What is Shape Grammar

Historic Building Information Modelling (HBIM) is a new approach for modelling historic buildings which develops full Building Information Models (BIMs) from remotely sensed data. HBIM consists of a novel library of reusable parametric objects, based on historic architectural data and a system for mapping theses library objects to survey data. This chapter describes the development of a library of parametric objects for HBIM that can be used to model classical architectural elements. Steps towards automating the HBIM process are also described in this chapter. Using concepts from procedural modelling, a new set of rules and algorithms have been developed to automatically combine HBIM library objects and generate different building arrangements by altering parameters. This is a semi-automatic process where the required building structure and objects are first automatically generated and then refined to match survey data. The use of procedural modelling techniques with HBIM library objects introduces automation and speeds up the slow process of plotting library objects to survey data.