BIM Tutorials?

[MaltbyDesign]

Hi all, I'm wondering if there are tutorials or guides that outline best practices for modelling in VW Architecture. Do any of you who design houses model your drawings from individual components - i.e. do you draw individual wall studs, joists, rafters, etc. I'd like to explore if I can get Vectorworks to do more in 3D help me prepare more accurate sections and details.

[Markvl]

Hi Cameron,

I'm not so sure that you'd find a tutorial for best practices. Most of my work at this time has been housing whether its single detached homes or multi-residential buildings. I'm barely two years into using VW and I'm slowly figuring out how to best use the program and get useful information from it. One of the first things was doors and windows and producing a meaningful schedule for each by using worksheets. Since then I've been looking at making take-off worksheets to get accurate measurements of the different types of materials being used. So I use component based walls, floors and the like. That being said making/using 3D objects in your model is cool but you'd want it to pay off in time. Using walls, floors , roofs and the like can get your cross sections up fairly quickly as well as some details but I find I still use a lot of 2D objects to fill in the gaps. Modelling out joists, studs (framing in general) can be a lot of work and would only be beneficial to me if I can get more info from them other than making details and sections easier/accurate.

Do you have access to VSS or Vectorworks Service Select? If so you'd find a large number of tutorials, how to's and the like that may be of some use to you.

Cheers!

P.S. Had a quick look at your website (nice work by the way) and with some further thought I'd add that ya for you modelling out parts may be of an advantage especially if you use them to illustrate to your clients what the final product or feature may look like. There are plenty of visual clients out there that love this kind of presentation.

Edited July 20, 2016 by Markvl

[MaltbyDesign]

Thanks for your thoughts, Markvl. I think that I presently draw in a similar way that you do, using the component based walls and floors, etc. I then add more detail to my section cuts, etc to create details. This process is okay to a point, but I thought if I spent a bit more time modelling with individual components, it would save me time at the detail stage.

I'm not completely sure, but I thought BIM was about more detailed 3D modelling and using that detail for accuracy and time savings in the detail drawings. I was looking at a sample available for download on the VW site (yes, I subscribe to VSS) and it appears to be a house that is modelled of individual components. It sort of looks how some of the Sketchup users are modelling their projects.

My problem is that I come from an Autcad background and am used to drawing individual lines, rather than objects. Bouncing back and forth between two different platforms makes proficiency in VW a little slow for me.

[Markvl]

"My problem is that I come from an Autcad background and am used to drawing individual lines, rather than objects. Bouncing back and forth between two different platforms makes proficiency in VW a little slow for me."

I totally get what you're saying here. I was an Autocad user before VW and was use to flying through drawings. Things are much different with VW but I find it much more useful overall with the images I can produce from the model.

As I have not worked on a project where BIM would shine I can't praise it since much of what I do and how it becomes a reality does not benefit from this kind of workflow. BIM I could see being great if you have to coordinate a building design with a number of other professions.

[MaltbyDesign]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what BIM is. I suppose what I'm debating with myself is if there is any benefit to drawing each component of a wall or floor assembly in order to save time in developing details in 2D. I guess it's trade-off in time and efficiency.

[gester]

cameron,

bim is for the efficiency in design and in the construction, the best way to do it is to couple both in the ipd (integrated project delivery) process.

in order to model properly as a designer (architect or consultant designer) you'd have to communicate with professionals dealing with the 3d (geometry), 4d (time), 5d (costs), and 6d (energy and environment) bim, just for the starters.

i consult my projects with users of 4d and 5d software, especially the latter one, in order to enable them use my ifc model for takeoffs and cost control.

my software of choice is the polish (recently also international) bimestimate (http://bimestimate.eu/en/).

if you're using another 5d software (probably so), please contact the vendor or the users to benefit from their experience in importing the ifc models into their application. the reason is the proper connection to local price databases with proper local building materials.

imho forget the worksheet exports from the software (they are useful, but still not entirely live connected to the model), concentrate on the ifc with proper parameters in the ifc entity psets, as it's one of the most common import formats into the bim evaluation software packages, and also into the bim management ones (solibri model checker, navisworks).

rob

Edited July 23, 2016 by gester

[gester]

a few exemplary details of the modelling practice in vectorworks for bimestimate ifc export:

- you have to properly set storeys (also very important for 6d software with ifc or gbxml exports and for solibri model checker)

- you have to carefully choose the classing system - the most important are the overall class of the wall or of the slab, and the naming of the components, exactly as they are named in the real world. the class' names of the components are not important, as they don't appear in bimestimate.

- you have to export complex elements (walls, slabs and roofs) to ifc with 'by components' checkbox checked.

please verify those rules when exporting to your 5d software.

rob

[MaltbyDesign]

Rob, thank you for the additional information!