A computer-implemented automated building design and modeling and
construction project cost estimating and scheduling system ("DMES system")
is described. The DMES system provides a central source for all of the
design and construction information for a construction project in a
coordinated two-dimensional and three-dimensional spatial database that is
freely accessible by all of the members of an interdisciplinary
construction project team as a means to produce automatically coordinated
design development and construction document information. The DMES system
acquires and stores all of the appropriate design, engineering, and
construction expertise and information available for any building type for
use in automatically assembling and coordinating the design,
cost-estimating, and scheduling for a construction project. In one
embodiment, the DMES system consists of a plurality of objects, comprising
elements and massing elements arranged in an assembly hierarchy. Each of
the objects includes programming code that defines an interface and
discrete internal functions that define its behavior. When instantiated in
the database, the objects automatically create further instances of other
objects in the hierarchy, which in turn do the same, thus assembling a
complete building model automatically from the initial manually-placed
instance. The building model enables automatic generation of drawings and
cost and scheduling information. By running automatic iterations of the
building model, multiple designs may be evaluated to determine the optimum
design.
