Building Information Modelling (BIM)

BIM Handbook, Specifically Chapter 2, is an a fairly good source for those who are just now starting to learn about the concept of BIM and its applicability in the AEC industry. I have been interested in BIM for a number of years now, and in recent years it has become an important part of my career and education. While it was interesting to learn the history of intelligent modeling, starting with B-rep and CSG representations, current applications and comparisons provided in Chapter 2 seemed slightly outdated and too generalized. I personally know and have worked extensively with several software packages described, including Architectural Desktop, Revit, ArchiCAD, as well as add-on tools to CAD, such as CADPipe and CADDUCT. For that reason, the text seemed to just barely scratch the surface of BIM technology and capabilities, especially when the tone implied the reader knows the software packages described. If I knew nothing about the software, and wanted to gain some valuable information about it, I would expect the BIM Handbook to give me some more insight into the benefits, shortcomings, differences and similarities between each software package. Overall, it is difficult to judge this book, based on a single chapter. I read through the table of contents, and it seems that chapter 3 will be of more interest to me. Because I have a good general understanding of BIM and different packages available to the industry, my interests lean towards some specific issues related to BIM, which are illustrated by the two articles I selected:

• A theoretical framework of a BIM-based multi-disciplinary collaboration platform

• Building information modelling (BIM) framework for practical implementation

The first article discusses a study conducted by a collaborative effort of several Australian Universities in order to evaluate the need, and the basic parameters of BIM-Server – “a platform for direct integration, storage and exchange of data from multiple disciplines” (Singh, et al., 2010). The study conducted a number of Focus Group Interviews (FGIs), as well as built a case study to evaluate what parameters should be included in BIM-Server platform (such as EDMmoelServer). The results are what one would expect, addressing the need for organization, appropriate user interface, data security, etc. The piece that intrigued me was the actual process of the BIM-server utilizing Industry Foundation Class (IFC) language to export and import models from various BIM programs. I recently had a chance to try IFC export/import between Revit and ACAD Architecture software, which failed miserably. In this article, the authors claim that they were able to successfully export ArchiCAD model to IFC, created hydraulic and lighting models, and imported back from IFC successfully. The conclusion I drew from this article, is that IFC work, but it still is not compatible between all of BIM platforms, as well as it depends on the complexity of the model.

The second article deals with a slightly different concern of efficient BIM implementation in Computer-Integrated Construction (CIC). Paper develops a framework for BIM with specific critical variables in order to optimize its performance, capabilities, and economic feasibility to be efficient tool in both design and construction. This article is a good transition between first weeks and last week topics in class, where we discussed robotics and its potential in construction. This paper was developed based on the fact that both Japanese and Korean governments exploited a full-scale automation in construction, which still proved to be cost prohibitive. This paper develops a framework for BIM to become more efficient in relation to CIC.