  Building information modeling (BIM) is a major upheaval in construction
industry. Although BIM advantages in construction management has been proved in
many papers reviewed, there are still many limitations that inhibit
organizations to use BIM models efficiently. However, advancement of
application programming interface (API) in the recent years has facilitated
employing BIM in construction industry. This research contributes to the state
of practice in construction management by developing API codes to automate
estimation of construction. The developed API automatically filters items
related to a particular discipline within a particular work area and facilitate
systematical quantity take off in different work areas. This allows the planner
to define proper 3D work areas and to estimate the required materials and
man-hours in different work areas throughout the project. The results of the
developed automated approach are compared with hand calculated results as well
as the results calculated from the BIM software interface in special cases.
Finally, the research has been validated by a case study of an actual
petrochemical project.
