BIM With Others

The BIMForum is planning the fall meeting (to be held in DCish on October 2nd & 3rd). The theme of the meeting is "BIM With Others", so we are looking for presenters who can speak on:

• What is the content that the different parties provide? What are the interfaces with respect to: Content/Scope, Format, Level of fidelity, Level of detail?
• What is the process map for the model / information exchanges?
• What transfer mechanisms exits between the parties?
• What are the feedback mechanisms in the model evolution process?
• Viewpoints from different disciplines: designers, contractors, subcontractors, MEP, Pre-cast, Structural, Curtain wall.
• Design practices e.g. model freezes, modeling standards.
• Maps of the delivery processes/
• How big of a problem are exchanges in the industry? How formal of a process do we need to have or are we just intuitively doing the right thing?
• Examples of what works, what does not work.

There is a call for presenters on the BIMForum's website, but if the form is too much work or you just want to run your idea by someone, feel free to email me, Dmitri or John Jr (or all three of us!).

Because They Can

Because We Can does amazing things with Revit & CNC, but for some reason I really love their new simple box stair.

Spooling

Last week, our Virtual Construction team sat down with the CAD Manager of our HVAC subcontractor for Autodesk. In our discussions, a recurring topic came up – why they can’t use Revit MEP for fabrication. One of the major reasons is spooling, which he had mentioned several times before, but hadn’t explained.

After they model and coordinate HVAC, they take the model and review for pre-fabrication. During this review, they bring up the model and select sets of components to pre-fabricate. From what I understand, they select each group of components and turn them into the equivalent of a Revit Group. The software automatically (sort of) creates cut sheets for each group, with dimensions, sizes, lengths, etc.

I didn’t realize that this was something that a software program could do and am amazed at how efficient it seems. Although I’m sure there is some work involved, this is the type of thing that we would like to do for all trades – select a group of objects that will be built/installed at the same time (for instance, a group of footings and foundation walls). “Cut sheets” would be automatically created, based on the selected objects sheets”, which would contain 2D and 3D views, dimensions, quantities, etc. Although, we wouldn’t want to use the term “Group” because it already exists in Revit. We could call it ‘Task’ or ‘Week’ – which makes a lot of sense, considering this is basically a schedule. Kind of like our Sequence Sheets (manually created for a project using Phasing in Revit), but a lot less work.

AU Classes

For whatever reason, I dislike the interface for scheduling AU classes. Or maybe I just don’t feel like sitting down, going through all of the classes and figuring it out (all while trying to figure out if anyone else from Tocci can go, and what classes would make sense for them).

To make scheduling easier for everyone else, I have to recommend the following two classes:

CR114-2 BIM 101: A Crash Course for Builders (taught by John Tocci, Jr. and "others")
CR310-1 Using IPD and BIM: How KlingStubbins, Tocci, and Autodesk® Are Working Together to Build Autodesk's Waltham Office (taught by myself & the other BIM Leads on the project)

See John Jr. - I told you I would mention BIM101 - and I even listed it first!

Virtual Construction Hiring, Again!

I recently looked at the number of posts I wrote for the past few months and realized that I have been terrible at posting, especially considering that I’m working on so many exciting things that I want to share. I guess that is really why I’m not posting – because I’m working on so many things. (Although because of all of the traveling I’m doing this week, I’ve had a lot of chance to catch up in airports, so you’ll see a lot more.)

This brings me to my actual point; Virtual Construction at Tocci is swamped and it looks like things are going to get busier. So, we’re hiring. The positions that we are focusing on filling are:

Virtual Construction Planner
Virtual Mechanical Construction Coordinator
Virtual Construction IT Administrator

Although, we would consider hiring additional Virtual Construction Modelers or Coordinators if the right person stopped by!

Email Jack Short and me with resume, etc.

BIMForum October meeting Call for Papers

Pretty much copy & pasted from Dmitri's email blast:

For our October 2 &3 meeting in Falls Church Virginia, we would like to solicit your input and participation. The theme of this meeting is "How are interface points established in order to allow the Building Information Models to evolve?"

The membership of the BIMForum has a significant range of expertise and knowledge in this area, which we would like to highlight through a diverse set of presentations and discussions.

Ideally we would like presentations that cover the following aspects:

- What agreements are made? And how the agreements are represented and checked for compliance?

- What is the content that the different parties provide? What are the interfaces with respect t Content/Scope, Format, Level of fidelity, Level of detail?

- What is the process map for the model / information exchanges?

- What transfer mechanisms exits between the parties?

- What are the feedback mechanisms in the model evolution process?

- Viewpoints from different disciplines: designers, contractors, subcontractors, MEP, Pre-cast, Structural, Curtain wall.

- Design practices e.g. model freezes, modeling standards.

- Maps of the delivery processes/

- How big of a problem are exchanges in the industry? How formal of a process do we need to have or are we just intuitively doing the right thing?

- Examples of what works, what does not work.

If you are interested in presenting on this topic, please download and fill out the PDF form and submit it by August 29^th, 2008.

Instructions to for using the form:

To download the PDF Form click here: http://www.magnetmail.net/images/clients/agca/attach/BFCall4PropF2008.pdf

The linked form is a fill-in enabled Acrobat PDF. Please save to your desktop. Please open from Acrobat Pro 6.0 or later or the FREE Acrobat Reader 8.0 or later. If you don't have Acrobat Reader, please go to www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html to download and install the latest version Reader 9.0. Open the document from the program.

Once the document is open, please SAVE AS using your company name + BFF2008 (Example: TocciBFF2008). Fields can be made visible or invisible by selecting the Highlight Fields button in the upper right hand corner of the form.

Please save your completed form and return to alferieffd@agc.org