BIM: Managing Information Overload

• By: admin
• On: 12/14/2009 11:30:47
• In: BIM Practice Group
• Comments: 0

Chan talked about how HOK deals with BIM and the potential for information overload during the November meeting of CSI’s BIM Practice Group.

Database management affects BIM, Chan said. Microsoft Excel and Access are good examples of database systems many firms use for BIM information organization, and examples of tools for filing versus retrieving information.

The two are not interchangeable. Excel makes it easy to format data, but hard to process data. Access is a simple database program that helps the user relate data from many tables to generate a report – it makes it easier to sift through information drawn from many sources
.
For example: say your database is an address book, and you’re looking for people in Arizona. This is easily retrieved in Excel. But if you’re looking for people in Arizona with a phone number beginning with a certain area code, Access is a better choice, because your search is going to hit the table for “Arizona” and the table for “area code.”

"In a database world, there are separate groups of information that can be organized and related,” she said. “It's not all jammed in one cabinet."

Tables can feed each other, allowing different departments and people to add their piece of a puzzle to a report that Access will generate.

Access can also store information that would otherwise slow today’s modeling programs down. BIM is good for geometric, graphic information. Through database management, non-geometric data can be stored outside of the model and tied into it.

For example, a report calling for “court room” would pull information from tables for rooms, room type categories, and other sources to generate the information the user is seeking. BIM objects as well as construction documentation can be created through this approach.

Chan emphasized the importance of naming conventions in these situations – a database program can’t call information for the “court room” object if someone spelled a table name “curt."

"All these records must be sorted in a way that allows for a key value,” she said.

The sources for a BIM object or a report are endless, if the database program is implemented correctly. Data analysis and application that was too time-consuming for a firm to do by hand can now be managed quickly to produce robust reports and detailed drawings.

It’s also easier for data to move from the designer’s office and into the contractor’s project trailer. A table will know what the room is, what type of room it is, and who is using it. The model will know the geometry and data attributes. Between them, they crisply define an aspect of the project, which can then be used for everything from costing to maintenance. Contractors may use the data to do shop drawing schedules, followed by facility managers who use it to maintain the structure.

"This data can be carried on and on, even past the occupancy point," Chan said.

HOK uses Revit. The model is linked to the database by associating an object category with a table in the database. The link is achieved by matching a Revit Parameter Value with a Key Value in the database table. Other non-key values are synchronized so that information can move back and forth through the link.

"You need to be sure the key value is matching, and the non-key values are synchronized,” Chan said.

The system puts data through four steps:

• Input
• Validation (The most important - to ensure that the data is accurate and complete)
• Synchronization (includes putting data in the model)
• Reporting
  

An Excel sheet identifying the owner’s requirements will be brought into the database to start the journey, which ends in the reports and the BIM object.

"When you've tied in the database system and the BIM system, you can do more intricate reporting out,” Chan said. “When you share this with your client, they can add more data later -- it's a continuous development."

Databases can appear less than user-friendly, Chan said, and it’s still a manual process at some points. But databases are making the reams of data every project generates more useful and accessible, which is drawing more and more attention from her colleagues.

"BIM is just a big pool of data, and it's more information than you may need -- it's overload,” she said. “Database make sense when they are tied into the BIM model.”

The BIM Practice Group’s next web-based meeting is Friday, December 18 at 1pm ET.

Join the group! It’s free!