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Sample BIM file 'best practices'


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Has anyone tried downloading this (perhaps there is a previous thread for this issue?) file from the NNA's website? I have several questions concerning it.

It's about 70 mb after extraction and is pretty clunky. I realize that it says a single file, single user organization, but shouldn't it be set up differently?

I thought the 'ideal' work-flow, small or large, is to build a comprehensive 3d model of the project, w/ PIO's, walls, roofs, geometry, etc. and then have separate files that reference the master model.

On these plan, section, elevation files one can annotate and layer 2d information and complete the CD set. Is this correct?

Or is the 3d model broken up and referenced?

Thanks for any help, I seem to have a mental block wrt this concept!

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But the entire 3d digital geometry is contained all in one file?

If not, how do they do it?

It is quite difficult to follow your thinking, especially considering also this

I thought the 'ideal' work-flow, small or large, is to build a comprehensive 3d model of the project, w/ PIO's, walls, roofs, geometry, etc. and then have separate files that reference the master model.

so I'll just completely disregard your working hypotheses and tell how it should go.

In small projects, one file is enough for each designer (architect, structural etc). Depending on the nature of the project (but let's say by default "yes") other parties' data should reside in referenced files.

In large projects, the make-up of the comprehensive model may vary. In well-organised firms, even small projects may be configured differently.

Each data set resides in its own VW file. These are brought together to form a "master file", not the other way round.

For better or worse (usually better) the "master file" does "contain"* all data. However, in the "master file" the representation of the data may be either similar, simpler or more complex than in the source files.

They do it by Workgroup Referencing.

*) This means that the "master file" contains a (filtered) copy of "reference" or "source" files. Thus, for a presentation or a nice evening working at home, one only needs to take one file. The program won't quit because of or complain too much about "missing links".

Now, I'll surely again be deemed to be an idiot by the leading academic, Professor blink, but I think all this is pretty clever! Especially as a database.

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Sry for the confusion, (that's me, i'm confused!)

All that being said, why is the 'ideal' BIM best practices model so large and clunky? It doesn't seem to be that big of a project.

There isn't too much extra info (in the way of structural layout, electrical, notes, etc.) all that would presumably reside in separate files. Yet it is a big slow file.

I guess what I'm getting at is that if that is the Flagship example, it seems a pretty poor one. And/or those working with VW have just gotten used to dealing w/ large slow files?

Excuse me if this is ignorant, i'm just learning.

Edited by former Revit user
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So....has any one looked at the file in question?

Does anyone have difficulties constructing the entire 3d model in one file and then referencing views and annotating in separate files?

The reason I keep asking is that I would like to work in a more integrated 3d, 'BIM' environment. I work in an office where several people will need to be working on the same project at the same time. Currently they are simple drafting their way through.

Let's take a 10,000 sqft. residential house as an example. I could build the complete model in one file: site topography, windows, doors, walls, roof, trim, interior millwork, etc. and shouldn't have a file size issue?

Or is there a workflow where the 3d model is broken down into separate files? I thought the PIO's and symbols, 3d&2d are separate files?

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So....has any one looked at the file in question?

Does anyone have difficulties constructing the entire 3d model in one file and then referencing views and annotating in separate files?

Why would one want to do that? A totally pointless exercise. What did they say about bridges and rivers, swimming against the current and so on.

I do these things in the opposite direction. I have no idea how difficult it might be to climb a tree starting from the top - never done it, but I guess it would be difficult. Well, your problem.

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?

I'm not following...

So let's start w/ an example:

I have a simple 2 story house w/ a pitched roof.

The 3d geometry of the 1st flr, including windows and doors, would be it's own separate file?

Then the 2nd flr.

Then the roof.

Then I would have another separate file (master) where I WG reference each of those three files so that I can have a completed 3d model that I can get views of and so forth.

This is how you do it?

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Thanks again for the time,

I was reading through some of the past WGR posts and am trying to wrap my thoughts around this "new" (to me) way of organizing the building information.

I guess one of the primary concerns, workaround, issues, is working on an isolated plan in a file, w/out being able to see the other pieces.

How about editing an elevation when you can only see one level at a time?

How would one do this?

Let me outline a scenario:

File 1: I draw some guides for my property line, setbacks and restrictions, then start drawing the floor slab and walls for my first floor plan.

File 2: Then I want to start in on my 2nd floor but I can't see my first floor? I have to WGR my 1st floor file to my 2nd flr file so that I can see what is going on below.

File 3: Roof

File 4: Basement

(Master) File 5: I have all my separate files that I now want a complete model of. I open a new file, set up a Model layer, then WGR all of my individual files/specific layers and Link them.

So..

When I WGR say, my 2nd flr file in to the "master" file, will there be extra WGR's (ie. bigger file size) because there are "imbeded" layers in that file (the first floor file)?

So I am redundantly linking my 1st floor file: separately, then imbeded in the 2nd floor file?

Work with me here, sry for the verbosity,

So when you say several master's this is because there is a redundancy in referenced files?

And obviously there are many ways to do this, I'm just using this as one viable scenario. (or not?)

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You shouldn't be doing each storey in a separate file. Projects only need to be split into separate files when the project is very large and/or it is necessary to have more than one person working on the same project.

