Breaking Down BIM BUILDING SOFTWARE

Home Building: Breaking Down BIM
BUILDING SOFTWARE Click Here What Is BIM? As building information modeling grows in prominence, builders and designers share their thoughts on how it helps their businesses. The core of BIM centers around the creation of 3D models of a home. All of the elements of the home—from the roof trusses and the drywall to the kitchen island and the bathroom tile—are represented as solid objects in the 3D environment. This is what distinguishes BIM from simple 3D drawings: Rather than just being lines on a screen, each object carries the same properties it would in real life. The size, shape, and material composition of each object is noted, creating a complete, living picture of the home exactly as it will be built.

BIM doesn’t stop with the completion of the model though, says Joe Sirilla, design department head at Monta Consulting & Design (MCD), an Altamonte Springs, Fla.-based design and engineering firm. In fact, creating the model is just the first step. And that, Sirilla says, is the key to understanding BIM and all of its potential for home builders—to stop thinking of it as technology and to start thinking of it as a process.“It’s a process where all the individuals involved, using their software together, can interact and create one project in a 3D virtual world,” he says. Levels of BIM, BIM is a process whereby a builder creates a home in a 3D environment to better define construction ahead of the actual build. Builders who use BIM say putting the pieces together virtually first lets you find any possible construction issues before you start building, like overlapping plumbing and structural components. “Having one master model for a particular plan lets you quickly see what works and what doesn’t,” says Brad McCall, co-owner of Billings, Mont.-based McCall Homes. “It’s much easier to catch a problem when it’s in 3D.” 

There’s also the issue of incompatibility among the different BIM software. Each program has its own type of output, which often conflicts with other programs. That’s why groups like the American Institute of Building Design (AIBD)—for which Sirilla is the National BIM representative—are working to establish a national standard for BIM users and software. Check here for the rest of the article.