Want to do well in BIM: run a tight and skinny model.

My daughter asked me yesterday: “At what point are you going to debunk something in your debunkthebim blog?”

Hmmmmm...

A quarter down into my year-long journey and I managed to create one reader that questions the entire endeavour;

At least she is responding...

So let’s put one issue straight today:

You want to get in/thrive in BIM – you need to be thrifty!

You need to run a tight and skinny model.

The overall success of any BIM endeavour will depend majorly on how well the digital model and is management is managed.

In the earlier days of CAD, file size meant everything and ‘purge’ was the mantra.

Nowadays no matter how good hardware/software one has – every element and tool has to be optimised to run at the lowest complexity possible with the smallest size acceptable.

It is a culture that should be introduced early on and everyone trained to respect it.

Often relying on self moderation will not be sufficient and you’ll need to police it.

You only need one person in your team to ‘innovate’ and introduce an object that is not optimised and it will slowly or even rapidly kill your model.

But having a slow (or dead) model is not the only disadvantage of an un-optimised BIM workflow -  the flow-on effects are numerous and they all can damage your bottom line.

Please don’t clean up my wall intersections...

I should start with a disclaimer: I model in Archicad 13;

That is whenever I need to assess something quickly and am not constrained by other project-needs nor the limitations of the software itself.

So, what I am about to write may no longer be an issue in Archicad 14, nor the other modelling packages people use.

It is an issue for me, because I use Archicad 13.

It is to do with how walls clean-up where they intersect with each other.

They seem to have an overriding wish to conform to the aesthetics of the drawing – i.e. they automatically clean-up into a nice, tidy, seamless intersection.

Petty that construction in real life is rarely as tidy.

So, next disclaimer: I model stuff for construction.

Archicad is meant to be an architectural software – so why get so hung up on this trivial issue?

Education of the masses is on the agenda of most BIMutopist I meet in my daily work.

 Would it not make sense to have the building modelling software used to resolve and document (if not construct) behave in a way that is closer to reality and not driven by the look of the drawing?

I know, you’ll tell me that would be too constraining on design.

I on the other side see another opportunity for building material supplies to softly-ambush the field.

* PS – I do know how to get around this by having walls on different layers and adding the layer names different ‘priority’ numbers; And I know architects want them to be this way...

Still, my argument stays, the process is not reality-friendly it is drawing-look driven;

April fool’s joke-post: Staircase analysed (Part 1)

I was going to write an April fool’s joke-post for today;

Something outrageous and funny. Something to do with BIM.

Then, I thought of my staircase exercise. Now, there is a joke for you, a joke on me.

Ok, the exercise failed and did not go around the world. Too bad.

Can’t quite share the end results with you as yet,

they are still rapidly coming in at the rate of .... wait for it

...1 per week.

Today, I’ll respond to those that directly or indirectly questioned what my point was anyway.

I had multiple points.

First is to do with the 2D - projections part.

I wanted to raise awareness of the difficulties we all have with reading plans and sections.

Most of us can (or claim to be able) to do it well.

Really? Let’s look at this example again:

There is a 3D space (real or imagined). To convey this space fully through 2D projections, for every (and I emphasise every) element of this space we have to provide 2, correctly prepared orthogonal projections. A bit like shown on the pictures here.

To understand the 2, orthogonal projections, in our heads, we need to reverse the process and build every (!) elements up from 2 different views. Doable, yes;

But, is this really a technique worth sticking to at any cost?

These pictures can be downloaded as a (flat) PDF from here:

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B4GF8MRLb0DAM2YzNTBkNmMtYWUyMC00NTRjLWE0ZDItYzA4NzUwNmQ3NTE3&hl=en_GB

Betting on a CAD horse in the nineteen-nineties. (1995)

Choosing a CAD software-package in the nineties was a lot of fun.

One did not just purchase a tool but took a stand.

It was like signing up to a political party, if not quite joining a cult.

In the ‘space’ I worked in, it was largely a two horse race.

The limited choice did not mean for the fight to be bland – not at all.

