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BIM: Breakfast of Champions

Whenever my travel and work schedules allow, I try to attend the BIM Breakfasts at Georgia Tech.

Held once a month on the Georgia Tech campus, the breakfast brings together some of the best and brightest minds in the Atlanta area.

The February event featured speaker James Barrett, the national director of integrated building solutions for Turner Construction. Jim specializes in virtual design and construction/Building Information Modeling (BIM) technologies, lean processes, and integrated project delivery.

Put in layman’s terms, he is pushing BIM and virtual design tools to the limit. Under his leadership, Turner Construction has become one of the top BIM users in the world.

Jim does not push BIM just because it’s BIM. His idea is that his designers and contractors need to use the best tools available to help their company succeed and their clients get the best results. The BIM process and virtual design flows naturally from that core idea.

Turner also does not push one specific type of software, but instead teaches as many as 10 or 12 different packages that their best and brightest have become familiar with. As with any tool, Jim explains, no one tool will do everything.

Another point he made was this: when you roll out a new technology, don’t try to convince the world that it’s the best way to go. Instead, show it to the early adopters and let them prove that it works and that it’s the most efficient option. It will naturally make its way to other potential users.

For me, this point really hit home.

In 2005, we began using terrestrial lidar and 3D scanning technology. I have traveled to many firms in the southeast and tried to sell the benefits to the whole AEC community.

Initially, I had minimum success. It was early in the process and few of the established firms were interested at that time. However, I did find a few and slowly built a successful 3D laser scanning division that still thrives today.

These firms were the early adopters. Ironically, it was not always the young guys that were the most open to new ideas. Sometimes it was an older person who could see like I did where this technology was headed.

Now this technology is almost mainstream and is an integral part of the BIM process.

In his presentation, Jim pointed out that in New York City they have “view protection” and laser scans are used to document the view of the construction site.

In the BIM toolbox, when you identify a complicated project, laser scanning is a tool that you should certainly consider. The benefits and uses of laser scanning data are numerous and the risk of not using one and incurring additional costs down the road can be significant.

Another really good idea that Jim presented was that every year, they take a small percentage of their new hires and immerse them into what they call BIM University.

These people then become experts that the rest of the company can learn from. This gives every group in the company and geographic area internal experts that they can lean on to best implement the technologies of BIM. What a great idea!

They even started an intra-company communication site on their intranet so that users anywhere in the company can post a question. In minutes, experts throughout the company can provide insights and answers and have a forum to share their knowledge.

I believe this practice will continue to grow as companies see the value of tapping into the knowledge base they already have with their employees. What a great tool for a leader to build in their own company.

Jim’s presentation also touched on the other tools that help to automate the construction and design process like the ability to view augmented reality on iPads with the use of QR codes. At his firm, they work with public inspectors to load iPads with plans and drawings to make their process quicker and more efficient.

He also addressed the effect that 3D printing will have on the construction industry. Though it will not likely take the place of massive building material needs, it will fill a unique need when a limited number of items are needed in a quantity that can be met with industrial 3D printers, he said.

There will always be people who question whether we need BIM and virtual design and construction. I cannot completely understand why anyone in the AEC industry would still be asking this question, but I do understand that in some subsets, there is much more low-hanging fruit than in others and for these, early adoption is a no brainer.

The push for BIM and virtual design use and innovation is coming out of the construction industry as the large GC firms have pushed it further and further into their processes.

If you are in the Atlanta area and want to see and meet some of the best minds in BIM, I do recommend the Georgia Tech BIM Breakfast forum. Every time I go, I learn something.

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Tate Jones has over 40 years of experience in land and aerial surveying and was one of the country’s earliest adopters of 3D laser scanning technology. A nationally recognized expert in the field of 3D data capture, he has worked with hundreds of clients in the engineering, architectural and construction industries. Contact him at tjones@lasurveying.com or visit www.landairsurveying.com.

Autodesk University 2012: watching an industry grow up!

Attending and exhibiting at shows like Hexagon, Spar, and Autodesk University is always fascinating because you get to interact with clients all over the country and see what’s new in the industry.

This was our first time exhibiting at Autodesk University, but having been to three conferences in Las Vegas in one year, I was quite familiar with the surroundings. At this year’s show – which was attended by over 8,000 people from 102 countries – what I saw was an industry that has grown up and is beginning to make a real impact on design and construction.

I remember in 1986 when a new drafting program named AutoCad came out and everybody was debating if it would become the standard…it did. And it brought with it – along with the digital age and computers – the plotters and all that went with the introduction of this new paradigm.

Most of us waited to see how it would be received in the industry, but then – as now – it proved to be a very valuable tool.

And just a few years ago, we were all still discussing the advances in AutoCAD and Civil 3D.  Though we knew these programs would remain relevant, it was evident from all of the different software that interacted inside of Revit and enhanced the user experience that the world of 3D design was here to stay. (As a friend of mine said not long ago, “If you are not designing and interacting in 3D and models, you are quickly going to be obsolete.”)

Autodesk University 2012 showed us how design is being done today and where it is going in the future. One of the more interesting observations was that besides the architects, engineers and designers, there were contracting companies, retail companies and owners all talking about the new Autodesk programs that were being used in the workplace.

There was lots of talk in these groups about building “Revit families” specific to their business types, as well as discussions around how to mix the contractors (who have the knowledge about how a building is built in the actual world) with the BIM modelers so that the models are also constructible.

This will be a big challenge. Contractors and superintendents who know how to pour a slab and build 20-story buildings have knowledge and insight that is absolutely critical to building a proper BIM model.

As any techno geek, I am always very interested in the new products on the exhibition floor and the showcase included hundreds of third-party vendors developing exciting products that work alongside Autodesk.

There were lots of new software and hardware lines in the 3D laser scanning industry, as well as new software offerings for BIM models, Revit technologies and GIS products. But for me, the most intriguing products were related to 3D printing applications.

These fabrication and modeling solutions enable products to be created directly from their computer models.

Almost anything you could imagine – from cars to motors to guitars – was printed and on display. Though 3D printing has been a popular topic in recent years, it was there, it was real, and it will definitely change how items are built in America and around the world.

At the conference in Vegas, there were actual printers producing objects out of wood, metal and polymers. The only difference was whether the printer was loaded with plywood or metal.

BIM is an acronym for Build Information Models, meaning to build computer models that have built-in intelligence. What I observed was BIM in the context above – building models and objects with just the information in a computer.

My, how we have grown.

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Tate Jones has over 40 years of experience in land and aerial surveying and was one of the country’s earliest adopters of 3D laser scanning technology. A nationally recognized expert in the field of 3D data capture, he has worked with hundreds of clients in the engineering, architectural and construction industries. Contact him at tjones@lasurveying.com or visit www.landairsurveying.com.