Towards a bidirectional real time link between BIM software and the game engine unity

This paper examines the concept of a bidirectional real-time link between Building Information Modeling (BIM) software and game engines. It proposes a workflow and introduces a demonstrator application which achieves an approximate realisation of this principle. The workflow encompasses importing a BIM model into Unity using Unity Reflect, making modifications within a Unity application, and transferring the changes back to the original BIM software (here: Autodesk Revit) using a JSON file which registers all changes and passes them to a Revit AddIn. The proposed workflow focuses on changes to semantic information, rather than geometric information. While acknowledging the inherent challenges associated with achieving real-time synchronization and bidirectionality, the paper underscores the potential benefits in terms of time-saving and the valuable contribution of non-experts during virtual walkthroughs of the BIM model. In the outlook, the paper outlines prospective enhancements such as automating manual processes, expanding the concept to coordination software and Common Data Environments and extending the application to Extended Reality platforms. In addition, it is suggested to investigate the feasibility of integrating changes and annotations using the BIM Collaboration Format