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first published week of: 02/19/2018
The marriage of GIS and BIM (Building Information Modeling) has been a long time coming and we are so ready to embrace the potential of bringing these two powerful capabilities together. Recent announcements by Esri and Autodesk have stirred up new ideas and excitement to enable a broad range of industries to gain better context by visualizing data of the man-made world, the environment, citizens and the networks that weave it all together. The conversation will now shift from ‘one versus the other’ to ‘one and the other’.
Most of us are comfortable with and highly knowledgeable within our primary profession and curious about related areas. We often debate where the boundaries of one area overlaps with another. GIS as a horizontal technology provides insights and support to many professions, and some would define it as a discipline onto itself. To many of us in the GIS world we are curious about this thing called BIM, but what is it? BIM or Building Information Modeling is defined in Wikipedia as “a process involving the generation and management of digital representations of physical and functional characteristics of places”. BIM often implies a 3D representation to improve visualization, especially amongst inter-disciplinary teams. As a GIS professional, what does that mean to you?
Think of all the moving pieces of a car and how each piece fits with the other pieces. The car, as a whole, is designed to perform a function, operate among other vehicles and with the surface it drives on. A building complex has similar needs; which is what the process of BIM is intended to deliver. The iterative approach of BIM allows for faster, more confident designs and improves communication. If you have ever flipped through a stack of E-size drawings of a newly designed office tower complex, you will have some understanding of where we have come from and how important BIM is.
Read full story at Esri Canada…