Looking for cool in BIM? This is cool, not quite BIM;

Saying ‘cool’ when you are over forty is not cool.

Excellent, first rate is better, sometime ‘perfect’ when the result is really good.

I do find the file I’m about to upload pretty cool, even excellent!.

It is an interactive, 3D PDF file, download it, play with it!

You may think while you are reading this, that I am taking a bit of a break from serious subjects by playing with this file – trust me, there is substance here.

The digital ruler was animated because reading the story of the parallel-ruler I wrote about a couple of weeks ago,  a friend of mine thought it should be.

While  giving me a hand with jazzing the model up, he took the opportunity to express how much he enjoys working in 3D as opposed to 2D.

Him being a young guy, his stance  also fits in with another earlier post of mine, regarding the relationship between the age and attitude of people towards documenting buildings.

As a potential information user, I think the file is quite sleek – I like the way I can easily filter information out (or in) with a click of a button.

Add to that the size (very small) and usability (Adobe Reader).

Also  geography – the file moved from Middle East to Central Europe to New Zealand, to come back to the Middle East.

Download the file from here: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B4GF8MRLb0DAMTAxZTFhMTAtOWE4OS00YTEyLWFkY2YtZTFkNTRjMThkMmQ1&hl=en_GB

Or email me zolna.murray@gmail.com and I’ll send it to you.

The 2 essential BIM gizmos: The Underdefined and the Welldefined (suggestions for BIM-tool developers)

The Underdefined and the Welldefined are two gizmos, the foundation of an ‘optimum’ building design-modelling toolset.

Not to be confused with the ‘ideal’ (utopistic, press-of-a-button) one, this solution could be the reality of BIM now, even though it may not exist.

To put it simply, this solution based on gizmos could (and should) be available off-the-shelf at present.

(with a little-bit of help from my developer friends).

I define these two gizmos as:

The Underdefined:

a totally generic, mouldable ‘thing’ – an amalgamation of the wall-beam-slab-roof tools that most modelling packages already have. A Boolean-enabled creature, also a cutter.

It works with the magic wand, has interactive nods and ability to assign spatial points the way meshes do.

It’s highly generic and infinitely customisable. Attributes are expandable and modifiable, parameters constrainable, but unlikely to be a fully free-style modeller (very few buildings need that anyway).

The Welldefined:

A rigid, predefined ‘thing’, very smart but almost unchangeable without good programming skills and getting under the bonnet. Provided by manufacturers and suppliers it needs no editing apart from selection and positioning.

The Underdefined gizmo is like a magic pencil that I can turn into anything I like and want, the Welldefined is the equivalent of a sticker, it is explicit and unambiguous.

Don’t dismiss this as fluff or wishful thinking, if it makes no sense, read it again!

See also Stefan Boeykens comment on an earlier post

http://debunkthebim.blogspot.com/2011/05/slabs-for-columns-are-often-better-than.html

Dear building owners: we will let you know what you need to know when and how WE think you should get to know it!

Enabling meaningful access to model data outside of native CAD platforms has been neglected by software developers and data originators for a long time.

The issue regarded with a bit of a mixture of arrogance and ignorance has been giving building owners the message – “we’ll let you know what you need to know”;

The pain is further rubbed in by lumping all building owners (and other none-modellers) into one big group of model viewers who’s primarily need could only be walking virtually through digital buildings.

A small, house owner is treated equally to a large city developer or government representative.

Somehow, the word ‘scrutiny’ (i.e. giving the ability to scrutinise the buildings) is conveniently dropped from the necessary features ‘viewers’ need to have.

Even the name ‘viewer’ bothers me – I see it convey unashamedly the role the non-info-originator is assigned to have.

Some of the viewers/ reviewers are better than others, still most do not meet the minimum for what a product that is designed with future users in mind should have.

They often feel patronising and gimmicky.

This disrespect for the building owner shows up in how buildings are presented in 3D.

Why are grids, north points, levels, spaces and zones almost never shown in 3D?

Design intent, future operational references, construction approach visualised on the model?

Why are digital viewers/ reviewers so un-cool?

