
quantity of concrete formwork is measured as its surface area (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RISC),
2012). The surface area of the concrete formwork can be measured from the surfaces of the reinforced concrete
(RC) elements that the formworks are applied to. For example, the area of the formwork for RC columns is equal
to the area of the vertical surface of the column. The proposed method imports RC elements from a BIM model,
which are foundations, columns, beams, slabs, walls, and stairs. The algorithms will combine and remove the
overlapping regions before extracting their surfaces. Then the surfaces that represent the concrete formworks are
selected and are calculated their areas. The proposed method is validated using an actual building construction
project as a case study. Finally, the results are discussed and the conclusions are summarized.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 BIM-based quantity takeoff in practice
Since the appearance of BIM technology, quantity takeoff using BIM gains more popularity in recent years. Ideally,
BIM-based quantity takeoff is faster and provides more accuracy and reliable outcome than the traditional method
(Sacks et al., 2018). However, some studies investigated the issues and limitations of the BIM-based quantity
takeoff in practice. A study by Firat et al. (2010) concluded that to perform quantity takeoff straightforwardly, the
guidelines for making the appropriate BIM model should be applied. Smith (2014) examined the use of BIM for
project cost management in the construction industry. He reported that inadequate or incorrect information in the
BIM model is a major issue that all firms are concerned with. Sattineni and Bradford (2011) reported that
contractors cannot use most of the BIM model received from architects and engineers for cost estimation purposes
because the models do not contain all the necessary information. Olsen and Taylor (2017) reported that up to fifty
percent of the data needed for quantity takeoff is absent from BIM models. Concrete formwork is one of the
elements that are usually absent.
The first solution is to measure and calculate the quantity of concrete formwork manually. The quantity of concrete
formwork is measured as its surface area, and the measurement unit is the square meter (Royal Institution of
Chartered Surveyors (RISC), 2012). According to RISC (2012) and Packer (2016), the area of concrete formwork
can be measured from the surfaces of the RC element that touch the formworks. For the RC foundations, RC
columns, and RC walls, the formwork is measured from the side surfaces of the RC elements. For the RC beams,
RC slabs, and RC stairs, the formwork is measured from the side and the soffit surfaces of the RC elements.
Furthermore, the intersected surfaces, such as the surfaces of beams that intersect with slabs or the surfaces of
columns that intersect with beams, must be subtracted during the calculation. Fig. 1 illustrates the surfaces of the
RC elements that are used to measure the area of concrete formworks.
Fig. 1: The surfaces of the RC elements that are used to measure the area of concrete formworks.
The second solution is to model the concrete formworks in a BIM model and then extract their quantities. This
solution requires extra time and cost to develop the BIM model. However, this solution is not straightforward since
there is no direct tool for modeling concrete formwork in the BIM model and the modeling time is approximately
doubled when the formwork is modeled using alternative tools (Monteiro and Martins, 2013). Furthermore, surface
areas of RC elements extracted from a BIM model cannot be used as surface areas of the formworks. This is
because if the RC elements intersect each other, the formwork is overestimated (Monteiro and Martins, 2013).
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Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Construction Applications of Virtual Reality (CONVR2019)
To summarize, some studies created concrete formwork components in a BIM model using manual or automatic
method to achieve quantity takeoff. Other studies developed algorithms to calculate the quantity of concrete
formwork from structural elements in a BIM model. Nevertheless, almost all studies do not consider the
intersection area of concrete structure, which can cause the excess material quantity when calculating the formwork
areas.
3. PROPOSED METHOD
This study focuses only on the RC elements that are cast-in-place concrete elements, which require concrete
formworks on a construction site. The possible RC elements that can be cast-in-place concrete elements are
foundations, columns, beams, slabs, walls, and stairs. The explanation of the proposed method is divided into two
main parts. The first part is the method for finding the formwork surfaces. The second part is the method for
classifying formworks by element categories and finding the formwork areas.
Fig. 2 shows the flowchart of the method for finding the formworks surfaces. The first step is to prepare the
building elements for the calculation. The building elements that are foundations, columns, beams, slabs (floors),
walls, and stairs are imported from a BIM model. The building elements that do not have a structural property will
be filtered out. After that, the building elements that do not have a cast-in-place concrete material will be filtered
out. The remaining building elements will be sorted and grouped by the elevation height.
The second step is to find the formwork surfaces from the RC elements that require only side formworks, which
are foundations, columns, and walls. All of these elements are combined and converted into an integrated geometry.
Then it is exploded into surfaces. The top and bottom horizontal surfaces will be filtered out. The remaining
surfaces are the side surfaces that represent the side formworks. However, the surfaces could intersect with
horizontal elements, which are beams and slabs. This is because the horizontal elements are not combined with
the integrated geometry. Therefore, the beams and slabs are combined and converted into an integrated geometry
to be used to check for the intersections with the surfaces. The regions of the surfaces that intersect with the
integrate geometry (beams and slabs) will be subtracted. The result is the net surfaces that represent the formworks
for foundations, columns, and walls.