The purchase came with numerous uncalled-for labels – if you went for AutoCAD you preferred America over Europe, black (screen) over white and PC’s above Macs.

If you bought ArchiCAD you (supposedly) worked more in 3D, were extremely slow in cadding and had no programming skills. You were also more inclined to go for Windows while the others went for DOS

(Lisp skills were still highly sought after).

You could not ignore the pigeon-hole-ing.

It was not unheard to be thrown out of a ‘new version launch’ if someone knew  that you used the ‘other’ package.

And, make no mistake – in a county of 4M (people, more sheep) – it was impossible to hide your preference for long.

There was one thing common to both, product development and client satisfaction were low on their lists of importance.

One spent all money and energy on retaining monopolistic dealerships, the other cultivated CAD managers as their champions.

I chose my horse, they’d theirs.

For the short attention spanned: every line has to tell a story

Must be getting old as I long for the times when a drawing-line meant something and sentences were considered carefully before uttered.

As an architect in training I remember being told that every line has to tell a story, a line must have something ‘behind’, a slab, a window sill, a table edge.

Now it seems to be the other way around – millions of lines on offer and no story to tell, or the story is confused and fragmented.

This is not exclusive to my work – constant ‘chatter’ appears to be everywhere.

Is this to cater for our short attention spans – or have we become short attention-spanned because of all the ‘noise’ around us?

Here is another exercise for you: don’t worry, no downloading this time, no moving parts.

What I’d like to suggest is that next time you need to write a report (a specification, an email or just about anything) – give yourself a word-limit before you start on it, or, once you’ve got the draft – cut the number of words down by a third.

In the last number of years I applied for funding to various angel and other start-up investors.

Most have quite clever (online) application forms where the number of words you can give in your answer for each question is strictly limited.

Annoying first – it focuses the mind incredibly well.

The low hanging fruit of BIM

I am a hypocrite. I allowed myself to be invited and entertained for two days at the BuildSmart conference.

And, you know what? I did actually pick up a line-of-thought that will make a good topic for a post in the near future – but let’s leave that aside for the moment and deal with the superficial.

It’s to do with clash detection.

I did not know up till now that ‘clash detection’ was the ‘low hanging fruit of BIM’.

Thankfully, I was told, once for all;

Actually, at least 4 times in four different presentations but as anyone that is involved with teaching knows, repetition is good;

Would I have dedicated this post to the ‘low hanging fruit of BIM’ had they not emphasised it so many times?

Probably not; though the images did talk for themselves.

I’d call the type quintessential by now, the poor pipe going through the beam and no one there to notice it before the unfortunate collision happens;

Observing the speakers I had the feeling that we, BIMsmarters find this ‘clash detection’ to be a bit naff – and at best call it ‘little BIM’ – (or closed BIM to those that get offended by diminutive labels).

The fact that we classify it as ‘low hanging fruit’ must still mean that someone is making very good money out of it.

Or not?

IFC is BIM’s equivalent of Esperanto...

Thanks, I’ll rather go for English;

I can say that.

English is my third language. Fourth if I count German that I learned but forgotten.

I speak English with a thick Finn Ugor-Slavic accent and muddle up my tenses regularly.

I am very careful with the ‘their’ and ‘there’ but still get ‘than’ mixed up with ‘then’.

‘To’ and ‘too’ I’m OK with, but got to be careful not to address ‘staff’ as ‘stuff’.

I am hopeless with the ‘th’ sound (ask the daughters!) and do not get the double negative .

So, you’d think I’d be happy to have a ‘neutral’, made-up language I work with when I do BIM, but no.

I’ll go for a robust proprietary one any time.

Give all of them an equal chance to prove themselves, to gain traction and coverage.

If English is the language that comes up strongest, I’ll go with it ahead of others.

Relevance to BIM?

Well, IFC is being aggressively promoted as the ‘open BIM’, read ‘play nicely’  BIM language (file format).

 A ‘common’ language.

Also a bit of a bland – lowest common denominator format.

