While pioneering firms strive to reduce risk and increase productivity by embracing virtual design and construction, the vendors enabling VDC struggle to anticipate user needs and differentiate themselves from their competition without losing customers in swamps of technological confusion.
There are myriad products addressing discrete aspects of virtual design and construction. Most work independently and share their results with project planners by merging discipline-specific files in sophisticated viewers. Although one vision of the ultimate building information model includes access to all the data and operations from a single interface, developers are not there yet, and some say that may not even be such a good idea. For now, the focus is on performance, constructibility and data interoperability.