What is Residential BIM

[Jay M]

I've been using CA since 1997 with version 4 so you know that my above comment should have had a smiley face........

[lbuttery]

Jay;

I did

that's why I put the smiley face

Lew

[Bradley Boltz]

It took until version 15 to get shadow boards (on 99.99% of homes in the northeast) and you're woofing about BIM? I feel like an old man watching two 60's hippies talk about world peace....... It's a great idea but it isn't happening.

Hey Jay, help me out here please. What's a Shadow Board (your definition) and can you show me a jpeg example that you did in X5? I hardly recall ever using a shadow board (or at least my definition) on any of the basic homes my boss built in Pa between 1998 thru 2009. I see what I think is a shadow board on a lot of older homes (pre-50's) but that detail is devoid in most tract homes since the middle of the last century? Thanks in advance.-Brad

[Jay M]

This would be a shadow board. Before anyone jumps in and say's well you could have used a moulding polyline, sloped soffit or a polyline solid just stop.....just stop and listen to yourself....

[dshall]

It took until version 15 to get shadow boards (on 99.99% of homes in the northeast) and you're woofing about BIM? I feel like an old man watching two 60's hippies talk about world peace....... It's a great idea but it isn't happening.

Now that is funny....... and so true.

[Ed_Downunder]

BIM --That is commercial BIM is not realistic for Chief Architect. Nobody as far as I can see is advocating commercial of BIM.

Residential Bim is a reality

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"The principle of BIM is obtainable to a Residential Builder.

1. Improved visualization
2. Improved productivity due to easy retrieval of information
3. Increased coordination of construction documents
4. Embedding and linking of vital information such as vendors for specific materials, location of details and quantities required for estimation and tendering
5. Increased speed of delivery
6. Reduced costs

Which part of that this are you not delivering. I bet we could even get number 4 working better for ourselves if we knew how.

To open the discussion IE embrace RBIM would produce a more considere discussion about the materials list."
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Just to look at one component of this. When I import a DWG from the surveyor. I turn the lot boundaries into a terrain and the elevations data into elevation lines. That fits the principles perfectly.

It's about being reasonable about the limits of practical application for a residential builder.

World Peace may be a fantasy but Residential BIM is a reality. Residential BIM is Chief Architect.

If you don't like the BIM acronym come up with a new one. Somebody came up with BIM before Autodesk. They just took it and made it famous.

Residential BIM does it for me, if a new name comes along I will go along with that because it doesn't change the function.

[Justice]

It took until version 15 to get shadow boards (on 99.99% of homes in the northeast) and you're woofing about BIM? I feel like an old man watching two 60's hippies talk about world peace....... It's a great idea but it isn't happening.

Too Funny.

"BIM Man, BIM, that's all I want" says Lew to make him happy.

In the end BIM should make our work easier so we got more time for other things we enjoy.

[Bradley Boltz]

This would be a shadow board. Before anyone jumps in and say's well you could have used a moulding polyline, sloped soffit or a polyline solid just stop.....just stop and listen to yourself....

Thanks Jay, that's what I thought. I see that detail on older more traditional homes and occaisionally on some newer more detailed houses. Haven't used or speced a shadow board since I've been using Chief ('97). In regards to BIM (Building Information Model) as far as I'm concerned, we First,need the ability to more accurately model and dimension our designs. I don't think it would be that difficult for Chief to give us the ability to model our stairs, have some mechanical design tools such as ducts, returns etc to do a rudimentary layout for clearances etc for the mechanical contractor. A plumbing riser diagram tool or feature would be nice but even better would be for Chief to allow or show rough plumbing layouts that might show how impossible some mechanical layouts are in regards to sanitary line pitch etc. Once done, those items could help a plumbing sub calculate the size and lengths of pipes fittings etc. From a structural point of view regarding BIM, the ability to draw real invisible beams with a real "Beam" tool (with a flush or dropped setting-user determined) would be nice. As aluded to by Jay, the most important thing would be for Chief to focus on what makes it easiest for us to put together an accurate set of schematic design, prelim design and finally construction or bid documents in the shortest amount of time so that we can either do more work or have more time for living.-BDB

[Doug Park]

BIM as defined by industry example won't make creating your designs faster.

What needs to be done to do that is what we have always been doing. Identifying time consuming tasks and automating them using a variety of mechanisms. Adding annotation sets, for example, made some rather costly setup changes to be made more quickly and accurately.

Time spent waiting for your computer to respond when generating 3D etc. is another time waster. Making the program respond faster allows you to get done quicker.

Time spent reprinting your output because you forgot to update a callout page number or because things were not quite setup correctly are other time wasters and at a point in the design process where time is often very critical. Finding ways to make you more successful at this stage can make the difference between meeting a deadline and missing it.

None of this is BIM from what I can tell. But just as shadow boards are very important to some customers, or slabs are for others, making all the things that you need work automatically and correctly makes your design time more efficient.

