BCF Add-Ins for Revit

If you need to use the BIM Collaboration Format and you are using Revit this Add-Ins might be what you are looking for.
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I wrote recently about the BIM Collaboration Format [BFC]. It is (probably) the soon to be Standard to communicate Issues in BIM Models. If you are using Revit and want to be able to work with BCF, you'll need some Add-in to do it. I found 3 of them and tested 2. Here they are:

Number #01: Matteo Cominetti's BCF PLUGIN FOR REVIT (currently at Version 2.2.2)
Easy to use, Free and With a lot of easy to use Options.
The best one of the two I tried.
You can download it here: http://matteocominetti.com/d/BCFPlugin2.2.2.exe
Check more info at Matteo's website or watch the video below:

Number #02: KUBUS' BCF MANAGER for Revit (there is also an ArchiCAD Version)
Now on free trial until Nov 30th. Apparently at a cost from December 1st.
Less options than Matteo's Plugin, but still easy to use.
Download the Windows x64 version here: http://www.kubusinfo.nl/downloads/BCF_Manager_Revit_x64_r2.msi
Download the Windows x86 version here: http://www.kubusinfo.nl/downloads/BCF_Manager_Revit_x86_r2.msi
You can also use this if you are an ArchiCAD user:
ArchiCAD windows version download here: http://www.kubusinfo.nl/downloads/BCF_Manager_AC17_r2.msi
ArchiCAD MAC version download here: http://www.kubusinfo.nl/downloads/BCF_Manager_AC17_r2.dmg
More info at the KUBUS website.

Number #03: AUTODESK'S MODEL REVIEW Add-in
I haven't tried this one, according to its description is more than just a BCF Add-in, but a full Model Checker:
"Check the accuracy and consistency of a Project or Family against standards set by your firm, your clients, or industry best practices. Correct inconsistencies with a single click or with instructions provided when manual fixes are required".
It is only available if you are a Subscription Customer. More info here too

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Splitting Up Revit Models

What criteria would you use to decide if you are going to split or not your Revit Models? And if you decide you are going to do it, how are you going to do it?

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I just have started working on the biggest Revit project I have worked to date, and as the BIM Manager of the project I had to make certain decisions concerning the protocol to follow in terms of model splitting up. So far, all the projects I worked on where relatively small, so this decision was not so relevant (we basically decided to split models by discipline: Arch - Str - MEP) and it worked good enough. This new project is way too big to work only with this discipline based division, so I wondered what "the experts" would think is the best to go for such a project (and what criteria to follow on future projects).
The project I am working on is a residential complex with a total of around 158.000 m2, and it has 7 residential towers and a common basement, plus some other minor buildings. After looking deep into blogs, forums and linkedin groups, I found this advice by BIM Manager Brendan Smith that I found was exactly what I needed.

In his post, Brendan describes several Revit model divisions according to the project type and size. In my case, I will work with something similar to his last option: "4. On a Large to extremely large job with two or three buildings". I will not follow literally these divisions (to me the divisions between Architecture and Interiors makes no sense and following something more similar to the Uniformat division might be more logic too) but it is a good start point conceptually for the divisions. My actual chosen division system will follow this criteria (see that the abbreviations are based on Spanish, so you could use something similar with English abbreviations):

