BIM for the Building Lifecycle

4 Common Challenges to Implementing Lifecycle BIM
The debate on the importance of BIM is over. In fact, an Autodesk + FMI report showed that, “71% of owners indicate that capturing and retaining more data during design and construction will reduce lifecycle operations costs.” Nevertheless, many owners still struggle to define and implement a robust BIM process that includes all project stakeholders.…

PDF hyperlinks from Revit 2015 and later
A little publicized feature of Revit 2015 R2 is the ability to generate hyperlinked PDF document sets when using a hyperlink compliant PDF writer like Adobe Reader or Bluebeam Revu. See 2015 R2 PDF Export Enhancements Sample Document Set (.pdf) – Generated from a modified version of the Open Source Metal Building. Try it out and experience enhanced document…

Dynamo sample scripts
At the recent Dynamo webinar I promised a few scripts to share: Simple Door category count – You really wouldn’t need this, but it is a good starting point to get familiar with commonly used nodes for reading information from a project as demonstrated in the next two scripts. Export to Excel – Potential workflows…

Dynamo: Unlocking further power in Revit
Dynamo is creating waves in the industry as a visual programming tool that greatly extends the power of Revit. At the end of this presentation you will understand what Dynamo does very well and how it can help you improve quality, simplify design iterations and reduce tedious tasks in Revit. This presentation is designed for…

Analytical Boundary Errors
Recently we were auditing a Revit model and ended up stuck in a the unfortunate cycle of trying to click through hundreds of errors to complete an Ungroup task. These errors were referencing various floors and complaining along the lines of: “Boundary edge lines intersect each other. Boundary contour must not be distorted.” After attempting…

Moving into the 21st Century – Science World reaps benefits of BIM
This article originally appeared on June 22, 2015 in the Piling Industry Canada Magazine. The original can be viewed here. Traditional paper-based drawings may be the status quo for many in the Canadian construction industry but some leading-edge innovators have made the transition into the digital world. Building Information Management (BIM) has already taken root…

Geraldine Rayner to present at the Construction Leadership Forum
Geraldine Rayner, Summit BIM Director will share her thoughts on how the BIM process impacts deliverables from design to build and from build to operate. With over 30 years of experience in the AECO industry, Geraldine is committed to demonstrating the huge benefits that working in a BIM environment offers designers, contractors, developers and owner-operators.…

Vasari, You Left Us Too Early…
It was with some sadness that we learned this week that Autodesk Vasari Beta 3 will permanently expire by May 31st 2015. That being said, it comes as no surprise considering that over the past year it was never upgraded to be compatible with Revit 2015. I personally still have mixed emotions, particularly because Vasari…

Getting Your Feet Wet
3 things a Spec Writer can do, at no cost, to prepare to dive into BIM 1. Download and install two free viewers Autodesk Design Review Navisworks Freedom Both of these software solutions allow you to dig into the inherent data generated by the design side when utilizing BIM enabled software solutions. Design Review –…

Creating a Structured Usable Model BIMPEP, Do’s and Don’ts
During my past webinar, I covered some important points in the planning of workflows to secure downstream uses of BIM. I outlined in a graphic the concept that the value of information increases as the graphical representation decreases during the life-cycle of a project. As promised, below are a couple of links for BIM Project…

Geraldine Rayner to speak at CSC Lunch
Summit Consulting Director, Geraldine Rayner will be speaking at the Constructions Specifications Canada Luncheon on March 12, 2015 at 11:30 am. Designed to be thought provoking, Geraldine will challenge currently accepted processes, encourage consideration of alternative electronic means of communication and ponder the benefit to be gained from being able to see through the paper…

Summit BIM working with Lark Group on the Aldergrove Canada Border crossing
Summit BIM is facilitating the extraction of data from the information-rich Revit models to enable the digital transfer of data for Facilities Maintenance and Operations. In addition, Summit is working with the Lark Group and sub-trades to collect and collate all the additional documentation and data, typically assembled as paper in binders, in a digital…

Top 3 Trends for BIM in 2015
As 2015 starts, people like to pull out and dust their crystal balls to identify what will be the biggest trends for BIM. On our end, we see the convergence of many exciting technologies. We can expect that many of these will improve productivity. The following are my best guesses (Edwin’s) for the coming year…

Dynamo for the 99% – Selecting objects a different way
In the last post I showed how to create a simple Dynamo definition to select all rooms in a model to change their properties in one go. Selecting objects is the first step to do other interesting and useful things like filtering elements to later manipulate them. This post describes a different way of selecting…

Dynamo for the 99% – Select Rooms and Modify Parameters
Dynamo for the 99% will be a series of posts highlighting the use of Dynamo for practical data manipulation or time-saving tasks that could apply to most Revit users. I recently received an email asking how I had manipulated some room information in my webinar earlier this year. At the time I was living on…