How do you share?

[jbenoit44]

Hi everyone,

french guy is back. Don't know if it's the right place, but anyway....

I'm wondering about the way BIM managers share their data (meaning files, right) with contractors, architects and engineers.
Do you use ordinary file exchange (mail for ex.)?
Data servers? file sharing websites (free or not)? servers owned by your companies?
Do you have any (good or bad) ifc feedback?
And finally did you ever worked on the same model with one, two or more contractors?

As usual, your experience is usefull.

regards,
JB

[greenwaldc]

In the past, we have set up FTP sites, with various levels of password protection, e.g. - read/write to one folder but read only to others, and guest accounts. The FTP servers were job-specific, and owned/operated by our IT group.

Currently, our IT department is transferring to Microsoft Sharepoint, but that does not appear to play well with Autodesk files. From the little bit of reading I have done on it, that jives with the experience of others.

[Paul.Hellawell]

At present we will mainly issue, navisworks (.nwc) or a .dwf file. If there is a requirement for the files to be in Revit then we would issue an ifc.

IFC in my opinion is not quite there yet. Especially for anything outside of the Architectural discipline. But in some ways that is an advantage. ie: turning pipes into dumber counterparts, sort of protects your IP to a degree, and still allows others to work around your work, but hey, so does exporting to a .dwg (again not great in Revit).

On the rare occasions we do share a revit file, the confidentiality agreements seems to be the only option available, along with good old fashioned trust and working relationships.

Revit Server will help the sharing of a revit model to outside parties (if you can ever get your IT to open it up to the outside world!), but at present there is no way to "protect" what you are sharing in a native .rvt file.

We have worked with external parties on a single Revit model (our preferred practice), that is a whole new kettle of fish, given that different company standards and procedures exist. So lots of up front definition of protocols, and a very well laid out BIM execution plan are essential.

[jbenoit44]

Thanks Paul for your reply.
In France, I will continue testing IFC. Many softs can use it for analysis.
And another reason is that Revit deployment is at the very beginning.

regards,

[tabest]

Email is not an option with revit, file size is too big, would be like sending all of the CAD files for a project (and then some).

Yes, to the more than one consultant in model, typically each consultant has their own model, which gets linked together into everyone's model. Previously we hadn't been using the copy/monitor functionality within Revit, though have recently started. Hadn't in the past because we kept having objects get deleted, etc.

No IFC experience, other than my own playing around with it to see what it does.

One company had it's own internal server which acted as our FTP site also, the other 2 companies I've worked for have used sharefile for the FTP. As an MEP firm, we typically post our files to the Architect's choice of FTP, but seeing as most email is limited to 5MB of data attached, email was never an option.

With 2011 we gained even better ability to control linked files, and thus improved our view templates, etc. allowing us to generate great drawings even quicker than before. I've noticed though, that the "best" results come from a completely Revit team, if anyone is performing in CAD, then they become a bottleneck (I've seen this mostly with civil, where I had to recreate their content in Revit to get the features we wanted).

Hope this helps you in your exploration

[jbenoit44]

thank you trentb for your answer. Haven't been here for a while.
Your experience, meaning US and UK users, is helpfull for me, even if the way to BIM is a long travel here in France.
BTW, if you're interested, check the link bellow, if you did not do that before.
best,
Julien