Related Links: BIM Standard May Boost Sharing C3 Systems: Beyond BIM Experts say version two of the nation's first consensus standard for the setup and exchange of building information models advances the use of BIM by providing a road map and common language for model building."This is truly a big change," says Deke Smith, executive director of the buildingSMART alliance of the National Institute of Building Sciences and the standard's developer. But he also says there is much work to do and obstacles to overcome on the way to a more mature standard. "We have only scratched the surface on
Photo by Julio Delgadillo, Skanska USA Will Senner, left, an assistant project manager with Skanska USA, and Glen Smith, right, a superintendent, demonstrate how they can use Vela's tools for taking BIM to the field on iPads. Here they match a model view with a project location to "see" in-wall utilities of ductwork, mechanical piping and fire protection piping at the James B. Hunt library construction project at North Carolina State University's campus in Raleigh. A set of new products that graduated from public beta status in late May will let users of Vela Systems' field data management services add
Related Links: Building Groups Seek Unity on Interoperability, BIM Rhode Island Is First State to Adopt IGCC Developers of the first open consensus standard for the exchange of building information models hope to grease the wheels of collaboration.The non-proprietary National Building Information Model Standard-United States Version 2, or NBIMS-US V2, sets forward ways to promote interoperability between BIMs of different vendors and offers practice guidelines for users."Ideally, we want the standard embedded in the software so the user doesn't have to worry about it," said Deke Smith at the American Institute of Architects (AIA) 2012 National Convention and Design Exposition,
Image by Tom Sawyer Full Picture Photos are assigned to points called "rooms" on plans. Opening a plan and clicking a room delivers a gallery of all photos assigned there. Photos are further tagged by trade and will show up on the appropriate plans in a set. A new cloud-based construction photo-and- plan managing collaboration service is drawing praise from beta testers who started throwing projects on it within hours of its April 30 release."It's brilliantly simple. I can't believe we've been living without it," says architect Oscia Wilson, Boiled Architecture, San Francisco. Now launching a project, Wilson is tagging
On May 30, Budapest-based Graphisoft will release ArchiCAD 16. A few key advances separate the version from other BIM software.One feature, the trademarked MORPH tool, allows users to transform simple forms into complex, customized objects. The tool is 100% integrated in the BIM environment."There is nothing else out there in the market that does what the MORPH tool does," says Richard Crowe, a beta tester of the software and founding partner of GRC Architects, Tallahassee, Fla. "You can grab any object, saving the original, and pull or stretch it in any way."Any element in the software, such as a slab,
Members of the construction community are a famously inventive lot. You don't get shut down by problems; you invent your way through them. From methods to materials, and tools to techniques, you innovate equipment, software and communications systems, and often do it by combining commercial, off-the-shelf (COTS) components in new and clever ways.Indeed, in 2011, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued 1,360 patents in the field of static structures (e.g., buildings) alone, and many more in other fields related to construction and infrastructure. Another indication of the broad range of construction innovation is the listing of recipients of the
Photo courtesy Mike Shahan and North Texas Regional Airport Replaceable? Some small airports can afford manned control towers, such as North Texas Regional Airport, shown here. Related Links: More ENR Information Technology News NextGen Ramps Up Amid Flat Airport Improvement Funding Air Traffic Is Reviving and Construction Is Back To Basics Deterred by the $2-million cost of constructing an air traffic control tower and the $400,000 annual cost to operate and maintain it, managers of the Raleigh County Memorial Airport in Beckley, W.Va., are considering the installation of the first unmanned, virtual control tower as an alternative."This would answer all
Photo courtesy of Lloyd's Register Deeper Insight New software mines historical equipment-failure data down to the component level to improve management strategies for rotating equipment. Related Links: Engineering News-Record Lloyd's Register Energy Americas Facilities engineers often manage rotating equipment on a time-based schedule. Absent that, they may have to run systems to failure or until something breaks as part of their maintenance plan.A new software tool is helping them get a better handle on life-cycle performance by diving into historical data about the machines.The software, called Capstone RBMI Rotating Equipment, is from Lloyd's Register Energy Americas, part of the 252-year-old
Related Links: More ENR Information Technology News ConsensusDocs Coalition A new cloud-based platform lets users of ConsensusDocs, a popular library of more than 90 best-practices contract-document forms, collaboratively edit and prepare contracts in real time with Microsoft Word on a Mac or PC.The new tool, released on April 23 by the ConsensusDocs Coalition, accesses new and updated contract templates and enables document sharing with multiple collaborators, either live on the web or offline. Among other improvements, it also enables comparison of document versions of Word and PDF files."It's easier to use, and you don't have to send copies [to each
Faith in the quality of structural-steel building-information-model file transfers between different BIM platforms increased recently, thanks to a series of digital-data-exchange validation tests performed under the auspices of the American Institute of Steel Construction. The news is good: Each of the six transfers studied was extremely accurate. Some even had as little as 0.3% error, which matches human error, say researchers."We have established a trust and comfort level with the [data exchange] process," said Brian Cobb, chief operating officer of Structural Detailing LLC (SDLLC), Brentwood, Tenn., at AISC's 2012 North American Steel Construction Conference, held on April 18-20 in Grapevine,
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