February 6, 2012

Getting a bigger bang with Building Information Modeling

AUTODESK

SHANNON MONEO

correspondent

For the construction industry, the use of Building Information Modeling (BIM) is akin to moving from scribes carefully hand drafting documents to specialists with computers designing virtual worlds.

On Feb. 8 at Buildex Vancouver, a six-person panel of specialists will address the topic, Are You Crazy For NOT Using BIM? (Session W14).

One panelist, Len Rodrigues, architect and senior planner at Stantec in Vancouver, considers BIM an incredibly exciting development.

“I think of it as a surrogate for the actual building,” Rodrigues said of BIM’s ability to produce 3-D images of structures.

“BIM is revolutionizing what we do. It allows us to build a virtual building with everything modelled, the street access, architecture, mechanical.”

BIM is the generic term for various software programs that allow users to create perfectly accurate models of buildings.

It’s been around in one version or another for quite some time and is used around the world, Rodrigues said.

At Stantec, staff use Autodesk’s program Revit, a program that costs about $6,000 and can be used on most desktop computers.

Before BIM shook the design world, CAD (computer assisted drafting) was used.

Introduced in the early 1980s, Rodrigues said CAD wasn’t affordable for a lot of businesses and huge computational power was required.

When powerful desktop computers debuted, software like BIM was developed for use on standalone machines.

Now, there’s no limit to the size of building, which can be created using BIM, just as long as the computer has the necessary processing power, Rodrigues noted.

The user works with a mouse on the screen instead of hand-drafting the structure on paper.

What has Rodrigues, also an urban planner, enthused about BIM is that untold amounts of information can be embedded in BIM creations. Not only does one draw the wall, they outline what the wall is made of and all other related details.

As the building progresses, more and more elements are incorporated into the design.

The beauty is that if you want to know, for example, the surface area of glass, BIM can provide the answer based on the inputted detail.

“But, to embed the data requires a new mindset,” said Rodrigues, who also serves as practice leader for Stantec architecture’s higher education practice.

“It requires more thought and explanation at the front end.”

The intense amount of work required at the start has led to reluctance to use BIM among some.

But the cost-effective benefit of BIM can’t be overlooked.

With the ability to have a 3-D representation of a structure, conflicts between mechanical elements for example, are apparent sooner rather than later when fixes can be pricey.

“BIM helps identify problems that may have been overlooked,” Rodrigues said of what’s referred to as clash analysis.

“Instead of pages and pages of red ink, you can pull it up on the screen.”

Once the structure has been built, BIM remains relevant, becoming a phenomenal management tool for years to come for everything from maintenance to renovations, he added.

When changes are planned, they get drawn in.

The challenge is developing a protocol to keep everything current.

At CloverPoint, a Victoria software developer that specializes in online mapping and GIS/spatial consulting, Tanya Charles, a GIS manager, has been working with BIM for the last five years.

One of the panelists, Charles will answer questions about how she uses GIS to give BIM models real-world locations.

She inserts BIM-designed buildings into their actual settings which allows viewers to see exactly what surrounds the new structures.

“BIM is the only way to get a good representation of a building,” she said.

As with other trailblazing products, when it comes to using BIM there have been pioneers, early adopters such as Rodrigues, mainstream users and laggards.

“It’s the typical Bell curve,” he said, noting that mechanical engineers have been slow to embrace BIM.

“I’m more, ‘Why would you do it any other way?’ It gives a lot more information,” she said.

Edmonton’s new international airport was built using BIM. Vancouver International Airport wants all work to be now done via the technology, and Simon Fraser University and the University of B.C. are both using BIM, Rodrigues said.

AUTODESK

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