Ecobuild America: GIS, CAD, BIM and More

By Art Kalinksi, GISP

In December I attended the “EcoBuild America” conference organized by the National Institute of Building Sciences. Ecobuild America and its co-located events provided education and resources to build smarter and improve our built environment. Specific areas of interest included: building information modeling (BIM), geographic information systems (GIS), green technology, high-performance building, sustainable design, energy efficiency, and security and smart buildings. My key interest was to understand how the playing field was evolving with regard to CAD, GIS and BIM.  Most of you already know that BIM technology is a merging of GIS and CAD into topological 3D models. If you aren’t familiar with BIM technology, see my 2008 article that explains the basics (“BIM, Son of CAD” August 12, 2008).

There was early optimism that BIM technology would supercede both CAD and GIS, but time has shown that the realities of the technologies are re-painting a different picture. What users have determined is that even though BIM models are topological feature linked databases, there are many operations that are better handled by a traditional GIS. The best analogy I’ve heard uses Microsoft Office. Even though you could use PowerPoint to compose and print a letter who wouldn’t prefer to use Word for word processing. Likewise you could use Word to create slides but PowerPoint is designed to do that task better.

ESRI / Woolpert

I talked about the BIM – GIS play with the staff at the ESRI booth, including John Przybyla, senior vice president of Woolpert, who is an ESRI industry partner. Part of the problem is that the concept of a BIM is the entire life cycle management of facilities from construction to ultimate demolition. BIM models can become extremely complex, especially if every detail of the facility is included. Adding details of every window or every piece of hardware can result in databases that are huge. Although that extreme level of detail is necessary during construction, carrying that overhead detail can be cumbersome in doing traditional geospatial analysis.

John gave me an overview and insight that brought clarity to this complex environment stating that:

“BIM and GIS are really complementary technologies, each focused on the information management needs of specific life cycle phases of real property. With today’s GIS products, organizations can create full 3D models of their facilities or entire campuses that include all features above the ground (think airspace for airports), on the ground (transportation, landscape, etc.), under the ground (buried utilities), and inside the buildings — and it can all be stored in a single relational database.

“This opens the door to a world of capabilities — proximity/adjacency analysis, space and tenant management, asset management, way finding, routing, and tracing contaminants, to name just a few — that are no longer constrained by artificial boundaries in our data. The benefits that result from such capabilities are huge and often greater than anticipated.

“Organizations today typically manage multiple separate versions of their infrastructure data — some in scanned drawings, some in CAD, some in GIS, some in proprietary databases. There are huge inefficiencies that typically occur when data is managed in multiple locations — duplication of data, incomplete data, and old or inaccurate data. The operational savings from integrating all the data into a comprehensive GIS often justify the cost of implementing a singular infrastructure database.

“But the real cost to an organization is that storing spatial data in multiple environments makes it impossible to achieve integration with other information systems. This is where GIS excels — because of its open architecture, its underlying relational database structure, and its server-based nature. For most organizations that manage real property, the real power of GIS is in its ability to spatially enable information from other (nonspatial) information systems to be integrated to achieve a result that was never possible in any other way.

“You may be thinking, ‘If this is such a great idea, then why hasn’t it happened before?’

“This is where BIM comes in. The cost and effort to create a 3D database of a facility from scratch has been so prohibitive that it has not been practical up to this time. But with new facilities being designed in BIM (and, because of the power of BIM, being built as designed), a building owner now receives a complete 3D model of every new building. Recent developments in 3D laser scanning have made it possible to create a 3D BIM-like model of an existing building at an affordable cost. Laser scanning is now becoming a commonly accepted practice to document as-is conditions prior to renovations. Over time, more BIM models will become available, and at some point it will make sense for organizations to use laser scanning to build models of their remaining stock.

“For some organizations, this scenario may be some time in coming. In the meantime, scanned and CAD drawings can be converted into 2D GIS datasets and, in most cases, extruded to form passable 3D GIS models that will provide the foundation for all the benefits described above. Once all your infrastructure data is in a single repository, the options are unlimited.”

BIMPAGE

Two growing problems that many BIM users are experiencing is storage and easy access to BIM models for collaboration and follow on use. BIM models can get very large, but much of the detail is not used very often once the building is constructed. A potential solution is the patented BIMPAGE and online BIM storage and cataloging system. I spoke with patent holder David Ways who has developed the system that stores BIM models, with varying degrees of detail, combined with real estate data, GIS layers and imagery all easily accessible online.

BIM Storm

Speaking of collaboration, an Expo area was devoted to BIM Storm. BIM Storm is a very robust virtual online collaboration environment that takes full advantage of the visual nature of BIMs. Participants in remote locations were able to participate in the common BIM model and instantly see changes to the project as they are suggested. There was a team of people on laptops in the Expo area as well as other participants in other parts of the country as well as overseas.

Lights and Roofs

Although BIM-centric, many booths in the Expo were related to the overarching theme of building smartly. Several lighting firms showed the latest in LED lighting. I believe that LEDs are the silent revolution that may save our rear ends with regard to energy usage. Although the feds are pushing compact fluorescents, LEDs are sneaking up as a safer and more efficient light source. LEDs have been extremely expensive, but thanks to free-market pressures, prices continue to drop while light output continues to rise. Many local governments have changed traffic lights to LEDs and the trend is continuing even with street lights.

Another trend that seems to have evolved is using turf as a roof covering. Turf roofs promised significant energy savings and longer roof life but early attempts fell short. Companies like LiveRoof have solved many of the problems by selecting a mixture of vegetation that is tailored to the local geography and growing seasons. The patented modular growing trays make for easy installation and low water use. You can even select areas of edible plants so you can eat your roof during hard times.

Photos: Art Kalinski