From the course: Revit 2024: Essential Training for Architecture

Introducing building information modeling (BIM) - Revit Tutorial

From the course: Revit 2024: Essential Training for Architecture

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Introducing building information modeling (BIM)

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- [Instructor] I know you're likely anxious to get into Revit and start working, but before we do, let's talk about a few high level concepts first. For starters, when folks talk about Revit, you'll also often hear them talk about BIM. But just what exactly is BIM? BIM stands for building information model or modeling. This term has been part of the AEC industry for many years now, and it's used to describe the process of creating virtual computer models that represent actual building facilities. Revit is often described as being purpose built for building information modeling, and this is certainly true, but this often leads to confusion that somehow Revit and BIM are the same thing. Revit and BIM are not the same thing. Revit is a tool used to help us achieve BIM, and BIM is a process that we follow to create building model data that is essentially two things: coordinated and computable. There is certainly more to it than that, but in my opinion, these are the two most important tenants of BIM. If all the parts and pieces that make up your BIM project are fully coordinated with one another and don't require any manual updates in order to keep them in sync, and if you have a robust and rich data source of information that can be used both internally by the system and exported out to the project team to do meaningful computations, then you have BIM. Some examples of the benefits of BIM include performing design computations or energy analysis, or calculating structural loads. You might want to do lighting design or heating and cooling computations. Any of these things become possible when you have a rich and robust BIM. Now, there's lots of different ways that you can achieve BIM, and Revit is an excellent tool to help us achieve it because it does many of the things that I've just described natively. But there is one common misconception that I want to address. Often when you hear the word BIM, in the same sentence you'll hear people talk about 3D. And you could be left with the impression that in order to be BIM, you must be 3D, and conversely if you have 3D, then you automatically have BIM. Well, sadly, neither of these is true. Now, don't get me wrong, 3D is very important and useful. If your primary goal is to perform clash detection between, say, your structure and your mechanical systems, or if you want to ensure that your stair tower fits into the overall architectural design, then 3D can certainly be very handy for that. If you want to do visualization or high quality rendering, then 3D is going to be pretty important. However, when talking about BIM, 3D is only part of the equation. Let's remember that it is B-I-M, and I think that the I in BIM is sometimes even more compelling than the M. Consider a cost estimation task, or specification writing, or calculating energy loads, or doing heating and cooling analysis, managing a program of area requirements. All of these things require data, and data is what we mean by the I in BIM. BIM puts the data and the graphics on equal footing, and more importantly, keeps them both in the same place. Your model is both a graphical or 3D model and a data model. Instead of manually and externally computing all of the various things that we need to do to achieve a proper design, why not let the computer do what it does best: compute stuff? That is what the I and BIM is all about. Still not convinced? Well, let's consider one more powerful benefit offered by Revit. It does 2D just as well as it does 3D. That is to say that the physical building model and sheet-based documentation remain fully coordinated and always in sync. No updates, no refreshing required to output a set of sheets or PDFs. The documentation is driven by the data within the model. Each view in a Revit project is specifically designed and intended for a certain task or purpose, be it 3D modeling, design coordination, or the output of a 2D permit set. It all comes from the same BIM. Therefore, as we begin to learn Revit, we will not focus just on modeling, as compelling as modeling is, but we will also think about the information, the I in BIM, and the documentation tasks. Having all of these things together in a fully coordinated package is why Revit gives us a fully implemented BIM solution.

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