LOD Specification for BIM, ArchiCAD 17, and the ProjectWise-Vault Survey

In 2008, Jim Bedrick published an article in AECbytes in which he introduced the concept of LOD. At that time, the acronym stood for “Level of Detail.” Since then, a lot of work has gone into the LOD framework by organizations including the the AIA California Council IPD committee, the AIA Contract Documents Committee, and the AGC’s BIMForum. The concept has evolved into “Level of Development” and it is discussed in depth by Jim Bedrick in a new article, "A Level of Development Specification for BIM Processes." The LOD Specification allows both interim and final models to be fully and clearly defined. For any BIM effort, this enables the generation of higher value deliverables, avoidance of unnecessary modeling effort, vastly improved planning and tracking, accurate and fair scoping and pricing of modeling effort, more reliable models, and the ability to leverage models for more purposes, all leading to improved efficiency and significant cost savings.

We will also look at the latest release of ArchiCAD, version 17, from Graphisoft, which has just been released. It delivers capabilities that simplify the modeling and documentation of buildings even when the model contains a high level of detail, with features such as Priority Based Connections, together with Intelligent Building Materials, that automatically provide structurally correct sections and details; background processing support for faster generation of complex model details; extended IFC Model View Definitions to support national standards; access to more high-quality BIM obejcts; and a several workflow improvements for integrated design, visualization and analysis.

And finally, many thanks to all those who responded to the AECbytes survey on Bentley ProjectWise and Autodesk Vault Collaboration AEC. The results of the survey will be published in a dedicated article this month, and will also be part of a larger research report that compares these two leading applications for data management and collaboration in AEC.

Lachmi Khemlani, Ph.D.
Founder and Editor, AECbytes

May 2013