Monday, November 24, 2008

Revit Content - "the next frontier"

For years, many of us in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry have utilized traditional CAD software like AutoCAD for documenting our building projects. We painstakingly honed our end user software skills and knowledge over time and endeavored to developed extensive 2D CAD Libraries of Blocks to make our production easier. We all took great pride in our creations. Life was good!

In recent years, we have switched to new 3D modeling software products and now find ourselves in a new era of sophistication as architects, engineers and contractors. This new modeling software provides an ability to design our projects with three dimensional Objects instead of flat two dimensional representations. One such software called Revit, enables us to develop a comprehensive building assembly called a Building Information Model (BIM).

If we think of BIM software as a new toolbox, then we must fill the toolbox with many new tools and elements. Let's call that the Content that we need in the box to get the job done.

So, the next big challenge of any AEC firm that has made the choice to transition from 2D CAD software to the 3D BIM solution is to build a new collection of Content. That is to say, that we must create a whole new library of objects that we will use to build our projects with.

The next frontier of developing Revit Content is a daunting task. Think of all the various different objects (Content) that make up a building and you will come up with a list of items that will fill volumes. This voluminous requirement will require numerous individuals to create and take many hours of effort to accomplish.

Enter the professional Content Creator! There is a new bread of professional evolving who can create Content. They are few and far between but, they do exist. I know a few and they are paving the way for all of our future. I'd be happy to introduce you to them.