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Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Construction Applications of Virtual Reality (CONVR2019)
The third step is to find the formwork surfaces from the RC elements that require side and soffit formworks, which
are beams, slabs, and stairs. All of these elements are combined and converted into an integrated geometry. Then
it is exploded into surfaces. The top horizontal surfaces will be filtered out. The remaining surfaces are the side
and soffit surfaces that represent the side and soffit formworks. Similar to the second step, the surfaces could
intersect with the vertical elements, which are foundations, columns, and walls. Therefore, the foundations,
columns, and walls are combined and converted into an integrated geometry and it will be used to check for the
intersections. The regions of the surfaces that intersect with the integrated geometry (foundations, columns, and
walls) will be subtracted. The result is the net surfaces that represent the formworks for beams, slabs, and stairs.
In the last step, the surfaces that represent the formworks for foundations, columns, and walls from the second step
and the surfaces that represent the formworks for beams, slabs, and stairs from the third step will be carried on in
the second part of the proposed method.
Start Combine Exploded
and into The formwork
Input: Discard Filtered Subtract the
convert surfaces surfaces for
Foundations elements foundations overlapping
into an foundations,
regions
No integrated Discard columns, and walls
Input: Filtered geometry Yes
Columns columns top and
Structural bottom Check for No
Elements? Combine horizontal
Filtered intersection
Input: and surfaces End
Walls walls convert
Yes into an
Input: Sort and Filtered integrated
beams geometry Discard The formwork
Beams Cast-in-place Yes group by
top Check for No surfaces for
concrete elevation
Combine horizontal intersection beams, slabs, and
Input: Slabs material ? height Filtered slabs
and surfaces stairs
(floors) (floors) Yes
convert
No into an Exploded Subtract the
Input: Discard Filtered integrated into overlapping
Stairs elements stairs geometry surfaces regions
Fig. 2: The flowchart of the method for finding the formworks surfaces.
3.2 The method for classifying formworks and finding the formwork areas
The second part is to classify formworks by element categories and find the formwork areas. The process for each
element category is similar to each other. The formwork surfaces from the first part will be used in this part. There
are two groups of the formwork surfaces. The first group is the formwork surfaces for foundations, columns, and
walls, which is retrieved from the second step in the first part. The second group is the formwork surfaces for
beams, slabs, and stairs, which is retrieved from the third step in the first part.
Fig. 3 shows the flowchart of the method for classifying formworks and finding the formwork areas. The first step
is to find the area of foundation formworks. The foundation elements from the first part are converted into
geometries. These geometries are checked for the intersections with the formwork surfaces for foundations,
columns, and walls. The surfaces that intersect with the geometries will be classified as the foundation formwork
surfaces. The area of the foundation formwork is then calculated from these surfaces.
The second step and the third step are to find the area of column formworks and the area of wall formworks. These
steps are similar to the first step except the input elements. In the second step, the column elements are converted
into geometries. In the third step, the wall elements are converted into geometries. The geometries from the second
step and the third step are then checked for the intersections with the formwork surfaces for foundations, columns,
and walls. The surfaces that intersect with the geometries will be classified as the column formwork surfaces or
the wall formwork surfaces. The areas of the column formwork and the wall formwork are then calculated from
these surfaces.
The fourth step, the fifth step, and the sixth step are to find the area of beam formworks, slab formworks, and stair
formworks. Similar to the previous step, the beam elements, the slab elements, and the stair elements are converted
into geometries in the fourth step, the fifth step, and the sixth step. The geometries are then checked for the
intersections with the formwork surfaces for beams, slabs, and stairs. The surfaces that intersect with the
geometries will be classified as the beam formwork surfaces, the slab formwork surfaces, or the stair formwork
surfaces. The areas of the beam formwork, the slab formwork, and the stair formwork are then calculated from
these surfaces.
The final step is to find the total area of formworks. The formwork areas from the first step to the sixth step are
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Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Construction Applications of Virtual Reality (CONVR2019)
Filtered slabs Convert Check for Yes Select the Slab Calculate Area of the
(floors) into intersection surfaces formwork the surface slab
geometries surfaces areas formworks
No Discard the
surfaces
Fig. 3: The flowchart of the method for classifying formworks and finding the formwork areas.
4. PROTOTYPE SYSTEM
A prototype system was developed to test the proposed method. Autodesk Revit 2018.2 and Dynamo 1.3.3.4111,
a visual programming extension, were used to develop the prototype system. Fig. 4b shows the formwork surfaces
of a simple two-story building that are calculated from the prototype system. The simple two-story building
consists of foundations, columns, shear walls, beams, slabs, and stairs (see Fig. 4a). The formworks of each RC
element are visualized in separated colors. The formwork area of each RC element is automatically exported to a
spreadsheet file.
Fig. 4: (a) The simple two-story building model in Autodesk Revit 2018.2. (b) The formwork surfaces of the
simple two-story building that are calculated from the prototype system.
