BIM Busters - Revit equals BIM

It's time to bust the myth that Revit equals BIM! In this article we explore the four different BIM software categories and their use.

With the increased use and publicity IFC has been getting lately, the myth that only Revit is BIM has declined, but I still hear it when talking to people. It's time to bust the myth that Revit equals BIM!

Revit is undoubtedly a powerful modeling software, but others are as powerful and, sometimes in their specialty, more potent than Revit - for example, Tekla for structural engineers, Plancal Nova for HVAC, or CADworks for timber engineering and production planning. If I missed one you think should be mentioned, please share in the comments.

The best BIM models I know come from CADworks and are a byproduct of production planning. Somebody was genuinely interested in getting it right -production and not losing money due to uncoordinated processes on site.

The best BIM model from an architect I know was done with BricsCAD. The architect focused a lot on geometrically modeling the essence of the design and put a few information very consistently. The keyword here is consistent. There is no sense in placing information nobody can trust!

So what characterizes Building Information Modeling is the mindset of how you use the Software and how you exchange data in the project - or, more poetically, how information flows and not which Software you use.

Four different types of BIM Software

So far, I have only talked about modeling! There are four different types of BIM software.

1. Modeling software creates models and data to work with.

2. Quality assurance software. To check models and to coordinate. Popular tools are Revisto, Navisworks, Solibri, SimpleBIM, BIMcollab ZOOM, and many more.

3. Collaboration Platforms or Common Data Environments. These often have an overlap with the quality assurance tools. E.g., in Trimble Connect, Dalux, BIMsync, or ACC, you can coordinate and exchange project data.

4. Simulation tools to calculate and simulate building performance. Famous examples are Excel for calculations, Ida Ice for thermal comfort, and RFME for structural calculations, to name just a few.

So as you see, there are many tools; every company likely has and uses one tool from every category. The main category varies.

For example, an architectural office might use Archicad for modeling, Revisto for visual quality assurance, BIMsync as a CDE, and Excel for cost calculations. The main focus will be on the modeling tool - often to the extent that they try to solve everything within the modeling tool.

A construction company might have only a simple modeling tool like SketchUp for site planning and focus more on quality assurance and model preparation for the site with SimpleBIM and communication with Trimble Connect. Their cost calculation and contract management tool might not even be able to use BIM data.

A client rep might have no modeling software, produce data in Excel, and look at models with a simple BIM Viewer as part of a CDE.

I hope I made it abundantly clear that there are many more tools than Revit, and most trades need more than one tool!

Interoperability is key

Autocad is a software provider with a vast portfolio. Therefore, the management of some companies believes that using only Software from one provider ensures interoperability. Unfortunately, I did not see any proof that data exchange inside the product family from one company is any better than between different companies' products. Anyway, most of the time, the product family is a patchwork family created through acquisition. The core of the software architecture is still fundamentally different.

As almost no company only works and exchanges information internally, you can make a point for a diverse portfolio and having experience with openBIM data exchange. This means you use the IFC format to exchange project data. And as a company strategy, you use the best tool for the job! When you already trained in openBIM for your internal workflows, it's easier to do the same with external stakeholders.

As most problems in construction happen in the interface between different trades, it's worth paying extra attention on the data exchange. That's why the IFC standard and developments like Speckle and abstractBIM are so interesting.

IFC provides a technical standard that Software companies can implement to ensure that model data can be exported and reused in Quality assurance and Simulation tools. Exporting and when reimporting the geometry from IFC and believing to be able to continue working as with the native files is another myth worth busting another time.

Speckle translates data to uniform data models and helps to link models between different modeling tools. E.g., between Revit and Archicad when two other teams work in the same team. Or Rhino for some special geometry and Revit for the "normal" stuff.

AbstractBIM directly connects the modeling tools via IFC to simulation tools without using an iterative quality assurance loop. I like to think about abstractBIM as an automated modeling tool that takes humans out of the loop and uses only simple to provide data, the IfcSpace, the IfcWindow, and the IfcDoor as input to generate new models ready for simulations automatically. There is no need to do extensive quality assurance and feedback loops before using the model. For example, it converts the architectural model in a gbXML for thermal simulations or in an IFC and Excel file with the quantities for cost calculations.

The future of BIM

I believe the future of BIM lies in the following:

1. Easier modeling with fewer clicks, more intuitive, and less "nerdy" complicated tools. The human input will be the trigger, and more automation in the background will add information, therefore decreasing data quality problems. No need to tell a vertical element with a certain ratio between length and width that it is a column…

2. More focus on the flow of information between different stakeholders’ software, decreasing manual remodeling and repeatedly doing the same work. This will impact overall project efficiency. I don’t believe that monolith software can ever deal with the complexity of an ever-increasing specialization in the industry!

3. More focus on Building Performance Simulation, predicting performance, and providing a better foundation for decision-making earlier.

4. More focus on using models for targeted communication. Currently, often with BIM, we hand the models, and the receiver has to filter through the data. It's comparable to exporting a dwg with all the layers and saying, please search for what you need. That's why Rob Snyders's approach to creating a unified format to exchange model views is so interesting.

All these steps will help in decision-making. When you started to read the beginning of my book

"Building Stories," you read about my conviction that the inability of planners to empower clients to make decisions is one of the root problems of our industry, and all the steps mentioned above will help if properly used.