Twenty five years ago, nearly every drawing produced in the world was done with pencil or ink on paper. Minor changes meant erasing and redrawing while major changes often meant recreating the drawing from the scratch. If a change to one drawing affected other documents you were dependent upon having someone manually recognize the need to make the changes to the other drawings and to do so.
However, Computer Aided Design (CAD) has fundamentally changed the way design is done. Architectural practice continues to be increasingly influenced by and dependent on computer technology. The latest evolution of CAD in architecture is Building Information Modelling (BIM) technology that has disrupted traditional methods of representation and collaboration in architecture. BIM is one of the most promising developments in the architecture, engineering, and construction industries. With BIM technology, an accurate virtual model of a building is constructed digitally. When completed, the computer generated model contains precise geometry and relevant data needed to support the construction, fabrication, and procurement activities needed to realize the building.
BIM is born out of parametric design and relational database concepts. Ultimately, BIM leverages these two concepts to intelligently link drawing and data, and let the users see buildings through the lens of a database.
To get an idea of how BIM works, we should know what is parametric design and relational database.
Parametric Design Parametric design is a process used to manipulate, regenerate and design objects based on a set of rules or parameters.
Original CAD software used explicit, coordinate-based geometry to create architectural graphic entities such as a wall or hole. Editing these “dumb graphics” was cumbersome and extremely error prone. Then came parametric modeling software -they used parameters (numbers or characteristics) to determine the behavior of agraphical entity. For example, parameters can be defined such as: “the diameter of this hole is 1 inch” or “the center of this hole is midway between these edges.”
One way to understand BIM is that it enables users to tie their drawings with numbers or characteristics – or simply data or information. Is that all? No! BIM ties drawing with database – a relational database.
Relational Database:
A relational database is a method of structuring data as collections of tables that are logically associated to each other by shared attributes.
Databases have been a staple of business computing from the very beginning of digital era. You may know how to create a table with columns and rows in MS Excel or MS Word and store information in appropriate places in the table. How about creating a table that has a minimum of thousands of tables? And then let one table talk to another table or one column of a table talk to another column of a table!
Here is an analogy: you can compare tables to houses in a colony. Assume that each house is linked in some way and the kitchen of a house can talk to the kitchen of another house – that is make use of utensils and food materials of the kitchen of another house. Now you get the picture, right?
In relational database tables and their components are linked to those of others and information can be stored and retrieved among all the tables.
Benefits:
The BIM technology lets users to design architectural graphic entities using parameters and lets the information of these entities stores as data using organized tables. Every element in a BIM model comes with editable attributes that are stored as data in a table.
BIM allow architects, owners and other design professionals to have ready access to an ever-increasing body of information or data from which to make decisions.
BIM changes the way companies work – both internally and externally. Projects have become more and more complex, requiring firms to manage and share immense amounts of data across diverse and distributed teams. By enabling greater insight into the project at any point in its lifecycle, BIM helps AEC service providers to improve accuracy, efficiency, and productivity, resulting in time and cost savings.
The significant value-added benefits that BIM ready firms can provide include: faster project approvals, more predictable outcomes, sustainable design and analysis services, and improved collaboration and information sharing for integrated project delivery strategies.
The increased potential for collaboration that comes with BIM can have a great impact on your business models, the types of projects on which you bid, and the partners, clients, and consultants with whom you choose to work. The ability to digitally collaborate on a building’s physical and functional characteristics strengthens and deepens existing partnerships — and forges new ones between architects, engineers, contractors, and owners.
BIM allows us to work on much more complicated structural engineering projects than were attempted in the past. Architects are using more and more complicated geometries. BIM allows us to share the geometries back and forth among the design team members much more easily.
The ramifications of that new level of collaboration are felt across all the organizations involved in a project, reaching far beyond the design groups and affecting most aspects of each firm’s business.
BIM can also affect the way a company delivers its products, enabling AEC service providers to deliver more 3D views, sections, schedules, and realistic renderings in construction documents. BIM also improves the quality of the final product.
Conclusion
Implementing BIM will result in changes to your design process, drawing production, and project team organization. Perhaps the biggest process change that firms encounter has to do with the very act of designing. Design representations are no longer 2D drawings. Instead, designers are using 3D digita models that are assembled in the same way a building is constructed. The ability to look at all these aspects together in a holistic manner is of tremendous value.
The use of BIM tools is increasing the level of effort during early design and also speeds up your backend production processes. More importantly, results in a higher quality, more sustainable building with fewer requests for information and construction change orders.