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Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Construction Applications of Virtual Reality (CONVR2019)
5. VALIDATION
An actual construction project was used as a case study to verify the prototype system and validate the proposed
method. The construction project is the new building of the Faculty of Architecture, Chulalongkorn University,
Bangkok, Thailand. It is an eleven-story building with the approximate total construction area of 4,700 m2 (see
Fig. 5a). The building structure is RC frames, which consists of foundations, columns, shear walls, beams, slabs,
and stairs. All RC elements are cast-in-place concrete; therefore, this building is chosen as the case study.
The BIM model of the case study was obtained from the Faculty of Architecture, Chulalongkorn University (see
Fig. 5b). It was made by the general contractor of the construction project using Autodesk Revit 2015. Therefore,
it was upgraded to Autodesk Revit 2018 before applying the prototype system. The prototype system extracted
2,636 surfaces from the entire model, separated them into different RC element categories, and calculated their
areas. Fig. 6a shows the visualization results from the prototype system. Each color on the surfaces indicated the
formwork surfaces of each RC element category. The formwork areas of each RC element were exported to a
spreadsheet file, which is shown in Table 1.
Fig. 5: (a) The case study building, which is the new building of the Faculty of Architecture, Chulalongkorn
University, Bangkok, Thailand. (b) The structural BIM model of the case study building.
To examine the accuracy of the proposed method, the formwork areas from the prototype system should be
compared with the reliable formwork areas. The formwork areas from the manual calculation done by quantity
surveyors were not usable because they calculated formwork areas from a different source, which is 2D
construction drawings, and human-errors could occur during the calculation. Therefore, the formwork areas from
the prototype system were compared with the formwork areas from the digital 3D model that the surfaces
represented the formworks were selected manually. The BIM model of the case study was exported into a digital
3D model. This 3D model was imported into SketchUp 2018 software. The surfaces of the 3D model that
represented the concrete formwork were manually painted using different material colors for different RC element
category (see Fig. 6b). The intersections between surfaces were carefully checked during the painting process to
make sure that there were no excess materials. The area of each material color was extracted from the software
and input in Table 1.
Table 1: Comparison of the quantities of concrete formwork between the proposed method and the manual selected
surfaces.
Manual Selected Surfaces Proposed Method Deviation
Concrete Formworks 2 2
Area (m ) Area (m ) (%)
Columns 1,359.63 1,359.63 0.00
Walls 3,104.13 3,104.13 0.00
Beams 514.46 514.46 0.00
Floors 4,940.91 4,940.91 0.00
Stairs 253.38 253.38 0.00
Foundations 330.34 330.34 0.00
Total 10,502.84 10,502.84 0.00
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Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Construction Applications of Virtual Reality (CONVR2019)
Fig. 6: (a) The visualization results from the prototype system. (b) The 3D model in which the surfaces
represented the formworks were selected manually.
The result from Table 1 shows that the quantities of concrete formwork from the proposed method are equal to the
quantities of concrete formwork from the manual selected surfaces. It can be confirmed that the automatic
algorithms select the correct surfaces and calculate the accurate quantities of concrete formwork.
6. CONCLUSION
Concrete formwork is a temporary component that usually absent from a BIM model and hence it is impossible to
directly extract its quantity from the model. This paper presented a method to automatically calculate the quantities
of concrete formwork from the surfaces of the RC elements that touch the concrete formwork. The proposed
method imports RC elements from a BIM model and filters out the elements that are not cast-in-place concrete.
Afterward, the RC elements are combined before extracting their surfaces. The purpose of this process is to remove
the overlapping surfaces of the RC elements because, in actual construction, the cast-in-place concrete elements
are connected as a single piece of a concrete structure. The extracted surfaces are then classified into each RC
element category. Finally, the surface areas are calculated from these surfaces.
The validation was done by using a new building of the Faculty of Architecture, Chulalongkorn University,
Bangkok, Thailand. A structural BIM model made by the general contractor was obtained from the Faculty of
Architecture, Chulalongkorn University. To compare the accuracy of the proposed method, the formwork areas
from the prototype system were compared with the formwork areas from a digital 3D model that the surfaces
represented the formworks were selected manually. The BIM model was exported to the digital 3D model;
therefore, the comparison was based on the same geometric model. The results showed that both quantities of
concrete formwork are equal and hence the proposed method is validated.
With this method, construction practitioners can obtain quantities of concrete formwork from a BIM model that
does not contain concrete formwork elements. They do not need to create concrete formwork elements in a BIM
model or calculate the quantities of concrete formwork using the traditional method, which is time-consuming and
error-prone.
In the future, the proposed method shall be validated with more various designs of buildings. The method for
finding formworks from various shapes of RC elements, such as slanted columns, sloped floors, arches, or other
complex RC shapes, shall be explored and developed. Furthermore, the formwork surfaces from the proposed
method shall be automatically converted to components in a BIM model, which can be used for construction
planning or other purposes in a collaborative work environment.
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