BIM for Existing Construction: A Different Logic Scheme and an Alternative Semantic to Enhance the Interoperabilty
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Thank you for your interesting research, here are some comments or reflections.
General comment:
Interesting and useful topics. It seems to me like a very good introduction for future research. As a scientific document, it is more a "research statement" than a result of a research to my opinion (but that does not alter the relevance of the work). When I started reading I was expected something different maybe this is due to the abstract lines 18-19.
Content:
100-101 :
indeed:
in revit: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-architecture-forum/variable-thickness-wall/td-p/6612310
in archicad:
it is a bit easier and more "standard":
https://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=223158
I would, suggest another phrasing suggesting it is possible using the default "wall" command, but it is not straightaway.
134:
Indeed but there are lots of exceptions:
you can make a bim for a house, an apartment building, a part of a city or a train station.
One classification system does not fit all these cases. This is why a lot of standards ask people to define a "common classification system" rather than imposing one
A government could ask for classification system A. for this type of building.
classification system B for HBIM, etc.
distinguishing "unique" system and "defined" system is important
182-184
this is mainly due to the "object" approach, this facilitates the counting of similar objects. This is something also useful for reuse of building components
184-186:
This is true, there is not need to have very "long" names. A good name identifies the object clearly all the rest -> metadata approaches like CunecoClassificationSystem show that.
Distinguishing naming convention and classifications might be useful as well.
188:
based on the previous statements it is easier to use a defined system (not specifically the one you selected).
-> "easier" is not very scientific to my opinion (more related to form and style)
You chose this one in particular (and not another one) for a specific reason.
198-204:
What is the difference between revit families and family types allowing to have a big umbrella type for a given sort of elements and then a subtype for each variant?
or do you stick to the naming, classification only and not the way the modelling software works (which is the start of your article)
Form and style:
115- 119:
The fact that you do not want to completely restart the way it is working (because it is working quite well on new building) but rather extending or enabling some freedom on specific cases (although it may already possible to solve part of your problems with custom families or equivalent) makes your approach very consistent
176:
"the modelling software should..."
This is a strong statement:
Why it should allow to do this?
Should a model be 100% correct (theoretically maybe but in practice it is a question of until where it is correct)? what is the aim of a BIM model (even in a new building the model is not 100% accurate and other solutions are used to compare buildings to as-build),
Aren't there other techniques (pointclouds, scanning) which will be better at having a 100% acurate model? Why aren't they sufficient? Why combining BIM and pointclouds is not acceptable?
I am not saying your statement is "correct" or "non-correct" but i think such a statement deserves some justification or context.
line 214:
"optimal" = strong statement!
When you sell something as "better" or "optimal" you should have strong clues or proofs to suggest that. If it is only a way of phrasing it, i would not use such terms.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Thank you so much for the review.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript presents an interesting topic but several suggestions and recommendations related to its organization and the treatment fo the topic are proposed:
The introduction provides a complete overview of the topic, however, the research gap that is addressing this work and the goal of the study should be emphasized, in order to provide the reader a more consistent message.
The methods are not explicitly exposed, so it is recommended to include them. It can help the reader to get a clearer idea of the steps you followed to get the results.
The results and its discussion can be improved by including for example more information to the reader related to the possibilities of improving the structure of the classification method.
The conclusions are very short and should emphasize the novelty of the paper and how it has addressed the detected research gaps.
It is also recommended to verify the writing style which sometimes is very informal.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Thank you so much for the review.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have addressed the suggestions provided. However, the paper still has some informal expressions that need to be improved (page 9, line 4).
Author Response
Thank you for the quick and accurate feedback.
We revise the text from the point of view of language.
