Cadalyst - July 2008 - (Page 27)

cadalystlabsreview What’s In — and Out of — the Box Vico’s suite consists of the following six components: u Vico Constructor 2008, to create VC models as the foundation for the other tools u Vico Estimator 2008, for model-based estimating, more accurately than other methods u Vico Control 2008, for location-based scheduling and linking time and space in new views u Vico 5D Presenter 2008, to see model (3D), schedule (4D), and cost (5D) in one view u Vico Cost Manager 2008, to monitor and control changes to a project’s cost u Vico Change Manager 2008, to track revisions for consistency across all representations Taken together, the tools in Vico Software’s Virtual Construction Suite 2008 represent the most comprehensive, best integrated, and most highly evolved VC applications currently available on the world market. As shown in figure 1, Vico Constructor relies on the ArchiCAD BIM model-authoring tool from Graphisoft for its underlying data and representation. For the record, some Vico tools, such as Constructor and Estimator, were originally developed by Graphisoft but were then spun off to Vico Software — a 2007 startup and a completely independent, management-owned, and venture-funded company — and were exclusively dedicated to the program and process needs of builders and building contractors. (Graphisoft, under its corporate parent Nemetschek AG, chose to remain focused on Graphisoft’s original core market of architects and designers.) Although a working copy of ArchiCAD is in the Vico box, Vico Constructor goes significantly beyond ArchiCAD to include all of the structural and mechanical–electrical– plumbing (MEP) engineering disciplines and objects necessary to fully describe any building for construction purposes (such as cost estimation, scheduling, clash detection, and so on). Thus, builders can create their own models in Vico Constructor, whether by modeling from scratch (if architect- or engineer-provided models are insufficient or absent altogether) or by importing architect- or engineerdelivered models that have been created in any Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) –compatible model-authoring tool. (IFC is an internationally recognized model-exchange format supported by all leading architecture and engineering model-authoring software, including ArchiCAD, Autodesk Architecture and Autodesk Revit, Bentley Architecture, Nemetschek AllPlan and VectorWorks, and Vico itself). This capability enables builders using the Vico Virtual Construction Suite to focus on enhancing and optimizing their own information needs and business processes, independent of any architect’s or engineer’s choice of modeling tool (or even any architect’s or engineer’s choice of whether to model at all). Figure 2. Vico Estimator provides numerical and graphical analyses of budget alternatives, bid packages, and actual costs, all of which are related both logically and visually to Vico’s underlying 5D model. uniquely digital forms of communication. This is the same with software tools for design and construction. CAD has been superseded as a design/documentation tool by model-authoring programs lumped under the label building information modeling (BIM). Although such tools can produce drawings that look like their predigital counterparts, the underlying models are purely digital artifacts, constructed and managed exclusively by digital processes. These models can be directly linked to or embedded with specifications data in a way that is significantly different from the cross-referencing of paper drawings and typewritten specs. The same applies to coordinating model representations among disciplines in the digital realm — a far cry from overlaying transparencies of architectural drawings and HVAC drawings on a light table to search for clashes. Similar principles apply to integration of models with schedules, cost estimation, and so on. This new way of looking at the building process is popularly known as BIM, especially among architects and engineers, or as virtual design and construction (VDC) among general contractors, construction managers, and design builders. As an historical aside, the term BIM is not new, nor was it coined or originated by any software vendor. The term building information models first appeared, albeit in Dutch, in research on the construction industry as early as 1987. The nomenclature was first used in English in a 1992 paper in the authoritative Journal of Automation in Construction. This usage is fully 10 years before my own efforts to popularize the term BIM and standardize its usage among the leading software vendors. On the other hand, VDC is a term I associate with my colleagues at Stanford University’s Center for Integrated Facility Engineering (CIFE). Whether known as BIM, VDC, or just virtual construction (VC, the term for which the name Vico is a contraction), the automation of previously manual functions has morphed into entirely new ways of working. The benefits, as can be seen with Vico’s suite of tools, can be enormous; but the price of process change exists among all project participants. This trade-off is why Vico characterizes itself as a software and services company. Construction organizations adopting VDC need to bootstrap their process changes, and Vico provides both the tools and the guidance to do so. July 2008 cadalyst www.cadalyst.com Massaging the Numbers Vico Estimator (figure 2) draws on Vico Constructor models to generate highly detailed and accurate quantity takeoffs (QTO) and related cost estimates, literally down to the nuts and bolts. This ability is accomplished by a hierar27 http://www.cadalyst.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Cadalyst - July 2008

Cadalyst - July 2008 Editor’s Window CAD Central FIRST Robotic Beasts Draw Students to Engineering Power! Speed! Action! — Mighty Mobile Workstations are Packed and Ready for Adventure! Vico Virtual Construction Suite 2008 AMD ATI FireGL V8600 and FireGL V8650 — 1-GB and 2-GB Graphics Cards Gaining Independence and Influence The Current State of MCAD Rewriting the Rules of PDM BIM Goes Residential CAD Cartoon Issue Indexes Pleasures of Customization

Cadalyst - July 2008

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