Construction Company - What software should i use?

[ritamunha]

Hi everyone,
I`m civil engineer from Portugal, and for the last month my interest about 3d Modelling have been increasing. I work in a construction Company and normally we do complex projects like roadways, bridges, subways,barrages, etc (normally public construction, and we are not in the building area). As i can see from all the information in internet revit structure and autocad civil 3d are the softwares more used by engineers. I would to know if there is anybody in construction area, that works with this programs, cause i would love to present them to my leaders, but first i have to know which one should we use (bouth maybe!) or if it would be a good solution working with it, even if the project company don`t work in 3D, and all the modelling work would be on our side! By the way, usually how many people is necessary to work in this kind off projects?
I have been reading a lot of BIM things, and i´m really impressed with the things that we could do with, this softwares...and platform to naviworks, for crash detections and 4d modelling is amazing!! But that, and 5D i will be asking later!!

Thanks a lot and regards

Rita Munhá

Sory if there are any mistakes, but i haven`t write in english for a long time!

[sinc]

It sounds like you would want Civil 3D for your line of work. Revit is more for the Architectural side of things.

I don't think there's a standard number of people. One engineer, fluent in Civil 3D, can accomplish quite a bit. So it depends on the size and type of your projects, as to how many people you would want.

As to whether or not Navisworks would be beneficial, that depends on what type of projects you do, and what sort of role your company takes in the construction process. Navisworks can take data from a large variety of source programs - Civil 3D and Revit are just two of many - and combine all that data into one. It can then perform clash detections on the combined models, but it does not allow you to make changes to the combined model. It is not round-trip software. So when you detect collisions in Navisworks, you have to go back to the source (Civil 3D, Revit, or whatever), and make the changes there.

Navisworks is also good for doing visualizations, planning of project phasing, and so forth. It's particularly good for "selling" a project. For example, if the general population is reluctant to see a particular project happen, it can be useful in convincing people that they will really like the end results of a project.

However, if you are basically a construction firm that takes a prepared set of plans and builds the project, you may not find much value in Navisworks. It's neat, and it can do 3D-orbits that put Civil 3D to shame, but it's a tool that is far more valuable in the earlier phases of a project, before the actual construction starts.