The Concept of atomicBIM, More Product Reviews, and an SOM Viewpoint

Following the publication of his highly acclaimed article "Proto-Building: To BIM is to Build" in AECbytes earlier this year, John Tobin returns this month to contribute yet another thought-provoking piece entitled "atomicBIM: Splitting Data to Unleash BIM’s Power" which addresses the problem of the massive, singular datasets created by current BIM applications. Not only are these getting rapidly unmanageable, they also do not address the need for distributed and ever-larger, greater granularity of data that is going to be vital for the future, collaborative process. As a solution, Tobin proposes the concept of atomicBIM—BIM in small, discrete pieces of data that would provide granularity and rapid access so that subsets of BIM information could be more easily accessed without a massive download. As with his earlier piece, this article is a must-read for anyone developing and using techology in the AEC industry.

There are a number of product reviews scheduled for this month, starting with ArchiCAD 12, which features several enhancements related to speed, design, and documentation, including multi-processor support, new Curtain Wall tool, the ability to use the model to create 3D documentation, partial structure display, better visualization of hotlinked modules, new options for modeling stairs, improved fills for 2D presentation drawings, DWG conversion, and improved dimensioning. We will also explore the new versions of the model coordination and clash detection application, Autodesk NavisWorks, and the architectural BIM application, VisionREZ, both of which were last reviewed in AECbytes several years ago. It should be interesting to see how far these applications have progressed in the intervening years.

The Viewpoint series returns with an article on knowledge management by Doris Pulsifer, Associate at Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, who talks about the many and timely reasons to make knowledge management (KM) a focus in today’s A/E practice, and provides a comprehensive discussion of what KM is and how it should be implemented.

The Tips and Tricks section this month feature two tutorials: one on the workflow between Revit Architecture and Autodesk Inventor which shows how to use the mechanical design capabilities of Inventor to quickly build custom geometry for Revit; and the second on how to use 3D Views and the new 3D Documents in ArchiCAD 12.

Thank you!

Lachmi Khemlani

Editorials > October 2008