07.04.2017 Views

CU1703

Create successful ePaper yourself

Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.

COMMENT<br />

Editor:<br />

David Chadwick<br />

(cad.user@btc.co.uk)<br />

News Editor:<br />

Mark Lyward<br />

(mark.lyward@btc.co.uk)<br />

Advertising Sales:<br />

Josh Boulton<br />

(josh.boulton@btc.co.uk)<br />

Production Manager:<br />

Abby Penn<br />

(abby.penn@btc.co.uk)<br />

Design/Layout:<br />

Ian Collis<br />

ian.collis@btc.co.uk<br />

Circulation/Subscriptions:<br />

Christina Willis<br />

(christina.willis@btc.co.uk)<br />

Publisher:<br />

John Jageurs<br />

john.jageurs@btc.co.uk<br />

Published by Barrow &<br />

Thompkins Connexion Ltd.<br />

35 Station Square, Petts Wood,<br />

Kent BR5 1LZ<br />

Tel: +44 (0) 1689 616 000<br />

Fax: +44 (0) 1689 82 66 22<br />

SUBSCRIPTIONS:<br />

UK £35/year, £60/two years,<br />

£80/three years;<br />

Europe:<br />

£48/year, £85 two years,<br />

£127/three years;<br />

R.O.W. £62/year<br />

£115/two years, £168/three years.<br />

Single copies can be bought for £8.50<br />

(includes postage & packaging).<br />

Published 6 times a year.<br />

© 2017 Barrow & Thompkins<br />

Connexion Ltd.<br />

All rights reserved.<br />

No part of the magazine may be<br />

reproduced, without prior consent<br />

in writing, from the publisher<br />

For more magazines from BTC, please visit:<br />

www.btc.co.uk<br />

Articles published reflect the opinions of<br />

the authors and are not necessarily those<br />

of the publisher or his employees. While<br />

every reasonable effort is made to ensure<br />

that the contents of editorial and advertising<br />

are accurate, no responsibility can be<br />

accepted by the publisher for errors, misrepresentations<br />

or any resulting effects<br />

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

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!