(pictures shown are not all of viewers, building not dressed-up, the raw model captured)

Cool cars and navigating digital building-models

I’ve never owned a cool car. Apart from the little black Mini (born 1980) but she was prone to breaking down hence quite a liability. Incidentally, she was the only one we named, the ‘shopping trolley’ and ‘soap-dish’ we had since do not count.

So, my interest in cars has been largely practical – take me from A to B, don’t demand too much fuel and be easy to park.

Despite of history of driving mediocre vehicles and lack of experience with cool-cars – I notice the ones around me that stand out (and where I live at the moment offers plenty of eye-candy);

I may never own or even drive any of those – still nice to see where technology and design is getting to.

I approach tools in my trade in a similar way.

I may never go beyond off-the-shelf modellers and middle-of-the road renderers and navigators, I still keep my eyes and ears open for new ‘gadgets’.

So, I was a bit disappointed, when 82 comments to a recent question on BIM Experts Group-page (Anyone know how to export 3d model to pdf? With all properties ie rotating .& object properties...) brought in very little new or interesting.

It is not easy to stay motivated and aim to drive a Ferrari or Lamborghini one day, when all you see your peers care for are Corollas.

Why NOT reason more visually?

A kind Scandinavian Archicad-expert posted a message on my blog:

 Well, look at what the Norwegian government building agency (Norway’s largest building owner)
is specifying:
http://www.buildingsmart.no/sites/default/files/statsbyggbimmanual1-2publicbeta1.pdf

.. and I read through it obligingly – adamant to suspend my cynicism and find the really useful in the document.

And it IS a useful document – see for yourself.

The Nordic countries have long been at the forefront at anything BIM.

But then, I love to read long complicated books and still I am not that good with long textual documents.

In fact some internal self-preservation mechanism tends to kick in when I confront my mind with anything that looks like a set of rules (or even a guide or manual) and helpfully takes my interest to something else.

As I read through the wise document of the large Norwegian building owner an old email-viral flashes up.

Can’t really recall it in detail but lists numerous witty sentences, all starting with a “why”.

So I go and search and find ‘a’ why list and muse over it for a while...

Then I return to the document I rudely abandoned previously and make the connection...

My interest in the “why”s is simple –I’ve been wondering subconsciously, why aren’t documents that are supposed to guide processes like designing-documenting buildings not more pictorial even animated?

Why NOT reason with more graphics, visually?

Some of the “Why”s I like:

Why are apartments so close together?

Why is abbreviation such a long word?

Why do we call something sent by car a shipment and something sent by
ship a cargo?
Why do we call them restrooms when no one goes there to rest?

Why is the time of day with the slowest traffic called rush hour?

Modelling for construction, interpretation and coordination.

Modelling to interpret IFC drawings and to aid coordination prior to construction is the ‘fruit that hangs’ even lower than clash detection:

I have been thinking since yesterday if I should pre-empt likely comments on my column post – or column-column and explain myself further...(I can also call it  a column on the post too if we assumed that columns and posts were interchangeable in construction jargon as well as journalism...)

Or should I just move onto something more exciting, getting a bit flat here?

Apologies for being a bit of a broken record – but there is really no way forward for BIM (I believe) until the need for basic modelling in construction is eliminated, i.e. there is a meaningful design model in existence and available to contractors prior or at least at the start of construction.

A digital model that is capable of replacing or at least being totally in sync with IFC drawings

(IFC = Issue For Construction).

Currently (often) GCs foot the bill for construction modelling and it is a costly exercise.

The major factor of cost is not what is being modelled but how many drawings and other documents need to be found, opened, interpreted for a competent modeller to be able to model it;

Hard to call this BIM, really – building owners please, demand pre-construction, digital design models from your consultants!

Slabs for columns are often better than columns for columns

I wrote today’s post (working title: The 2 essential BIM gizmos) and. re-read it.

 Sounded airy-fairy – despite of the arguments being reasonable and true.

It needs an ‘entree’ before I can publish:

It is about basic modelling: I create a column.*

It is easy – I select the parameters and place the column.

I am specifically keen to have 2 parts of it identified, origin and ID.

Both  look OK in plan-view, however turn out to be much less useful in 3D.

This is a bit of a bother since I like working in 3D.

Then the next challenge comes.

I need to place numerous columns (say 50) over a 2D plan; All are rectangular but their sides and heights vary and each has a unique ID.

