BIMES Training Schedule Dec 2012 - January 2013

We have been quite busy since April and really did not have chance to conduct classroom trainings.

But no worries!

Some new ArchiCAD and VICO trainings have been scheduled for December and January. The details are below.

If you are interested in any of them, please kindly click "Register" link to submit your details to us. We will contact you to verify your information and complete the registration. By the way, trainings will be conducted in Dubai!

Code	Name	Registration	Duration	Schedule	Price	Advised Prerequisite
BIM001	ArchiCAD BIM Essentials Training	Register	3 Days	2, 3, 5 January	3000 AED / per person	None
BIM002	ArchiCAD BIM Advanced Documentation Training	Register	1 Day	6 January	1000 AED / per person	BIM001
BIM003	ArchiCAD BIM Advanced Modeling Training	Register	2 Days	7, 8 January	2000 AED / per person	BIM001
BIM004	ArchiCAD BIM Advanced Quantity Take-off Training	Register	1 Day	9 January	1000 AED / per person	BIM001
BIM005	ArchiCAD BIM Advanced Collaboration Training	Register	1 Day	10 January	1000 AED / per person	BIM001
BIM006	5D BIM VICO Essentials Training	Register	1 Day	13 December	1500 AED / per person	BIM001
BIM007	5D BIM VICO Cost Planning Training	Register	2 Days	20, 27 December	3000 AED / per person	BIM001, BIM006
BIM008	BIM VICO Schedule Planning Training	Register	1 Day	29 December	1500 AED / per person	BIM001, BIM006, BIM007

Have a fabulous day!


Diyane Koseoglu
www.bimes.com

Cadimage Electrical

Have you heard of the new Cadimage Electrical Tool?

It comes with a library of Power Points, Switches, Jacks etc.

Once installed and loaded, makes the life pretty simple. While placing electrical symbols, you need to set the elevation only, they will automatically rotate and position themselves according to the wall.

I liked the solution for the circuits more! Just select all the elements you want to wire up, and then with the click of one button, Cadimage Electrical automatically draws in the wiring for you.

Curious? Then watch the video here!

Color Elevations and Details in ArchiCAD / Shoegnome

I normally get very very bored of technical posts without videos. Especially if they are documentation related.

However I loved Jared's recent post on colored elevations and details.

Image from Shoegnome

Much faster and easier to understand, isn't it?

Yes, you need to leave your habits and play with your pen-sets. I know setting up the pen-sets again sounds like a lot of work, but not really. He suggests a new system to manage your documentation. I also think it's a very good approach. Here, you can read from his own words:

"Each material type has pen numbers assigned to it. So all concrete has a designated foreground and background pen number. Same with wood, metal, insulation, etc. This logic of material type (not ArchiCAD element type) having corresponding pen numbers allows two things. The first, which we’ll talk about another time, is to change any fill pattern between empty, solid, and a specific vectorial hatch. The second is to switch between specific colors and black and white. Most of us have been using a variant of this trick since ArchiCAD 10: drafting in color, but having a printing Pen Set that is mostly black and white. It’s easy to make the mental leap to a Pen Set that allows you to produce quality black and white details, and also toggle on colors for increased legibility when necessary. This is not an either/or proposition. I think it’s important to develop your details to function in both color and black and white."

Want to read the rest of his post? Here you go!

Have a fabulous day!

Diyane Koseoglu
www.bimes.com

Vico Office 4 Trailer - BIM for Construction

When we go to movies with my husband we have a big dilemma!

To get Banana - Nutella Crep or to watch the trailers they show prior to the movie.

These creps at the movies are so good that we have to wait 20-30 minutes in the queue. If we couldn't manage our time well and have only 10 minutes to the movie, we have to make the big, harsh decision!

Crep or Trailer!

My husband is usually more inclined to crep but me... Ohh I love the trailer more than the movies usually:)) They show you the best stuff within 2-3 minutes. Very efficient, isn't it:)

Anyway, VICO recently released the trailer for VICO Office 4 and it is as exciting as movie trailers! (No, there are no visual effects etc but the content is cool:))

Here are my highlights about VICO Office 4 Trailer:

1- In VICO, we were able to store several different models of the same project however no 2D documents. With VICO 4, you can use it as a data container for both 2D, 3D, 4D and 5D.

2 - Do you remember the post which Jothi showed a trick to make 2D DWG files visible in 3D? Well, you do not need it any more if you use VICO Office 4. It allows you to bring in 2D documents (plans, sections, elevations etc) and compare it with the model cut from the same plane in a hybrid 2D / 3D view. I loved this! It's brilliant!

1.  
   
   
   3 - ArchiCAD's slider is one of the most important tools for us. When it comes to checking the collisions within the same discipline such as ARCH-ARCH, it is the best tool ever. Now it's available in VICO too! And as a bonus you can add clouds too:)
    
   
   
   4- I can hear you saying "What is so special introducing a feature in VICO that ArchiCAD already has?". Well, they further developed it! You can use the slider to compare 2 models. Fantastic!
   
   
   
    
   Highlighting the changes in 3D Models and adding clouds in 3D are other bonuses!
   
    
   
   
   These clouds can be reported with comments. VICO supports a collaborative resolution process. You can use it in the meetings as a discussion board and eventually it will be the minutes of the meeting! We have just spend 3 days to write the minutes a 3 days meeting:)) I really wish VICO Office 4 was released last month:))
   
   
    
   
   
   5 - Estimators! You no longer need to hate BIM! You can use VICO to manually take the quantities from 2D Drawings if you are in hurry and no time for modeling.
   
   
    
   
   
   You can even get the quantities of the wall panels that haven't been modeled in 3D!
   