Architecture
PROJECTCODE-T01-ARQ-ENV-R01.rvt (Contains all Architectural elements of the façade of residential tower 01)
PROJECTCODE-T02-ARQ-ENV-R01.rvt (Contains all Architectural elements of the façade of residential tower 02)
...
PROJECTCODE-T01-ARQ-INT-R01.rvt (Contains all Architectural elements of the interior of residential tower 01)
PROJECTCODE-T02-ARQ-INT-R01.rvt (Contains all Architectural elements of the interior of residential tower 02)
...
Structure
PROJECTCODE-T01-EST-CIM-R01.rvt (Contains all Structural Foundations for residential tower 01)
PROJECTCODE-T02-EST-CIM-R01.rvt (Contains all Structural Foundations for residential tower 02)
...
PROJECTCODE-T01-EST-ESP-R01.rvt (Contains the Floor Structure for residential tower 01)
PROJECTCODE-T02-EST-ESP-R01.rvt (Contains the Floor Structure for residential tower 02)
...
MEP
PROJECTCODE-T01-INS-SAN-R01.rvt (Contains waste/grey and rain water piping for tower 01)
PROJECTCODE-T02-INS-SAN-R01.rvt (Contains waste/grey and rain water piping for tower 02)
...
PROJECTCODE-T01-INS-CLI-R01.rvt (Contains AC for tower 01)
PROJECTCODE-T02-INS-CLI-R01.rvt (Contains AC for tower 02)
...
PROJECTCODE-T01-INS-CPR-R01.rvt (Contains Ventilation / fire escape pressurization for tower 01)
PROJECTCODE-T02-INS-CPR-R01.rvt (Contains Ventilation / fire escape pressurization for tower 02)
...
PROJECTCODE-T01-INS-CPR-R01.rvt (Contains Ventilation / fire escape pressurization for tower 01)
PROJECTCODE-T02-INS-CPR-R01.rvt (Contains Ventilation / fire escape pressurization for tower 02)
...
PROJECTCODE-T01-INS-GAS-R01.rvt (Contains Gas Piping for tower 01)
PROJECTCODE-T02-INS-GAS-R01.rvt (Contains Gas Piping for tower 02)
...
PROJECTCODE-T01-INS-ELE-R01.rvt (Contains Electrical Systems for tower 01)
PROJECTCODE-T02-INS-ELE-R01.rvt (Contains Electrical Systems for tower 02)
...
PROJECTCODE-T01-INS-HID-R01.rvt (Contains Water Supply and Distribution for tower 01)
PROJECTCODE-T02-INS-HID-R01.rvt (Contains Water Supply and Distribution for tower 02)

For now, this is our starting point. Thanks to Brendan Smith for the inspiration. After the project is over, i'll share the changes i make to this apporach if there are any.





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BIM Thoughts and Conclusions from UK's National Construction Contracts and Law Survey 2013

The recently published NBS report has some insights on the real BIM use in UK's projects
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UK's National Building Specification [NBS], (also available on twitter as @TheNBS)has published recently a report called "National Construction Contracts and Law Survey 2013". Among other itneresting data, some insights on the Contractual Use of BIM in UK is given, and it is interesting, specially in contrast to other more optimistic views about the BIM penetration in the market.

First interesting point related to BIM is that up to 49% of respondents said they didn't use any type of "collaborative technique" in projects started in 2012. THis is a very important point for it means that at least 49% of the industry is not collaborating, thus COllaborative BIM is right now still far from Standard.

image source

The second interesting piece of BIM related information we find is that 78% of the respondents have not started adopting BIM in their contracts and 77% don't even reference to it in their COntracts. This seems to me like BIM is still very irrelevant contractually to most of stakeholders, so the Collaborative BIM Process has still a lot of hurdles to jump to start running at a good pace.

image source

Finally, the last, and maybe the most relevant info related to BIM is the one taken from the question "What information do you normally provide / receive about the project?". Here, only 9% of respondents mention BIM as info being provided by them to the project or received from other consultants.

image source

This, to me, means that real BIM, the one that involves the "creation of a collaborative database with information (...)" is used at the most by 9% of the industry in UK. A bit far (maybe more realistic?) than some of the implementation numbers that one can suppose from data from other reports, like for instance McGraw-Hills "The Business Value of BIM in Europe" from which I adapted the chart below. According to McGraw-Hills report, the "adoption rate for BIM in the United Kingdom among construction professionals surveyed is 35%".

image source

My analysis is, that either those surveyed in the McGraw-Hill report lied, or by "adopting BIM" they meant or understood something similar to "using a BIM tool". Matching the 35% adoption in 2010 with the 9% of respondents who in the recent report (with data from 2012)say they deliver or recieve BIM as information we see that there si a big gap between the two percentages. My guess is that probably the data obtained about BIM in a non BIM centric survey is probably more valuable, for it might be less biased than those reports aiming to show how well the BIM progress is going.

Well, I don't know, maybe I am wrong, what are your thoughts? Please share!

As it is happening recently more and more often the heads up come via Twitter:

Download the free 2013 National Contracts and Law (for construction) survey/report now at our website - http://t.co/6eRKige4eo

— Stephen Hamil (@StephenHamilNBS) October 7, 2013

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BCF: BIM Collaboration Format

BCF is the format that might become standard to share issues found in BIM models from one platform to another
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BCF is an open standard to enable workflow communication between different BIM (Building Information Modeling) software tools. I came across this format by the first time while whatching a Solibri Model Checker Demo. It is currently in the process of being accepted as an Open Standard by BuildingSmart. It works together with IFC models, the idea with BCF is to separate the “communication” from the actual model. You can watch a short video about the Collaboration Workflow it would allow:

More info also available here.

