Natural stone and BIM360 - is that possible?

From quarrying to digital capture of slabs to the finished installation - digital blending is the link for all project participants.

With BIM (Building Information Modeling), work steps and processes of all involved parties in the construction should be automated in a comprehensible way. The basis for this is the recording of all information relevant to planning. All project partners within a project can access this data at any time via a database synchronized in real time.

The question arises: Does natural stone need this traceability in the project?

If we look at the necessary planning processes, the necessity already results from the definition of BIM. Therefore, a clear YES. However, the depth of traceability seems questionable. Is there a need for knowledge about the individual stone in the project?

No and yes!

NO?- for natural stone surfaces with normal demands on the overall optical appearance. Characteristically stand here for in itself very homogeneous stone qualities. Slates, basalts and granites, for example, are characterized by this feature.?

YES?- for projects with very high aesthetic demands on the natural stone. Marble and quartzite with their characteristically veined crystalline structures are examples of this. The apparent homogeneity is often achieved here only with great material and processing effort. In principle, each stone is unique, even if there is an apparent optical homogeneity across a block of stone. Due to their size, today's BIM projects cannot be executed with only one raw block.??Therefore, it makes sense to use a digital planning interface here.

What else speaks in favor of this? For example, the regular need to replace individual slabs in a project. This is often already in the final construction phase. It is not uncommon for a whole pallet of slabs to break during the construction process. Or later during the operation of the building. It is not seldom that local destruction of stone slabs occurs. No matter why, the broken stone must be replaced!

The difficulty, however, is to find a suitable stone and fit it in imperceptibly in terms of visual aspects. Owners often hold back a certain number of project stones and store them. The practice shows that after years often this stone is no longer findable due to personnel change.?

In order to replace a stone or a small area, whole areas are in the end usually exchanged. The cost is correspondingly high.?

Project experience shows that there are many reasons to apply the principles of BIM to natural stone in the high-price segment and for sophisticated design requirements.

But how can digital networking between the building object and the stone be achieved?

Step 1 is the digitalization of the stone industry

In modern factories, all stone slabs are now individually digitized and recorded in management software. In addition to characteristics such as size and thickness, the origin from the quarry, the relation to neighboring blocks and a digital image are stored. Sophisticated technology in the field of photographic equipment and scanners produces a high-resolution image of each slab, which subsequently allows precise digital planning.

Digital footprint of a slab - all datas are behind the high resolution picture.

Step 2 is the necessary planning tool

The days when images were assembled into a project image by image processing programs without binding scaling, without the return of precise data, reports and CNC cutting data are long gone. Digital blending has made its way into natural stone projects. In this process, each stone is precisely positioned in the design, whether it is flooring, wall surfaces, stairs or complex geometries. In the case of complex geometries, positioning supports three-dimensional planning.?

Parallel to the positioning, all necessary data up to the cutting data for the CNC machines are recorded. Reports provide a targeted output of the relevant facts. In addition, images of completely "laid surfaces" are immediately available to the architect, which accurately reflect the later optical appearance. These serve both as a basis for renderings and for a binding production approval process.???

Screen shot of a digital wall planing - above the slabs to use, center the placed slabs within the CAD-drawing

Digital blending?- Or what are the advantages of a natural stone BIM model?

Digital blending is the basis for digital networking within the project with all relevant planners. This increases the planning quality many times over. In the past, the stone slabs were cut to size and then laid out dry via an elaborate process for quality control, blended in, and then numbered and packaged on their way to the construction site. Today, the planning team can create the blends digitally, change them, release them for production and inspect them during production.

This not only improves interaction between architects, stone producers and installers. Rather, the use of digital blending has accelerated the construction process.?

Errors can be detected at an early stage or non-matching stones cannot be used in the blending process. The biggest plus for architects and suppliers is quality control in terms of visual design requirements. The controlled handling of very characterful stone slabs thus becomes an easy task. What was previously only possible for the most experienced stone manufacturers can now be positioned and released by the architect through digital blending. This gives a new freedom of design.

At the same time, all production-relevant data is included in the reports, making them suitable for BIM 360.

When looking at the entire life cycle of a building, these detailed reports of the blends are of great benefit. In case of a necessary replacement, all optical information of the respective adjacent stones is available. This means that replacement tiles can be inserted at any time without any problems. Once again, the use of specifically trained AI shows further advantages of digital blending. The used stone management programs or galleries of the supplier form the pool for the stone replacement. A digital match of "to be replaced" with "what is currently in stock" throws out the results with a percentage match in color and characteristic veining. Picked up project slabs included, of course.

Finally, the ability to reduce travel within the project should also be mentioned. In summary, digital veining leads to an avoidance of CO2 within projects due to the optimized stone cutting, the waste avoidance, the targeted planning, the reduction of travel expenses and the optimization of planning times.

Slab 14 - Printout of production ticket, with exact position of all cut-to-size pieces, numbered and with measurements. In parallel all datas are prepared digital for direct use at cutting bridge.

To avoid mistakes, to reduce and control costs, but also to better coordinate deadlines, today's digital work with shared access to data in the cloud is a precaution for the future.

Are you interested in a detailed consultation for your project slab - feel free to contact me/ over LinkedIn.