CU1703
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COMMENT<br />
Editor:<br />
David Chadwick<br />
(cad.user@btc.co.uk)<br />
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Comment<br />
The road ahead for information<br />
by David Chadwick<br />
Whilst we continue to question the<br />
role that COBie will play in the<br />
construction industry as our<br />
lives continue to be dominated by an<br />
intensive, information rich environment, it<br />
is the way we handle that information that<br />
CAD User Seminar on COBie this May.<br />
The Seminar is aimed at anybody who<br />
produces, works on and uses data - from<br />
architects to asset managers - and by<br />
the end of the one-day event our guest<br />
speakers will have provided some useful<br />
answers to some important, and timely<br />
COBie concerns. You'll find more<br />
information on the event on page 18 of<br />
this issue.<br />
The use of information features<br />
prominently in one of our software<br />
reviews this issue as well. Bentley's<br />
OpenRoads Designer is a multi-discipline<br />
roadway modeller that combines the<br />
resources and designs of everyone<br />
involved in a project, from the concept<br />
design of a roadway until its actual<br />
construction, in a federated building<br />
model.<br />
Enabling the rerouting of a stretch of<br />
road using the software's modelling<br />
tools, which automatically update the<br />
associated subsurface utilities - i.e.<br />
realigning the drains under the road to<br />
match the new route - relies on the<br />
parameters of each disciplines<br />
component features to be accessible to<br />
the other - the prime purpose of BIM.<br />
OpenRoads Designer takes its use of<br />
the federated model to the extreme. It<br />
can even be used to program<br />
autonomous terrain management<br />
vehicles - graders and bulldozers - that<br />
can model ground levels with incredible<br />
accuracy.<br />
There’s another foretaste of what to<br />
expect from 3DRepo, who use the cloud<br />
together with the latest digital technology<br />
to enable architects, engineers and<br />
contractors to view the building model<br />
and any information associated with it. A<br />
speaker from 3DRepo will be at the event<br />
to open up the exciting vista that is<br />
opening up before us in the construction<br />
industry.<br />
Information also plays a crucial role in<br />
the creation of 'smart cities', which<br />
facilitate the association of data about<br />
the population, environment, transport<br />
facilities and industry with a smart<br />
building model - in some cases, models<br />
that encompass the entire city (viz.<br />
Helsinki 3D and Singapore vying to be<br />
the world’s first truly smart city).<br />
Some will consider such developments<br />
to be sinister and fraught with dangers to<br />
the freedom of the individual. Others with<br />
sunnier dispositions will see it as an<br />
opportunity to use the data obtained to<br />
analyse trends and social activities and<br />
use the results for more realistic urban<br />
planning.<br />
The principal users of the information,<br />
though, are the asset or facility<br />
managers. They are charged with<br />
maintaining the structure throughout its<br />
life - a period considerably in excess of<br />
the time it will have taken to design and<br />
construct it, and representing a much<br />
larger slice of its lifetime costs.<br />
Having access to the information you<br />
will have amassed makes their lives far<br />
easier and reduces maintenance costs,<br />
but it comes with a couple of small<br />
niggles. Who owns the building model,<br />
and who do you turn to if you want to<br />
make modifications to the building? Who<br />
maintains the model over the lifetime of<br />
the building? How should you deliver that<br />
information? Why not come along to the<br />
CAD User COBie Seminar on May 16th in<br />
central London and pose a few more of<br />
your own!<br />
4 March/April 2017