   Curious about the other new features regarding to Schedule Planning, Cost Planning and Server? Here comes the trailer!
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   If your company is interested in further developing their BIM Skills with VICO, we can help you with VICO Office Structured Evaluation Program. It is a 30 days program that allows you to fully explore the software and the process with the help of our support and training. Interested? Please contact us at vico@bimes.com
   
   
   PS: Regarding to the crep vs trailer dilemma, we usually end up watching the trailers and eating the crep after the movie:)
   
   
   Have a fabulous day!
   
   
   Diyane Koseoglu
   www.bimes.com
   
   

ArchiCAD's Zone Tool for your sophisticated BIM needs

As you know, I am a big fan of the BIM Guru, Zolna Murray.

I even have a signed copy of her book and I feel very cool about it :)

She has a new blog post which I loved. She managed to explain the real "value" of the Zone Tool very well.

I have always been aware of the hidden gems in the Zone Tool but whenever I tried to explain it to someone else, I failed.

Here is the a trailer from the post:

The mighty zone tool – poetry in BIM-ming 

I’ve been besotted by ArchiCAD’s ‘zone tool’ lately.

I had not always been a fan of it, early in my career, seriously disliked it even, mainly because of its ugly, big zone-stamp.

That was when I was still working and thinking as an ‘architect’ and the aesthetics of the drawings I produced were high in life’s priorities.

Have grown out of that stage, thank’ goodness and amongst other more crucial things in life, I rediscovered the ‘zone tool’.

Sadly, the stamp is still pretty unattractive, yet the tool behind it is pure magic.

Not only can you use it for dynamic space planning with instantaneous monetary feedback on design decisions, it is a de facto massing tool too, you can track your shapes in 3D.

And not just boxes, but almost any shape, cut and trimmed to suit perfectly.

Should try it out, sometimes!

Other programs have ‘room’ tools, area calculators or slabs for massing.

Virtual clay to carve your virtual buildings out.

Yet, there is so much more to this (so poorly named) ‘zone tool’.

It sits somewhere between the real and the imagined – tangible and abstract even in the digital worlds of fuzzy reality.

It treats the user as an adult professional with sophisticated needs. 

Click here to read the full post 

I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!

Have a great day!

Diyane Koseoglu

www.bimes.com

How to show window casing details in interactive schedules?

Good Morning!

Today we have a technical tip. How to show window casing details in interactive schedules?

The solution requires some GDL but don't get scared. Nothing major. You will just place some "!"s in the script:))

Enjoy the 10 minutes video!

Jothi Shanmugam
Diyane Koseoglu
www.bimes.com

Pilot Project Selection for BIM Implementation

A very important decision...

Which project to start using BIM?

There are many different approaches...

1- Complex Projects
Some says they need to select a complex project (usually hospital) to get maximum ROI on the BIM Implementation. These people usually think that BIM Implementation is very costly and the project must have a high budget to accommodate it.

I find this approach very risky actually. Complex projects requires very strong skillful and experienced BIM users. Reaching to that level might take longer than expected.

I have seen two cases of this scenario. One of them succeeded however the second one failed.

2- Medium Projects
Most vendors recommends medium size and complexity of projects to be selected as pilot project. I think it makes sense. Lower implementation costs, less stress and higher probability of success.

Interesting but not many people prefers this option. I am not sure why? Maybe they just don't get a medium size project when they plan to implement BIM:)

3-Small Projects
I like this option too. Easy to implement and success is almost guaranteed. Many people believes ROI on small projects are very low so it does not worth to do it in BIM.

I don't agree with this at all. ROI % will be same as it requires less investment.

I wrote about the pilot projects earlier. Why I am bringing it up again?

Well, I had a meeting with a large contractor recently and they told me that they made their decision to go with BIM and selected the pilot project.

I was about to think "Here you go, another landmark project!"

But NO!

A simple, modest building! Perfect for pilot project! More importantly they understand the challenges very well. Instead of being a Don Quixote, they are approaching it with a very down to earth manner.

I am pretty sure that they will suceed:)

Have a great long weekend!

Diyane Koseoglu
www.bimes.com

What is BIM and What is not BIM?

As you know we have been working as BIM Consultant for some developers and project owners. All of them are prestigious names in the market and almost everyone involved in the project are internationally well-known. I mean they are all BIG BOYS!

When we are all around one table, we are having quite interesting discussions. An in my opinion, the most interesting one is defining what is BIM and what is not!

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

To me BIM Stands for Building Information Modeling and the "I" is the most important letter when you are interested in the complete life cycle of the project.

Why?

Very easy and simple!

 Image courtesy of Grant Cochrane / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

You are designing a building so you defined the geometry. Next step will be documenting it, right? So the model has to have information that will help contractor to built it. Contractor should add more information to manage his construction efficiently. Time and cost data should be added at this stage.

The above are the butter and bread of the construction work.
But why an owner is interested in BIM?
What attracts an owner most?

According to IFMA, 75% of a building's life cycle cost is spent on operations and maintenance.

So for an owner, having an as-built model which can be used for Facilities Management is the most important thing.

Having said this, if your model is only "B M" and lacking the "I", then how can you use it for FM?

To sum up, please do not put a software into BIM category if it can not store construction information. Some tools are just for modeling and that's the reason they are developed for. 

I just summed up above but suddenly I remembered an old neighbor of us. Their son was absolutely in love with Excel. Actually he was crazy about it.

One day he was showing us why he is so impressed with Excel! He did some tricks in front of us and started to play a video in one of the cells.

Yes, that was interesting but in a very strange way.

Why would a developer spend time to make excel play videos!

That was the first question that came to my mind:)

Have a great day!

Diyane Koseoglu
www.bimes.com