Does Revit Qualify as a BIM?

[cek]

Is this still true?

"ArchiCAD is thus far the only CAD product to incorporate support for both the NCS and the IAI IFC in the same program," Jerry Laiserin stated in the April 2002 issue of Architectural Record.

Source: http://www.aia.org/tap_a_0903bim

Has Revit reach BIM Status?

Does Revit support NCS, IAI IFC?

[BWG]

Limited and one way.

[GuyR]

Has Revit reach BIM Status?

Revit was born BIM. I hardly think IFC is the basis for judging BIM. IMO Revit is the only true BIM arch. CAD package available today.

Guy

[hand471037]

IFC isn't BIM.

IFC is simply a vendor-neutral standard for Building Information Models themselves. This format allows for one to delver a Building Model in a way that's 3D and retaining of some behaviors as well.

No BIM system uses IFC as it's primary working file, the systems only export (and some can import) IFC.

IFC itself isn't as useful as you might think as well. A great example given by someone on the IAI committee that *makes* the IFC standard said it thus: 'it's like finally having a telephone standard such that I can pick up the phone and dial Finland and have the call go through correctly, however, when they pick up the phone they will be speaking Finnish, and I English, and we won't understand each other'.

For example: Revit exports to IFC, and Timberline (a popular costs & scheduling software for the construction industry) understands IFC. Does this mean that you can just dump out an IFC file from Revit and pull it right into Timberline and have everything 'just work'? No! For that IFC file is speaking Revit, and Timberline doesn't understand Revit. Without a lot of work with the export filters within Revit and within Timberline itself, you simply won't get anything meaningful, for Timberline simply won't understand what Revit's trying to tell it.

So, at this time, while IFC is very interesting, it's mostly used as a sales ploy by these various BIM vendors to get you to buy the system. ;-)

[Danny Polkinhorn]

Revit is fully compliant with NCS in the ways that it can. Things like layers and filename standards are irrelevant to Revit because it doesn't use layers or multiple files. In terms of the graphic portions of NCS, Revit can do all those things as well as export DWGs that are compliant.

IFC export is part of Revit 8, released after the article was written.

I would agree with Guy, Revit is more BIM than any other application and IFC support, while relevant to BIM, is not a critical part of it. NCS was written specifically for AutoCAD and Microstation, and falls way short when it comes to BIM support.

[JamesVan]

Does AutoCad qualify as CAD?...sorry, I digress.

NCS is irrelevant to BIM. As stated, the layer guidelines and file naming standards contained in the National CAD Standard have to do with categorizing vectorial information and the 'file-per-drawing' assumption for mass 2D coordination among building industry participants. The Uniform Drawing System applies to how views and notes are organized on drawing sheets, so it can be applied to hand-drafting, CAD and BIM (when using a BIM tool to produce 2D drawing sheets). Coast Guard Plotting guidelines are useful, but are primarily geared to control which layer colors plot with which lineweights. NCS does not, nor does it aspire to address issues such as material property designation, structural load definition, room bounding definitions, etc....this is where IFC comes in.

IFC is an important tool in it's potential to reduce inefficiencies among industry players, but should not be construed as the litmus for 'BIM'. It is a file format, and (more importantly) a data schema based on the XML concept. So now Revit Bldg 8 can export to IFC 2.x and "has passed stage one certification by the International Alliance for Interoperability (IAI) for meeting the IFC2x2 code checking view for architecture."

[Allen Lacy]

You should also understand that the author of the article that you reference is president of AEC Infosystems, an ArchiCAD reseller. There could be some bias there:roll:.