Future of BIM

Nowadays half of the industry is using BIM or BIM-related tools. The proportion is 75% more than six years ago (RLF-BIM a More Sophisticated Deliverable). So it is possible that in the next 5 years, BIM usage will dominate design and manufacture fields .All the related firms should require employees have BIM background or at least be familiar with it. And as Jeanine Lancellotti mensioned, courses on BIM technology will be provided by most of the colleges.

The advantage of BIM is its object-based parametric model method, which turns the shape and other properties of objects into pre-defined values. Compared with the most-used Autocad software, which relies on the manually drawing by user (cheaper 2 handbook), it simplifies the total work, reduces working time and make 3D design possible, etc. That benefit of BIM leads it more and more popular. However, like pineapple144 mentioned, changes had been made along with technology developing. Blueprint changed from hand-drawing to computer-based, engineering was separated from architecture.  Former powerful tools became useless unless advancing with evolution. If BIM wants to remain its popular trend in the future, some improvement might be made.

First, BIM should have different interface to choose. For freshmen,visualization is better than parametric model. People might only care about the approximately cost change based on difference of window materials, don’t want to consider other variables.It is better that the software can provide a friendly interface to that kind of people.For professional user who need accurate and complicate calculation, the more complicate BIM should also be provided.

Second, BIM should expand its application, focus on life-cycle cost as well. Over the life of a building, operation and maintenance cost more than initial construction like shown in figure 1. BIM can combine all the building objects information together. With daily energy usage information of all objects in that building added in the software, the optimal choice can be made.

Third, BIM should get more compatibility between different software to make a better communication. For example, old buildings were designed by Autocad who don’t define objects by parametric description but drawing. In the future, by scanning the prints BIM can have the dataset for every subject. Furthermore, whatever BIM software is used, the files can be open in another software, For example, the Revit data can be open by Energplus.

Additionally, I agree with C.Meraz’s idea that future developments of BIM should also include BIM centered conventions. Future design needs to follow the rules to avoid variable and repeat descriptions for the same object. And once the object is defined, it can be used in every BIM software. This effort plus the development I discussed in the third aspect, that all former drawings and designs can be transformed into BIM by simple scanning can make all the other tools stepped down the stage of history in a few decades. The cloud computation that Li mentioned can also become an import technical support for BIM and it is very likely to be applied within the next few years. However, the upgrade of hardware can benefit everything. Only the high level compatibility can make BIM irreplaceable which I think BIM should focus on in the future.

Sources:

http://www.fefpa.org/pdf/Summer2012/PC%20RLF-BIM%20A%20More%20Sophisticated%20Deliverabe.pdf

http://buildinginformationmanagement.wordpress.com/category/bim/bim-usage/

http://www.fs.fed.us/t-d/pubs/htmlpubs/htm08732839/page01.htm

BIM handbook chapter 2