More than anything else it seems like at least in this thread BIM and materials list are being talked about in the same breath. While it is possible and we already do export our materials in several standard formats, it doesn't help if they are not the materials or quantities that you need. Which pretty much gets us back to making materials generation more configurable for the cases where our one size fits all approach is insufficient. At that point do we still need BIM in that area? Possibly not, but we still are able to export these materials and they would be more correct so both the internally supported materials list and the exported BIM/Interoperability materials are better.

Some of our customers that are into visualization may suggest that BIM to them would be to support exporting to other ray tracing programs or other non photorealistic rendering software.

Still others may suggest that some way of hooking to an accounting program from the materials list would also be important.

Or maybe in the long run connection to some sort of smart home technology so that you can visualize in 3D what lights are on in the house or whether your doors and windows are locked or open.

While some of this could be called BIM I don't see BIM as defining all that is important to do in Chief.

A lot of times I get frustrated because people ask for a feature in Chief or tell me how they want Chief to work but don't tell me the problem they are trying to solve. This is a case of be careful about what you ask for because you may get it and it may still not solve the problem you are trying to solve.

If talking about BIM is an effort to improve materials list then we should talk about materials list instead. If it is about needing to export the 3D model to specific other programs then we should talk about what file formats make the most sense for that external program and what data do you specifically need.

The point is that we should be focused on the problems we want to solve rather than trying to talk about a nebulous, ever changing concept like BIM.

[gteacher]

The real point of this thread is that for the past 10-12 years Chief has ignored the poor performance of its ML package. It is indeed unfortunate that the discussion has turned to BIM but understandable.

It is, in fact, a vague fantasy, but an excellent “con” for those generally inclined to grasp at pleasant chitchats. The fact that none of Chief’s close competitors support any BIM standard (as this is impossible to define economically at the mid-level) is totally lost here and probably little can be done to introduce any measure of realism.

Perhaps, if Chief would suggest areas that their actually interested in revising; a more focused response would be possible. It appears to me that Chief is still dodging the issue rather than trying to participate. If so, any additional user participation would be pointless as it seems that Chief's primary emphasis is only to serve a very narrow set of high profile users who don’t need or use ML.

[Ed_Downunder]

Hi Doug,

I get your frustration. I have made my point about the materials list and have moved on.

That is I have confidence that you (Chief) are listening and acting. I probably will still contribute to the ML conversation.

I think it's crucial to understand what is Residential BIM is. From that we can understand what it is not.

First point.Residential BIM is not the same as Commercial BIM.

So lets not talk about commercial BIM.

I read your post quite carefully and agree 100%

The value of discussing this in detail is we are able to put some flesh on the bones.

What I have discovered on this journey is we are already using Residential BIM.

I really believe that when we (users) get that we can contribute to the conversation in a meaningful targeted way.

You provide the software but you have no control how I use it.

You provide 3d cad BIM software and have no control how we use it.

I'm sorry if I am repetitive or boring but this is the conceptual understanding of what Chief Architect is.

If I choose to use the software simply for construction drawings - thats ok if thats all I want.

If I choose to use it only for Ray Tracing - thats ok if it suits my needs.

If I choose to import a DWG from the surveyer convert the lot line into a terrain and the elevation lines into 3d elevation lines. Draw my project for the client and show rendered views. Export my project for the engineer. Prepare construction drawings produce a ML and export to excel.(Not going to do that just yet) That is Residential BIM

A natural consequence using the BIM features is drawing an accurate model. It doesn't suit everyone and I'm sure that in non critical areas accurate use of materials definitions is of no consequence in that case.

As I get more understanding I will look for more opportunities to exploit the Residential BIM capabilities of Chief. This of course is relative to our circumstances and how we exploit these features is relative to our business.

So in the near future I will be looking at how we can use Chief as a communication tool with our subbies and suppliers. The Chief viewer has the potential to be more than it is. Layers have the potential to be more than they are, Project browser could be more useful. Yes we have these features already and if we understand Residential BIM and would like to exploit these features we have a platform or a base to discuss these things.

We are developing a strategy to leverage the benefits of Residential BIM that you already provide. This is in the office, out on site or talking to clients in their home.

To understand Residential BIM and what you already provide has been a great wakeup call for us

Sorry I am long winded - the point is if I choose to use the function that are already there I am using Residential BIM and the purpose of it is to drive efficiency in the office.

Adding functionality, of course I am all for that plumbing tools and more roof tools - but that is another list

[dshall]

............... because people ask for a feature in Chief or tell me how they want Chief to work but don't tell me the problem they are trying to solve. This is a case of be careful about what you ask for because you may get it and it may still not solve the problem you are trying to solve..........................

This is an excellent point that we users should be aware of.

[dshall]

........................

What needs to be done to do that is what we have always been doing. Identifying time consuming tasks and automating them using a variety of mechanisms. ....................

Love this approach...............

[Justice]

Some of us speak in generalities such as BIM but along with this you need your list of specifications or the Engineering team
do not clearly understand what we really want or need to make Chief work properly or more efficiently.

Edward down under can to be a bit more specific about what he needs for Residential BIM,like his video showed.

Then some of us might be shy about pointing out a specific fault in Chief out of fear of complaining too much or offending the Software Engineers.

