How to Use QuickBuilding for Mass Modelling in BricsCAD BIM

Quick answer: QuickBuilding generates an entire BIM building from one or more massing solids, creating a separate drawing where walls, slabs, roofs, and spatial elements like floors and spaces are all created automatically, each assigned its own BIM properties and spatial information. It’s especially useful in early design stages, volume studies, and conceptual designs.

The Top-Down Workflow

1. Draw one or more solids in model space; they don’t need to be unioned first, the command handles that automatically.
2. Type BIMQUICKBUILDING at the Command line, or select it from the Quad, then select the solids.
3. The Quick Building command panel opens; choose between Buildings and Spaces modes, choosing Buildings continues the top-down workflow.
4. Add as many floors as you want (Add floor) and set the desired storey height for each. With Fill cell checked, the number of storeys generates automatically based on the elevation Height value.
5. Click Apply to generate the building.

Alternatively, import storey heights from a CSV file: type BIMQUICKBUILDING, choose Import and press Enter, then browse to and open the CSV file. A typical CSV format looks like this:

Floor;Height- mm;Amount;Fill
0 - 10;3250.000000;11;Yes
12 - 16;5000.000000;5;No

If the result doesn’t satisfy the required storey heights, this gets reported in the Command line (see Command Line Output below).

6. Create a section to see the newly formed slabs and walls, each with their own individual BIM properties. Select the roof, for example, and check the BIM tab of the Properties panel, you’ll see its Roof type property alongside spatial locations, quantities, and a GUID. Every element gets categorized: the Structure panel lists building elements sorted by Story and Building properties, and different element types (External wall/slab, Flat/pitched roof, Internal wall/slab) land on their own dedicated layers.

The Bottom-Up Workflow

This workflow builds from solids that represent spaces, letting you shape the spaces first, then use QuickBuilding to generate the shell and new spaces around them.

1. Type BIMQUICKBUILDING at the Command line.
2. Select the solids.
3. In the Quick Building command panel, choose Spaces mode to continue with the bottom-up workflow.
4. A building generates from the selected massing solids; BricsCAD converts them into BIM Spaces with their own walls and slabs.
5. Click Apply to create the building.
6. Optionally create a section to see the newly created spaces.

The original solids are kept as-is; QuickBuilding simply creates a building from them, understanding that these input solids represent Spaces, so it knows the inner walls and slabs should be generated based on them.

Command Line Output

After running BIMQUICKBUILDING, BricsCAD reports an overview with basic building information, the total floor area, and other details per floor. If you used a CSV file and some requirements weren’t met (not enough total area or floor area, for example), those problems show up in this output too.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do the solids I draw need to be unioned before running QuickBuilding? No, the command handles unioning them automatically.

What’s the difference between the top-down and bottom-up workflows? Top-down starts from massing solids and builds floors and storeys from them. Bottom-up starts from solids representing spaces, generating the surrounding shell and walls based on those spaces instead.

Can I set storey heights from an external file instead of typing them manually? Yes, import a CSV file with the Floor, Height, Amount, and Fill columns via the Import option of BIMQUICKBUILDING.

How do I check whether QuickBuilding’s result actually met my required storey heights? Check the Command line output after running the command, it reports any requirements that weren’t satisfied.