Promoted content: Building Information Modeling is More than Software

It is 2018, and it should be clear to everyone in the AEC business that BIM is the future of building and infrastructure design, construction and maintenance. There are millions of dollars of marketing money spent by BIM software companies each year, trying to convince you that Building Information Modeling can’t happen without their product. They will try to convince you that their product is the only “real BIM”. Of course, we live in an open, capitalist society. This behaviour is expected. If you and your firm are making the move to BIM, this background noise may be concerning. If it’s not, it should be.

In the first paragraph of the Wikipedia entry on Building Information Modeling, the statement is made that building information models are files that are “...often but not always in proprietary formats and containing proprietary data…”. This is troubling to some. This is understandable, of course. If your BIM software solution becomes inaccessible for any reason, your work is captive. For many, this is unacceptable and prevents them from moving forward to the power of BIM.