The Future of BIM Interoperability

I agree with Nathan that BIM will be integrated into the construction process regardless of problems with information transfer. While interoperability is admittedly a difficult and unavoidable problem in the current push for BIM as the industry standard for transfer of design information, I see some hope for improvement in the near future.

Within the next 5 years, it is my opinion that interoperability among programs within a specific software provider's repertoire (for instance, all Autodesk products) will improve to the point of near fluidity, so that there is even transfer to a central database of all aspects in a model. (This is one example of such a case in recent history) As Mr. Kuszewski discussed "saving to central" and "cloud-based computing" last week, it became evident that this level of capability is certainly present and need only be implemented across all products in a process known to the scholarly community as "data alignment." In essence, it is merely a process of organization and intentional consistency within a software group to facilitate interoperability and eliminate data loss between products/software-types.

However, in the same time period, I would not be surprised if the chasm of interoperability between competing software groups (ie. Autodesk vs. Bentley) widened. From the previous week's research, it seems like the degree of difficulty in information transfer is directly linked to the depth of information contained in a model. For instance, 2-D CAD models can very simply be converted to an open format, while 4 and even 5 dimensional models in Revit may contain a large amount of information about the individual building members that cannot be transferred cleanly to any other format than that in which they were created. By this line of reasoning, increasing capabilities of competing software types may likely complicate the transfer of data between them.

The solution to this un-interoperability, as Elda describes so well, might just be push for the IFC file format as a required standard. Despite many designer's aversion to this file type, it seems that on a global level, the IFC format is encouraged because it is an open source file type. The capabilities of design using this format are not as limited as one would think, and it certainly appears that they are improving. The Build Qatar event in 2012 was a great showcase of these capabilities.

Sources:

Aligning Misaligned Systemic Innovations: Probing Inter-Firm Effects Development in Project Networks

Intelligent distributed production control    

Asite announce BIM Academy, BIM Unlimited, Aidea and Niven Architects as winners of Build Qatar Live 2012