B1
– Ronald Herazo
BIM Design Tools and Parametric Modeling
BIM refers to Building
Information Modeling, which is a process involving the generation and
management of digital representations of physical and functional
characteristics of places. Building Information Models are files that can be
exchanged or extracted with the purpose of supporting decisions regarding
building or other type of structures. Nowadays, BIM software is used by
businesses and government agencies who design and construct different types of
physical infrastructures, such as, bridges, buildings, tunnels, and some
others. The BIM Handbook (Chapter 2) provides an overview of the primary
technology that differentiates BIM design applications from earlier generation
CAD systems. The concept of BIM has existed since 1970s, but it was originally
created in the 80s. However, Building Information Model became popular in the
twenty first century.
In Chapter 2, Charles M Eastman
highlights that architectural BIM design applications let users mix 3D modeled
objects with 2D drawn sections with the purpose of allowing users to determine
the level of 3D detailing while still being able to produce complete drawings
[1]. These particular objects that are drawn in 2D are not included in BIM
enabled applications. Also, Eastman points out that current BIM design
applications include services that provide a lot of functional tools. These BIM
design applications have a sort of a platform in order to manage the data
within a model for different issues; this model is called a BIM environment.
3D modeling has been implemented
new features since 1960s. The development of new 3D representations had a lot
of problems since engineers at time could not include them in movies, architectural
and engineering design, and games. But, in the late 1960s, engineers developed polyhedral
forms to the first computer graphics film called Tron. The main idea in this
type of representation is to have these initial polyhedral forms composed into
an image with a limited set of parameterized and scalable shapes. Therefore, computational
functions were created in order to create any types of shapes with variable
dimensions. Figure 1 represents the shapes could be created at that time; shapes
such as, cylinder, cone, pyramid, sphere, and others.
Figure 1 General Shapes
By this time, engineers had the basic
of engineering design: shapes. So, they started to combine the shapes using the
operations of spatial union, intersection, and subtraction. These operations
are called Boolean Operations. The purpose of these operations is to allow the
user to interactively generate difficult shapes such as, buildings and tools
(screwdriver). Figure 2 is a clear representation of the improvement in BIM
Design. In this chapter, Eastman also explains that building modeling based on
3D solid modeling was first developed in the late 70s.
Figure 2 Building Service Core
The current generation of BIM
architectural design tools, which includes Autodesk Revit, Bentley
Architecture, and some other software, grew up of the object-based [parametric
modeling capacities developed and refined first for mechanical design. For instance,
in Parametric Design, a designer
first defines an element class which defines some mixture of fixed and
parametric geometry. This specific shape varies according to its context. In other
words, Eastman clearly states that objects and their faces can be defined using
relations involving distances, angles, and rules like attached to, parallel to,
and offset from.
Works Cited
Eastman, Charles M. BIM handbook:
a guide to building information modeling for owners, managers, designers,
engineers and contractors. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2011. Web. 20 Jan. 2017.
Comments:
Mengel,
Chapter 3 seems to be very interesting.
There are a lot of stuff that we do not know yet, and it is very important as
an engineer to know these little things. As you mentioned in your post, interoperability
is a key for any modern-day design. But, this is not it. I like when you highlighted
that interoperability is not just a key for buildings but also for any project
that uses multiple presences or need more than one application for design. It
is very interesting how all the ideas and data gained from multiples companies
and construction sectors have helped with the improvement of the interoperability.
How do you think this technology can be improved? I do believe that something
new with better quality will come. But, do we really need it?
Raggousis,
I read Mengel’s post and it is
interesting how this chapter explains the purpose of interoperability of
software. This chapter seems to be very interesting since it discusses the file
formats, and the way the data is stored and translated from one software to
another. Today, we all use different types of software, and I like when you
mentioned in your post that “we are all familiar with these things even if we
have only been exposed to PDF files of JPEG files.” This is a very good example
of viewing these files in different platforms such as, iOS and Windows. This chapter
also indicates different types of ways that we can use interoperability. Can
you imagine BIM software in 10 years from now? I do believe that the details in
each project will be better.
Dannemann,
After reading your post, I believe
that BIM is very powerful to make important decisions. You brought up an
important point in your post “with the rise of BIM, owners can make much more
educated decisions when it comes to field changes as risk management and
economic analysis are easily determined from the model.” I think this is the
way it should be because sometimes they want something unnecessary and useless.
Also, the owner can have a good conversation with the designer or whoever is
designing his building. This new implementation allows the owner to visualize how
the building’s components work together. Great!
Ronald, I really enjoyed reading about the advent of 3D computer graphics. The chapter of the BIM Handbook I read (chapter 3) touched on the Boolean operations that allowed the initial creation of shapes, but you went more in-depth which I appreciate and enjoyed reading. I would be willing to bet that these same operations, coupled with parametric design, allow the easy creation of families in Revit, such as the combination of a rectangular prism and several cylinders to create a pile / pile cap assembly (which I have had the pleasure of doing many times during my previous co-op).
ReplyDeleteI found your post to be very interesting and informative. In my chapter I also read about how long ago BIM was created, but it did not go into much detail. I was interested to read about the use of 3D modeling in movies and games back in the 60's. I am very interested to read more into that topic and see the history behind BIM. Thanks for the interesting read!
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