Akos Pfemeter of GRAPHISOFT Talks to Architosh about Open BIM

A little over a week ago I was on the phone with Akos Pfemeter, Director of Global Marketing for GRAPHISOFT. It’s mid-morning for me and late afternoon for him back in Budapest, Hungary. We are discussing the joint-press release about the Open BIM movement underfoot by the buildingSMART group and an association of companies formed around the Nemetschek Group, Tekla (a Trimble company) and other independent companies.

At this present time BIM, or Building Information Modeling, continues to gain significant traction within the AEC industry at various paces worldwide. While it may have begun sooner in Europe for instance, than in North America, the latter region has leapt forward more aggressively. Additionally, in the North American market software giant Autodesk, with its popular Revit BIM platform, has established a notable mindshare presence with regard to the industry transformation to BIM. Within this context a group of proponents of “open” coordination workflows have begun to work harder at clarifying the advantages of what they refer to as a true “Open BIM” process…a process that allows the benefits of BIM without many of the classic limitations that can emerge around centralized file formatting.

Our discussion begins by talking about the importance of this movement.

Open BIM: Context and Importance

AFR (Anthony Frausto-Robledo): Akos, talk to me about the importance of this Open BIM movement.

AP (Akos Pfemeter): Sure. Firstly, the AEC industry has changed a lot in the past 20 or so years. In the last century AEC processes were mostly sequential, meaning that things came one after the other. Now, we are dealing with the forces of an accelerating economy that require AEC projects to finish faster also. This results in the traditional sequential order of things now to have substantial overlaps and even be fully parallel–happening at many times. (see image 01)

AFR: And how does this change the nature of collaboration in AEC?

AP: Back in the time of paper, design coordination meant that everyone would exchange paper drawings and use light tables to coordinate differences. Then 2D CAD came along and instead of light tables we overlaid Xref’d 2D CAD layers in much the same way to coordinate and discover important differences.

But BIM (Building Information Modeling) fundamentally changes things including interdisciplinary coordination as well. In contrast to the 2D drawing primitives as the least common denominators of the traditional workflow, BIM carries an abundance of information that does not make sense to coordinate using the traditional approach.

AFR: But it seems there are some different views or approaches to how “coordination” or collaboration takes place within the BIM workflow. Can you define these?

next page: Approaches to BIM: The Open BIM Way

Approaches to BIM: The Open BIM Way

AP: Yes, one theoretical possibility is that everyone is literally working in the same BIM model system, hence coordination is by default given; the only issue is that due to various reasons the practical implementation of this “ideal” setup will not be happening in the foreseeable future. The other possibility is that the different AEC disciplines try to exchange BIM models just like they exchange files with 2D CAD data. In this process each profession may choose to use the tools best fitting the requirements of their particular trades, their organization, and the scale and types of projects they do often.

AFR: Right, and this latter approach is the one that can also provide superior options for a true “Open BIM” collaboration. What needs to happen on the technical side for tools to support this Open BIM movement?

AP: In order to fully address and support the mission of the Open BIM workflow their tool or tools must support the following three workflow concepts. Firstly, they must adopt the “reference model concept,” where the different AEC stakeholders’ BIM models are referenced into one another for coordination instead of trying to achieve 100 percent binary file conversions. Secondly, the tool must support “model filtering and classification” for optimized communication between the different parties. This is important.

For example, architects may have totally different priorities and modeling strategies when preparing the BIM model than structural engineers. For example, a column for an architect is primarily a visual element in the architectural “space” that can be modeled with any topology or tool (and not necessarily a load-bearing column tool) that fits the requirements of an architect–yet during coordination with the engineer the information about this column must be provided in a way that best fits the receiving party’s needs. By the way this is equally true in the case of communication between any two parties in the AEC workflow.

And thirdly, the tool must support dynamic “change management” for obviously coordination is not a one-time event rather an ongoing process where it is mission critical to provide a workflow for easy and simple follow-up of changes. (see image 02)

AFR: This describes broadly the technical side of what the BIM softwares must do. What about workflow? What are the workflow characteristics of the Open BIM workflow?

AP: The Open BIM workflow has some distinct characteristics including things like system independence, workflow transparency so that the workflow is fully documented. And that individual parties (architect, engineeers, clients and contractors) retain ownership of their data. The other requirements of the workflow include the adoption of the information classification system and adoption of the reference model concept.

AFR: Does that requirement of an information classification system mean Industry Foundation Classes or IFC is an exclusive format for Open BIM?

AP:  It means the adoption of IFC today but Open BIM cannot be exclusive by definition.

AFR: Does that mean rival information classification systems can also be apart of Open BIM?

AP:  Yes. As long as the system is open and meets the requirements of Open BIM. Today without doubt IFC is the most advanced system/format for coordination, hence we are heavily using/promoting it for collaboration of BIM model data.

next page: The Open BIM Group

The Open BIM Group

AFR: What are the exact requirements of belonging to and adopting Open BIM?

AP: Well, first of all let me repeat that Open BIM is more than an IFC interface for data exchange. Open BIM is an approach including workflow, engagement of partners and the inclusion of the entire AEC spectrum.