Another example of BCF in use can be seen in this video about IFC (minute 41:20)

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Embedding an Editable Google Drive / Docs Spreadsheet

How to insert on your page an embedded and editable Google Drive / Docs Spreadsheet
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First of all and before you wonder if this is another place were they tell you how to do it and it doesn't work, this is testet, and here is the proof, play with is as much as you like.

So now that you know that it works, let's go step by step.

1. Create a Spreadsheet in Google Drive
2. Share it with those you want to be able to access it (the one on this post is shared to the entire www)
3. Make sure the other users can edit, not just see
4. Insert the following code on your site:
   <iframe width='800' height='600' frameborder='0' src='THE URL OF YOUR SPREADHSEET AS IT SHOWS ON THE WEB BROWSER WHEN YOU SEE IT FROM GOOGLE DRIVE'></iframe>
5. Publish your post/page, and that's it.

If you need any help, ask in the comments below.

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Revit Interference Check

Check for interfering / clashing elements in your model directly in Revit.
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Revit has a functionality to check for elements that are interfering with each other. This might be used to check interferences when collaborating between consultants (Architect, MEP Engineer, Structural Engineer, etc) or simply to check that the model you build has no interferences that could cause unwanted results. The functionality, of course is called "interference check".

To run it, simply go to the Collaborate Tab --> Coordination Panel --> Interference Check --> Run Interference Check.


You should be now at the interference check interface, where you can select the elements you want to use to check interferences. Select a type or types of elements on the left and another type or types on the right and click OK.



If there are interferences (i.e. those elements collide with each other) you will get a report listing those interferences like the one I am showing below.


Having this report, you can either select an object and click on Show to see the object, or you can also export the report to have a reference list of potential things to be solved / modified in the model. An exported report (HTML) looks like this.



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MS Office: Collaborate using Google Docs

Use Google Docs collaboration features from your MS Office desktop interface.
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Collaboration is one of the key words in my opinion to improve efficiency. It might be collaboration between team members in the same office, collaboration between members of the same company sitting in different locations or collaboration between consultants to produce common documents.

Collaboration is not only important when we talk about producing drawings or models or BIM. It is also very important when producing documents where more than one stakeholder has to contribute in their production. I am talking about spreadsheets with area calculations or word documents containing technical specifications and so on.

Google Docs is a collaboration tool by Google that allows this sort of multi-party edit and sharing of documents. It can handle spreadsheets, word documents and presentations. In the business environment though, MS Office is the leader in creating this sort of documents, so many might not want to use Google Docs to share their docs because they are used to the better functionality and editing features of the Microsoft proprietary software package. But soon this might change.

There is a new tool to use the best of both platforms. It is called OffiSync and it is intended to allow you to use MS Office desktop programs to create and edit your documents and to use Google Doc sharing and collaboration features to share them and edit them together with your collaborators. See the intro video below.


OffiSync can be downloaded here. There is a free version and a Premium one with different level of features. Try it. Better collaboration is the future.

via Geeks.cat


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AutoCAD on the Cloud: Project Butterfly

AutoCAD goes cloudy! The future is here!
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I just learned through Revit3D.com of the existence of something called project butterfly. What is it? It is basically AutoCAD running on a web browser.
One of the latest tends in software development is to turn regular Programs into programs that can run "on the cloud". Run on the cloud means that you don´t need to install any other software other than a web browser, and that the files are stored on a public server, not in your hard drive or intranet.
For many years I have been using Google Docs, which allow you to create Word and Excel Type of files (the functionalities are less than with MS Office or Open Office) and the files can be edited collaboratively by different people.
Well, this has now arrived to AutoCAD. With Project Butterfly you can upload a file to the cloud, share it with collaborators/consultants and edit it without even having AutoCAD installed in the computer. Of course, do not expect the speed and easy of use of "real" AutoCAD, but for small corrections and collaboration, it seems like an awesome idea.See a snapshot of the Project Butterfly Interface (click the image to enlarge it)
.

You can read more on the Autodesk labs blog and try Project Butterfly here.

via revit3d.com


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