Generally each storey needs to be in a separate layer with an appropriate Z. In some circumstances it may be easier to have more than oe layer per storey. Before Stack Layers it was better to have separate 2D and 3D layers for each storey of your building. With the advent of Stack Layers this is no longer necessary. Stack layers allows you to see only the 3D information in an assembled view. When you are in a 3D view all of the 2D information will not be visible. When you are in Top/Plan View the 2D information will be visible.

Use Model Setup to create the file structure for you. There is an option within this routine to create separate Slab layers if you want them. It is probably easier though to have them in the same layer and use a class to control their visibility. Then use Create Standard Viewports to create all of the drawing sheets you require.

Download the two Architectural Product Tours and the BIM example and look at the way these projects are structured.

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You shouldn't be doing each storey in a separate file. Projects only need to be split into separate files when the project is very large and/or it is necessary to have more than one person working on the same project.

I beg to disagree. There may be other "triggering conditions", too. A typical one is the way other consultants work; related to this is how well you master DWG exports.

The good thing about VW is that there are no rules so you can work the way that suits you.

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I guess one of the primary concerns, workaround, issues, is working on an isolated plan in a file, w/out being able to see the other pieces.

But you can see them!

How about editing an elevation when you can only see one level at a time?

Why so? The envelope can, in its entirety, be in one file. Alternatively, you can use references to see other floors.

File 2: Then I want to start in on my 2nd floor but I can't see my first floor? I have to WGR my 1st floor file to my 2nd flr file so that I can see what is going on below.

Yes you do. But what is the problem?

When I WGR say, my 2nd flr file in to the "master" file, will there be extra WGR's (ie. bigger file size) because there are "imbeded" layers in that file (the first floor file)?

So I am redundantly linking my 1st floor file: separately, then imbeded in the 2nd floor file?

Bigger file size, yes, but not really redundantly. Or perhaps. Except that just this morning I've imported some AutoCAD files and, what do you know, XREFs are missing! With the hard disc prices nowadays, I'll take the redundancy. Make it double, please.

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Thanks again for the help/advice/direction.

So Mike, you aren't having difficulties with the size of the BIM file? That was the core of my original post, "Why is the flagship BIM file/model so heavy and clunky, this doesn't seem right, or am I misinterpreting?"

My insistence with this might seem a little anal, but I'd like to help my office move towards an integrated BIM approach, (the way one is forced to work in Revit, although as you say Petri, the flexibility in VW is tantamount.) and I don't want to push for a workflow that will be no more productive than traditional "dummy drafting" When I open up the, not so large project, BIM sample/example file, it scares me. It is slow, and there isn't that much stuff there!

BTW, I hate drafting! I hate having to rotate elevations and line them up w/ my plan and "figure out" sections. I've already done that! Why do I have to keep doing it! over and over and over,

One model, one time!

"But 3d takes longer" !

Having to make the same change 5 times takes longer!

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File sizes can be deceptive. I don't know any other way of recording a 3D "point" than a coordinate triplet; one program may have a more efficient scheme when saving files, another may be faster when projecting those, but in the end, 3D databases are large - and "take longer".

In this respect the "objects" of various kinds in VW are quite efficient. A floor, wall, extrusion etc. has (mainly) a 2D-shape and a 3D-factor. I'd imagine than when saving, only duplets & single factor are used. As comes to parametric objects, their representations do not get saved at all because they are programs, executed on demand.

Did I already mention "deceptive"? Well, a JPEG-file is, on disc, only a fraction of the "real" size, but in Photoshop it is just as slow, heavy and clunky as an uncompressed file.

Now, a program using integer maths (sKetchup?) is certainly a lot faster and its files are smaller. But...

Having said this, I occasionally (or even more often) wonder why VW is so slow. The same data set is faster, by several magnitudes, in some other programs.

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revit

i agree, the BIM example is a staggeringly

large file for so little output data .

however, when i have tried to do projects in

that paradigm, relying on the 3D solely for

elevations + sections really slows things down.

i build the model, generate the elevations,

"annotate" the detail on top of them, to the

extent of almost redrawing the whole thing.

i end up with an accurate, detailed + 'pretty'

set of elevations much faster than having to

build all the detail in the model.

sometimes to speed things up i then turn

off all the layers in the viewport, displaying

only the "annotation" elevation

obviously as the model changes i have to

retrace or juggle the detail on the elevations,

but it is much faster than relying

on the model for the detail.

i realise that this is counter to the standard

workflow, but it works for me. the benefit of VW

is that you aren't forced to use any particular

paradigm. which is useful as the sky starts

lightening in the east + you need to get the

bugger printed....

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There have been changes in 2008 whereby you can reference files without actually importing the data (as was the case with WGR up till now). This "should" help the file sizes. Also, in my experience, different companies have different approaches to single master model BIM in VW.

Some do it all in one file (like the example). Some just to 2D (it is still BIM - it is the data that is important) with a master file of each floor plan and others referencing these to generate details/fitting out plans/elevations etc. Others do the 3D where master model is a basic 3D plan showing only the key elements and this is WGR'd into other files for doing floor plans and details - basically embellishign the 3D structure with 2D detailing. This approach is , I think, the most efficient in VW.

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