Common digital exchange format a solution to BIM problems

Re: Mindset change essential to successful BIM adoption (DCN, March 25)

I’m not sure who came up with the “#D” paradigm for BIM offshoots (“...three-dimensional design; 4D scheduling capabilities; 5D cost estimating; and emergent 6D lifecycle management”) but it rankles.

“4D” makes some sense, but the paradigm breaks down after that, IMHO.

Furthermore, it ignores several other significant attributes of BIM.

Notable among these are more efficient clash detection and energy modeling, not to mention the grail: the automation of precision fabrication processes.

What “D” are those? These techniques have been implemented - not in every BIM or every BIM project — but to an extent sufficient to demonstrate their feasibility.

Each holds at potential for savings at least equivalent to those offered by “4D,” “5D”, and “6D” techniques.

The market is full of software aimed at the “Ds” of BIM. All the buzz around them is drawing attention from the bigger problems BIM has: Interoperability (and not just between one Autodesk product and another), and object modeling standards.

Major BIM software producers started working on solutions to these problems as the International Alliance for Interoperability and developed a common digital exchange format, Industry Foundation Classes (IFC).

But after a decade, progress has slowed to a crawl even though IFC is essentially mature with respect to the basic components of buildings (columns, walls, floors, roofs), with some objects (windows, and doors) coming along close behind.

The whole effort, now under the aegis of buildingSMART Alliance, is nearly lost in the marketing cacophony.

If we want BIM to go forward, the application of technical and financial support for the IFC effort is needed.

The IFC model exchange format is not the ultimate answer to interoperability, as it surely will also pass with time. But it, or something like it, is a vital step along the way to the next step.

Nothing else like it approaches its level of development as far as I know. So it represents the best, if not the only, route to dealing with BIM’s biggest problems.

-Brian Lighthart