The winner of this year's hackathon is the team "Die Gebrüder BIM" from the IIB with the project "PIMP MY IFC". Team members are the master students Felix Cleve, Lea Höltgen, Leonie Zimmermann, Malik Müller and Niklas Heyne. Leonie, Malik and Niklas tell us what the hackathon was like this year and what they worked on in an interview.

BIMSWARM is a project funded by the BMWi (German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy). The aim is to establish an open platform for the provision of certified applications, services and catalogs in order to provide holistic project-specific digital value chains for construction projects. The focus is on certification and evaluation of usability based on vendor-neutral BIM interfaces. This is where the hackathon comes in. Since 2019, it has combined the competition with the opportunity to further develop the platform, because the projects of the individual teams test the infrastructure, find errors, and develop new meaningful possibilities for successful use.

How did the hackathon work this year?

Leonie: In the Corona days, the Hackathon took place online - unlike in 2019. Of course, this was a different atmosphere than when we were present. During the three days, we were only able to coordinate online and the exchange with the other participants was unfortunately lost. The support sessions with the BIMSWARM partners were also only possible digitally, but we didn't really need them. This also shows how much the BIMSWARM platform has improved over time.

What have you developed?

Malik: At the beginning, you can choose a category or one of five trails to which you develop the project. We chose "BIM-GIS integration". Roughly speaking, this is about the interlocking of BIM and geoinformation. We noticed that in the BIM field, the IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) data format is usually used, and this is usually not linked to corresponding geospatial data. This means that it is not possible to tell from the file information where the building is located.

Niklas: To change this, we worked in small groups on various problems in parallel. Lea and Leonie worked on the communication between the software and the BIMSWARM interface. Malik and Felix worked on the IFC file format to translate or write information according to the desired function in it. I wrote the plug-in, i.e. "Pimp my IFC" for QGIS. QGIS is a viewer program, with which OpenStreetMap's can be displayed. Finally we added geo-data to the IFC-files using a tool chain. So when you use the "new" IFC file you know by the "Pimp my IFC" plug-in where the building is located on a map. Of course, the whole thing is to be seen as a model project, but it is a start.

What do you like about the Hackathon?

Leonie: Even if you are at the IIB Chair, you don't necessarily have anything to do with civil engineering. Especially through hybrid challenges like the hackathon, you learn a lot in a short time.

Malik: It's nice to learn about interdisciplinary processes and technologies.

Niklas: Spending your free time with the other team members, coding and creating something productive that can have added value and contribute to something. The second victory in a row or defending the title is of course also a motivation.

Contact person: Philipp Hagedorn