USC Practical BIM 2012 Highlights

USC Practical BIM 2012 event this year was excellent! Great speakers sharing what they've done to make BIM practical for them and how we can do the same. For those that weren't able to be there, here are some of the highlights from the day.

Session 1A: Practicing Practical Practice

Some called this slot the BIM Dream Team as Marcello Sgambelluri, Jay Zallan & Troy Gates presented topics. Marcello talked about project budgets and not allowing over zealous modelers eat away your fees by generating unneeded geometry. Just because its spatially correct, doesn't mean its nessecary. Talk with the whole project team, including the owner, to ensure you are working towards a common goal. Jay mentioned that AutoCAD processes don't always require architectural practices to be good, whereas BIM processes do - something I'd agree with. This means planning! Plans are nothing - planning is everything! Do you plan out how you will execute your next BIM project or simply hope it will go well? Troy spoke about how his company always follows a BIM execution plan for BIM projects they work on. It's essential for seamlessly integrating all the teams and the technology used. In all, I'd have to say these 3 sessions were the highlight of the entire day!

Session 2A: Connection : Customization : Cloud
Johnson Fain showed off some of their design work done in Revit to kick off this session - great designs were shown! It was interesting to see their software history shown as having gone from AutoCAD to Revit around 2005. Dennis Sheldon, CTO of Gehry Technologies, shared some insight on projects they are working on, including a massive shared project with over 200 concurrent shared users accessing the model, 80 trades involved & spread internationally across 12 countries. Mario Guttman presented some of the great tools he has been developing for Revit, specifically those found at Whitefeet. Go check them out if you haven't already!

Session 3A: Integration : Collaboration : Ownership
Michael Cervantes from LACCD presented their efforts on BIM from an owners perspective. They are holding lofty standards on their projects done in BIM to ensure they can take advantage of the data downstream after project completion. This was also the first time I'd see a presentation done with Prezi - really slick presentation tool that's way better than PPT.

Session 4A: BIM Implementation

It was great to see David Graue & Gautam Shenoy present how they've approached bringing BIM into HNTB. They likened BIM to Warcraft - A Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMPORPG). Everyone has a role to play - learn to rely on each others strengths as you go on your campaign!

Session 5A: Real and Virtual

Kimon Onuma presented the efforts that Onuma Systems have put into with the California Community College District (CCCD) on getting all campus facility data into an online system. Due to the efforts they've put into it, you can view the majority of info about CCCD facilities in Google Earth. You can also continue to add info and data as new projects are completed or as existing buildings are retrofitted. Kimon closed by asking "What would you do with 71 million square feet of BIM"? Why not surf it?



Hopefully, you too will find success on your next BIM project by applying practical efforts to it!