Smart way to manage construction site photos

Massimo

Hi everybody,
i was wondering if there is a smart way to manage and archive all the photos from building site construction.
From my experience, everyone involved in the construction phase makes photos (es. owner, general contractor, subcontractors, engineers, architects and so on ... ) but when the project is finished, these photos are lost or it's very difficult to find the right one when it is needed.
So i was wondering if there is a method to store them in an unique place and a easy way to find them. For example, it could be useful to have a plan with point representing the place (and time) where photos have been taken.
Maybe also there is already a way to store them in the IFC file, but i don't know it.
I think that a lot of useful information are normally lost and there is a better way to manage that.
Thanks in advance,
Massimo

Nigel

@Massimo said:

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I think that a lot of useful information are normally lost and there is a better way to manage that.
Thanks in advance,
Massimo

This is a really good topic for discussion. So many photos remain in some weird digital limbo when they could be chronologically layered onto a digital twin.

vpajic

Isn’t this something you could achieve with BCF? I know it’s normally used for issues, but I’ve implemented it on previous projects specifically for the purpose you described.

Coen

So i was wondering if there is a method to store them in an unique place and a easy way to find them. For example, it could be useful to have a plan with point representing the place (and time) where photos have been taken.

The only proprietary software I know which is able to connect photos to an IFC elements is snagstream/bimstream I think. But it's higly focused at the Dutch market. And I never used it, I have only seen a demo so far.

I know BIMField is able to do this with Revit models, not sure about IFC.

Massimo

@vpajic i've never used BCF but, accordingly to the description, it is used for share construction issues in a smart way with everybody. Is it correct?
Do you know a method to use it only for photos?

magicalcloud_75

Here is a idea for you. It's more of a gis venture then bim
https://opengislab.com/blog/2020/8/23/mapping-and-viewing-geotagged-photos-in-qgis
Gis ? Bim

If you have problems importing the constuction site as vectorfiles, let me know

vpajic

@Massimo - There's nothing stopping you from using BCF for other purposes :). If you look at the documentation here you'll see a bunch of metadata that you use to your advantage, even for usecases that aren't issues.

If we think of the photo-documentation usecase, each "issue" could be a themed set of site photos. Each photo can then have a:

• timestamp
• description
• related objects, selected objects etc.
• the photo itself
• person who took the photo, responsible for the photo etc.
• A link to documentation that further elaborates on what the photo is about, why it is important etc.

That's just a simple example, another would be where you use BCF to report planned/actual progress to/from the construction site, or to just about communicate anything about specific objects in the model, such that they can be understood in other software.

For simple scenarios like that above, I've found BCF to be more than handy. Of course, if you start developing more complex scenarios, you may be better off with a linked database?

Massimo

@vpajic ok, for the purpose of this topic, i think that what you described is more than enaught and also, for starting, i think it is sufficient. I would like to try what you described, hopefully with a libre software, but i've never used BCF: do you know if there are already examples of that, pheraps in BlenderBim or FreeCAD?
@magicalcloud_75 what you post is very interesting, thanks!

I was thinking about using both methods, pheraps the "gis method" is more suitable for external photos (like roads, piping, external public lighting, etc ..) and "BCF method" is more suitable for indoor photos (new house building, house renovation, etc..). What do you think?

vpajic

@Massimo unfortunately I haven't played around with bcf in BB yet, but it's definitely on my todo list when I get some free time again. The software I used to achieve the above workflows was Desite (owned by Thinkproject) but it is also something that could be achieved with BIMCollabZoom (I think, don't quote me on this), which has a free tier.

duncan

Correct that bimcollab zoom could be used for this. Its really just about having a model based documentation workflow. As you find issues on site you find the corresponding point in the model and attach a photo to the bcf issue created for that location/object.
Dalux Field here in Denmark does that very well. They even have AR/VR built in so you can see the model overlayed the half finished project. I've heard that for some sites here they mount indoors GPS stations so anyone can find drawing for where they are by their location - it only requires an origin and direction and the rest is math.

Moult

There are three approaches I can think of:

1. BCF as others have mentioned. BCF can either store the photos as "screenshot sized images", but that's pretty much the only type of native support you'd get. Yes, there are ways to force other documents into BCF but it is not well supported. BCF technically even supports 3D image overlays but I don't know anyone who supports it (apart from the BlenderBIM Add-on). BCF however is used to exchanging issues during the collaboration of the design / construction, so it may not be semantically appropriate.
2. IFC can attach documents. This would be my recommendation. You can attach any document - be it drawing, schedule, photo, whatever is relevant to your project. All IFC stores is a URI to your photo. You can then even associate these photos with 3D objects such as buildings, sites, storeys, rooms, or equipment.
3. If your photos are already managed separately in another dedicated system and you don't want to lose that information, IFC can simply store a reference to that system as a "library". So let's say every photo as a key or ID, you can reference that key or ID in IFC using an "IFC Library" and "IFC Library Reference".

My recommendation would be option 2 as the most appropriate, unless you already have a photo management system, in which case option 3 would be preferred.

duncan

The Danish Technical University did some work on using BCF for asset management. See the BCF Wikipedia article for details.

CadGiru

@duncan said:
The Danish Technical University did some work on using BCF for asset management. See the BCF Wikipedia article for details.

Is any of this published? did not find..

duncan

"See the BCF Wikipedia article for details." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIM_Collaboration_Format#cite_note-4

CadGiru

@duncan thx

camontellano

Using opensource software would be nice. The approach of using the IFC model to link everything is very interesting. There is a company called SitePlan that offers this type of integration but I don't think they're very OpenSource about their code.
When you think about it, if what you need is sharing documents and giving access to people, there is almost no other way to go than offering hosting and a webapp. So from the business model side, you could have your Code Open but offering the hosting services and the APP with it.