To be specific, I would like an analysis system like Autodesk Quantity Take Off please.

A native Chief Architect linked in 3d model explorer to check all components produced by the auto ML feature. Native means no drop out in exporting a 3d model in another file format. This is critical for a Quantity Surveyor and Estimator
as most estimating errors occur when something is missing from your building. Contingency Sums will not cover 3d model building errors or 3d model export drop out.

Then I want to be able to specify they way it takes off the materials, count volume length etc. ect.

If you watch the video link you will see clearly what I am talking about.

If you can't do this for Chief in the near future then tell us so we can employ software that will get the job done for us.

Ruby is not viable and I don't like the present system as it is too long winded for ML to proceed to a Full Bill of Quantities.

Make the native Chief ML spread sheet more usable with take off formula options, I do not want to export into Excel.

That is too much messing around as we say.

If you do not understand then get a qualified quantity surveyor in to fix up the ML feature with you please.

If you are not planning to do this then that's OK too, just tell us so we can get another option please like 3d file format export.

[Bradley Boltz]

BIM as defined by industry example won't make creating your designs faster.

Doug's correct but we could proceed in the right direction (BIMesc) or at least delve into it by :

1)Fixing the Materials list to accurately reflect all of the siding types and profiles and colors available for given manufacturers such as Crane, Alcoa, CertainTeed as well as including their available corners, window casing, accessory trim etc. It's frustrating to go into siding and not be able to select that brand's Vertical Board n Batten (the most blatantly missing example).

What needs to be done to do that is what we have always been doing. Identifying time consuming tasks and automating them using a variety of mechanisms. Adding annotation sets, for example, made some rather costly setup changes to be made more quickly and accurately.

Time spent waiting for your computer to respond when generating 3D etc. is another time waster. Making the program respond faster allows you to get done quicker.

Time spent reprinting your output because you forgot to update a callout page number or because things were not quite setup correctly are other time wasters and at a point in the design process where time is often very critical. Finding ways to make you more successful at this stage can make the difference between meeting a deadline and missing it.

None of this is BIM from what I can tell. But just as shadow boards are very important to some customers, or slabs are for others, making all the things that you need work automatically and correctly makes your design time more efficient.

More than anything else it seems like at least in this thread BIM and materials list are being talked about in the same breath. While it is possible and we already do export our materials in several standard formats, it doesn't help if they are not the materials or quantities that you need. Which pretty much gets us back to making materials generation more configurable for the cases where our one size fits all approach is insufficient. At that point do we still need BIM in that area? Possibly not, but we still are able to export these materials and they would be more correct so both the internally supported materials list and the exported BIM/Interoperability materials are better.

Some of our customers that are into visualization may suggest that BIM to them would be to support exporting to other ray tracing programs or other non photorealistic rendering software.

Still others may suggest that some way of hooking to an accounting program from the materials list would also be important.

Or maybe in the long run connection to some sort of smart home technology so that you can visualize in 3D what lights are on in the house or whether your doors and windows are locked or open.

While some of this could be called BIM I don't see BIM as defining all that is important to do in Chief.

A lot of times I get frustrated because people ask for a feature in Chief or tell me how they want Chief to work but don't tell me the problem they are trying to solve. This is a case of be careful about what you ask for because you may get it and it may still not solve the problem you are trying to solve.

Doug, the one thing (two things?) asked for the most is/are the ability to dimension to everything in 2d and 3d without having to do work-a-rounds(the most time consuming thing we do) and also the user controls necessary to get all wall layers to intersect as we want them to in both plan and 3d views. We've had to deal with inferior and unacceptable wall junction conditions since I began using Chief (Chief '97). These items have been requested by many since I started using this program and are still a huge issue and productivity retarder as we wait for the implementation of a new program version(x6) that will potentially add Mac users to our frustration pool. The way Chief uses "main layer" exclusively as the way to do framing is just plain wrong and too limiting. We need the ability to have horizontal framing orientations in "sub main layers" in order to properly draft and design horizontal lathing, horizontal wall perlins etc. Then the alignment tools will need to allow us to align walls while in a "wall section view" and be able to use that wonderful "point to point" tool in all 2d and 3d view situations. This is just a prime example of some issues that have clearly been requested by Chief Users, year after year after year and why I've been disappointed with every version upgrade since the last good one (V-9 not the 9.5 joke that was created in order to satisfy the Home and Garden investment).-BB

If talking about BIM is an effort to improve materials list then we should talk about materials list instead. If it is about needing to export the 3D model to specific other programs then we should talk about what file formats make the most sense for that external program and what data do you specifically need.

The point is that we should be focused on the problems we want to solve rather than trying to talk about a nebulous, ever changing concept like BIM.

BIM will come automatically for Chief when the libraries are kept up to date with the manufacturers products(and linked with specs provided by the product vendors), and most importantly, when we can draw our plans accurately and create accurate 3d models without compromise (bring back the "invisible beam" tool and make it so that it draws a real beam independent from the other wall tools so that it wouldn't conflict with a porch railing below-just an example). thanks-BB