The task is of course doable and not that hard, still I keep on thinking, I could do this with the slab tool in half time.

Point? The column, beam, wall, roof tools evolved into very specific creatures that I am not sure that they needed to be – I’m starting to think that one universal tool would be better.

 Of course that would not quite work for the drawing outputs (as beams have to look differently on plans than say walls...)

I am not too concerned about the drawings.

Bring on the BIM gizmos! Come back in a day-or-two.

*I used Archicad for this particular exercise; 

I believe that most other ‘main stream’ AEC modelling packages work in a very similar way;

Too much information! (metadata traps in (BIM) model-management)

I promote skinny and lean BIM models.

Generally, when people FIRST get into model-based design and documenting, they get so excited about the ability of elements to carry a-lot-of intelligence that they burden their model to extreme.

There are 2 traps that are waiting for the unaware:

Being tempted to load up everything early in the project, with info that makes the model sluggish and easily outdated;

Continuously manipulating all the metadata created with no attempt to customise or filter.

Interested in an analogy?

Don a coat with lots of pockets.

Put something in every pocket ( paper-bits or, notebooks info-on-you – age, interest, height, favourite colours, music, shoe-size, grades at Uni...);

Try to get around a playground maze, run fast, do ice-skating. (equivalent of point 1: not easy to be agile when overloaded.)

Now stop!

I want a particular piece of information from you but neither of us know in what pocket is it in.

Can you find the correct notebook? Fast?

 This is not a silly parallel – there are numerous strategies needed to do BIM model management well – so, start being aware of these traps.

Learn how to recognise and evade them.

Trust me, an overloaded model can kill your project.

This post is aimed also at those that sell BIM software.

Too much info not necessary good in a model! Educate your clients!

PS – there are clever also smart objects/tools/aids and strategies available that can help you avoid these traps – more on those in the future;

Why do we treat AEC as the ‘slow kid’ amongst industries?

Can you recall this feeling?

You are a child. Your mother is trying to motivate you, to do better.

She is using various examples of kids from the neighbourhood (class, family) that achieve so much more then you...

Our dear AEC is a bit like that. Hardly any report, investigation or study is created without the starting point of, how well others have done.

Others being manufacture, media, transportation, F&B...

Productivity gains over the last 2 decades as well as use of digital tools are the two easy ones that make it to most researchers, conference speakers and government advisors.

Our little “Johnny” isn’t doing too good... everyone’s doing better.

I’d like to question this assumption.

I agree that some quantifiable data can be found to support some of the claims, but only if you look at them in a fragmented way.  The reality is, that the areas the ‘other’ industries have made significant headway are the relatively easy ones and where they could piggyback on each other. Social media has done well for social media but has not jumped over to serious ‘businesses’, really.

And how much of manufacturing productivity gain is simply due to outsourcing into areas with cheap labour?

Sure, AEC could do better, but so could the others.

Shouldn’t get handicapped from the outset by accepting to be the ‘slow kid’!

Construction managers: Do Sudoku, learn a new language!

Received an email from a friend today, challenging 2 of my recent posts.

He is a construction manager and wrote that, depicting what is below and above the cutting plane on drawings keeps his mind sharp and in shape.

He also questioned my praising of the construction-steel-suppliers arm of subcontractors (repeatedly – he says!) despite categorically refusing to acknowledge similarities between construction and manufacture.

Construction managers I’ve observed come largely in two flavours, ones that boast-a-lot and ones that get the job done.

My friend falls in the latter category and I’ve seen him perform miracles on site.

Not counter-arguing would not do him justice.

Bits from the response:

“...keep your brains working... do Sudoku, learn another language

Outsmart the  project managers, find mistakes in shop-drawings, identify potential variations, avoid accidents...

But, please advocate documenting buildings in 3D!

Just one guy on your site that turns the plan around repeatedly to find what way is up, can do you a lot of damage..

... do everything in your power to introduce building from model-based-construction documents a common practice to all sites.

... and as for steel and manufacturing?

Buildings are not cars – Organising the steel guys on buildings is still more similar to managing a good subcontractor in the restaurant supply industry than working a factory making vehicles.

I stay pretty adamant on that one. (too)”