Building information modeling has been around a long time. The beginnings were and still are, to an extent, filled with catch phrases designed to inspire and bring people on board. Terms like parametric manipulation, relational databases and object-oriented programming were used to make BIM more appealing. Then it was sold to owners as a cost savings tool for design and construction costs. The fact is neither of these marketing plans worked. BIM grew but too slowly for such an innovative and revolutionary product. But that is construction, we seem slow to grab onto new ideas that may impact our industry. This should not be surprising—construction is known to resist change to the bitter end. We have been fighting the dinosaur language on continuous lath under one-piece control joints for decades, with little positive movement in relieving stress, pardon the pun.
BIM is the overall process of creating a 3-D database, in the form of a model of information that pertains to the design of a building. If you are new to this world, it can be daunting and the terms fly around that will make your head spin. It is almost like they are speaking a new language, because they are. For people like me, who took architecture classes with velum paper and a variety of pencils based on lead hardness, it is a confusing and scary world. The following is to help those new to BIM understand some basics so they are informed when walking into a BIM project.