AFR: Why did this group of companies and organizations decide to commit to and more formalize Open BIM?

AP: What we realized is that everyone is talking about “Open BIM” but in a slightly different way. We realized that Open BIM will never get powerful enough if we are communicating in very independent ways. So we need higher level coordination.

AFR: And hence the announcement and program. That is good. Many organizations, including the AIA in the United States, have seen the need for the robust development and adoption of an open BIM standard that can have global applicability for all stakeholders in AEC. (see image 03 below on the AIA’s press release. See also this news article from Feb 2010 on the AIA’s official position.)

AP: Yes, we decided to launch this program to address these issues.

AFR: So who is the “we”? Who got invited or who organized this movement?

AP: It’s basically eight companies from different segments of the industry but the initial idea of formalizing an Open BIM program came from buildingSMART, GRAPHISOFT and Tekla.

AFR: So what is the orchestrated charter or mandate of this group? What’s happening now with Open BIM?

AP: There are three key things. Firstly, unified communication. Everyone in the group must use the same words and phrases in talking about Open BIM. We provide templates for group members so they can communicate about Open BIM consistently with its goals. There are now consistent standards about how to talk about Open BIM on your website and elsewhere.

Secondly, after saying things the same way we need to appear the same–that is unified. That explains the new common branding and Open BIM logo. We require each participant to use the OPEN BIM logo to help promote our common goals and commitment to a true Open BIM process.

Finally, we realized we needed to go beyond software. This includes AEC software vendors, AEC organizations and actual building projects as well. We hope people will use the new OPEN BIM logo similarly to how AEC professionals use the LEED logo is used as a sign of their commitment to sustainability.

AFR: With this broader potential for who can now support Open BIM, what would you say are the main benefits of supporting the Open BIM movement and this program?

AP: The first benefit of the Open BIM approach is that project members are free to choose tools that best fit their needs. The second benefit comes from the first one that is you are not forced to synchronized your IT cycle with others in order to keep binary compatibility–Open BIM fosters “workflow” compatibility instead.

AFR: I want to make sure readers who are thinking about BIM workflows understand this well. Can you explain this more?

AP: Yes. If you shoot for 100 percent binary compatibility like for instance it is promoted between Revit platform products then you have to ensure that everyone you need to exchange data with are on the same version of Revit. This maybe a problem if you are involved in multiple projects where a whole matrix of independent companies would need to coordinate their upgrade cycles just to keep compatibility across totally independent projects.

AFR: That actually sounds incredibly difficult and burdensome if not outright impossible.

AP: And I want to add that the final benefit of adopting Open BIM is that by adopting industry open standards like IFC you make your data open forever. As a group, like other other segments of the computer industry at larger, we are promoting the adoption of true open standards so that customer data remains truly flexible and open.

AFR: It is through open standards versus proprietary standards that data becomes your own. If all of your data lives in proprietary file formats, not matter how popular they are, the data is encased in someone else’s file format and thereby partially becomes theirs. You are dependent on a single source to access your data.

next page: Open BIM: Group Goals

Open BIM: Group Goals

AFR: I want to switch gears a bit. Why did you not ask more people to be involved in this Open BIM announcement. Did you approach Autodesk and Bentley?

AP: It has a rather simple reason: we did not want to overload the creation and launch of this program with too many stakeholders who would have potentially slowed down the coordination and agreement about the details of the program too much.

AFR: Right, the committee gets so large that you can never reach consensus, et cetera. That makes sense.

AP: It turns out that everyone has good ideas about everything. If there is a new suggestion then you need to go around to everyone and ask what everyone thinks. So the core group–as I mentioned–began with just GRAPHISOFT, Tekla and of course buildingSMART.

AFR: How will Autodesk become a part of this? They are a very key player in BIM.

AP: They are part of buildingSMART and are already talking about opening up interdisciplinary coordination. I am convinced Autodesk will realize the benefits of the Open BIM approach and will join the Open BIM program as well.

AFR: Tell me about the OPEN BIM logo.

AP: We are aiming to have it endorsed and used in the industry much like the LEED logo. It demonstrates true commitment to the Open BIM approach. (see image 04)

AFR: What events or initiatives will this group be putting on in the near future to promote Open BIM and the recent announcements?

AP: There has been a global Open BIM webinar where GRAPHISOFT, Tekla and DDS (Data Design System) showed Open BIM in real practice through an interesting project case study from Norway. The webinar recording can be watched after registration (editor’s note: go here). There was a conference in March in Beijing, China, as well where we talked about Open BIM. In May we are planning a major industry event with buildingSMART where Open BIM will be the main theme for the famous Build Live London competition. Various members of the Open BIM program will be present or hosting these and other events.

AFR: Thanks for talking to us about the Open BIM announcements.

AP: You are very welcome.

Additional Notes

The Open BIM approach and program is open to a wide array of AEC industry participants and readers who are interested in learning more can start by visiting the buildingSMART website’s main page and this Open BIM section on their organization’s website here (http://buildingsmart.com/openbim).

The full list of partners behind the Open BIM program can be seen here.