I am being a bit ignorant here, not just the usual arrogant since it’s been ages since I last tried using IFC.

I had tried it though and I’d sooner go for a 3DS format or EVEN DWF now!

The saddest book in the World?

For my youngest, it will have to be one of the last published in the Harry Potters series.

For my middle daughter probably the Boy in the Striped Pajamas.

The eldest can’t really decide between See ya, Simon; The Catcher in the Rye, and Of Mice and Men

For me: Specifications.

These are books that accompany ‘for construction drawings’ of yet-to-be-built-buildings.

Think about them – there aren’t many other book-shaped creatures that go through their relatively short life experiencing so little love and care.

Often they are an afterthought. Put together hastily, just before submission.

Even while in their electronic format they tend to be self-conflicting, shallow and obese.

They become everything for everyone but nothing really for no one, tending them becomes a punishment for those that are not ambitious enough or like specialising in work no one wants to do.

They are rarely fully in synch with the drawings they accompany and are only really welcome by litigious lawyers and QS’s chasing variations. Their attention can also turn hostile when the right paragraph is not found in the mess of information.

As part of my January 23^rd post I offered an alternative form to deliver information that traditionally fell under the Specifications’s domain.

Check it out – the 3D features should be accessible through most browsers – but you need to open the file with Adobe-Reader.

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B4GF8MRLb0DANmE3MWVmZWMtMGQ0Mi00MTBiLTg4OGItZmZiZmM5MjZlNGZm&hl=en_GB

  

(and while you are at it, why not do the little exercise of counting the wall clocks – March 24^th’s blog – count all the clocks no matter what colour)

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B4GF8MRLb0DANmI5NDFlN2MtZWNkOS00MWVmLTkyNTYtZWM4MjljZTI3OGRm&hl=en_GB

Alternative BIM-coloured Earth Hour!

“We've got no money, so we've got to think” is a quote usually attributed to Ernest Rutherford, a nuclear physicist from New Zealand.

Today is Earth Hour, claim the news.

I celebrate an alternative Earth Hour. I ask households and businesses and anyone I know to turn ON the essential lights in their heads for one hour to experience the joy of thinking.

Not relevant to BIM? I digress a bit here but like to be topical too.

Topical as in what’s going on around me, not just pertinent to my BIM bubble.

The other expression I like very much: “An alleged scientific discovery has no merit unless it can be explained to a barmaid” is also (supposedly) Rutherford’s.

Now, this is significant to all that live in their little BIM bubbles.

All of you that have BIM in your title or job description: can you explain to you grandma or (grand) child what exactly do you do?

Can you fit it in one sentence?

I still struggle with this task, I confess.

My 90 years old grandma only knows that I am married to a handsome Englishman, and my parents think of me as a failed architect that does something (possibly) clever with computers.

My only hope is that I will be able to define my work by the time the first grandchild arrives.

There still is no such thing as a ‘BIM-software’

My analogy based on the knitting-needles fell on a flat- reception.

Would it have been different had I used a hammer, a chair, the Rubik-cube instead?

We (humans generally) seem to have an overpowering need to do things using the “right” tools.

Horses for courses, no mixing up of roles and responsibilities, tools and weapons, aids and obstacles.

Sometimes I get asked to assist a friend decide what ‘BIM software’ to buy.

Most of them are moving on from a Flatcad-application, occasionally even the ‘real’ drawing board.

Most approach the issue with the seriousness it deserves.

Create lists of features they compare various packages on.

Talk at length with suppliers.

Search the net and collect feedback from users.

Then they make an informed decision.

Or so they think.

I tend to stay out of advising one way or other, despite of being blessed by natural eagerness to help.

Mostly, because few are prepared to consider that there may not be a simple answer to this question and no painless solution on offer.

I believe that there still is no such thing as a ‘BIM-software’.

There are software packages that will be good as part of a BIM solution.

Addressing a task (or a role) they can be useful.

However, there is no off-the-shelf solution or one-stop-shop available.

If someone is selling you one, be cautious.