BIM: The Hype, The Reality and Managing Expectations

[Link]

As a continuation from the conversation started here I would like to pick people's brains about the reality of BIM, as it stands right now at the beginning of 2009.

As we know only too well, many software packages work in theory, or only deliver about 80% of what they promise, of what is really needed to complete the job, so is BIM similarly fraught with shortcomings and workarounds?

And with such a huge offering of BIM products, covering so many disciplines and even non-disciplne specific functions, how does one even start to choose the application(s) they'll need?

I hope experienced BIM users and people who have researched BIM so far, (eg. Laura, Matthew, Tom, Aaron, Stefan, etc) are willing to contribute their experiences and knowledge to this discussion. Of course anyone is welcome to comment and any relevant external references would also be welcome!

Cheers,
Link.

[Anonymous]

I'd be interested to know what you see these are, Matthew "I still think Revit has some fundamental limitations that will likely prevent this happening"?

[SeaGeoff]

Matthew wrote:
...in the absence of something better mediocrity will prevail.

I think we all agree on that as it has been proven many times over.

[Anonymous]

rwallis wrote:
I'd be interested to know what you see these are, Matthew "I still think Revit has some fundamental limitations that will likely prevent this happening"?

Primarily it is the organization of the model by families and families alone.

In ArchiCAD we have tools that can be used for whatever purpose we choose (a mixed blessing but a blessing nonetheless) and we can (must) then assign these entities to arbitrary groupings using the layers. In this case arbitrary = good. It means we can organize the model pretty much any way we choose.

It might be feasible for Revit to add something like the layers in ArchiCAD but AFAIK that is contrary to their philosophy and very unlikely. Besides Autodesk seems mostly interested in forcing unwanted interface "improvements" rather than substantive advancement.

ArchiCAD has other significant advantages such as Find & Select, Trace & Reference, etc. that Revit could copy more easily than layers but this is also unlikely from what I can see. Most Revit users are unaware of how useful these features are and so are not asking for them. . . but I digress.

[Brett Brown]

Matthew wrote:
ArchiCAD has other significant advantages such as Find & Select, Trace & Reference, etc. that Revit could copy more easily than layers but this is also unlikely from what I can see. Most Revit users are unaware of how useful these features are and so are not asking for them. . . but I digress.

They probably haven't needed to ask for them because they already have them. Filters and Underlays etc.

[Anonymous]

Brett wrote:

Matthew wrote:
ArchiCAD has other significant advantages such as Find & Select, Trace & Reference, etc. that Revit could copy more easily than layers but this is also unlikely from what I can see. Most Revit users are unaware of how useful these features are and so are not asking for them. . . but I digress.

They probably haven't needed to ask for them because they already have them. Filters and Underlays etc.

I have used filters and underlays and they are a poor substitute from my point of view.

[Djordje]

Geoff wrote:

Matthew wrote:
...in the absence of something better mediocrity will prevail.

I think we all agree on that as it has been proven many times over.

If I may elaborate ...

In the absence of the AWARENESS OF THE EXISTENCE of something better mediocrity will prevail.

If you don't know something exists, you can not appreciate it.

It's all marketing, folks.

[eldhead]

BIM is to advanced for Architects, stick to 2D-drawings and let the professionals build up the intelligence from your dwg-drawings. This means in reality we have to draw the very same building twice or live with bad drawings from Architects who like to play with advanced software but never understood the technology behind it. Architects design, we transform their dwg:s into something useful.

[Anonymous]

eldhead wrote:
BIM is to advanced for Architects, stick to 2D-drawings and let the professionals build up the intelligence from your dwg-drawings. This means in reality we have to draw the very same building twice or live with bad drawings from Architects who like to play with advanced software but never understood the technology behind it. Architects design, we transform their dwg:s into something useful.

haha, that was good

after all, i believe only a single virtual model makes sense. there is too much information floating loosely around, anyway. there's no need to transfer this chaos into our working space.

rob