In modern engineering practice, most professionals select and purchase BIM modeling software based on the description provided by American scholar Chuck Eastman in his book, BIM Handbook. Eastman and his colleagues identify Revit, ArchiCAD, and similar tools as the primary BIM modeling software on the market.
These commercial software providers face two main challenges. First, limited technical resources and capital investments prevent them from developing a perfectly ideal BIM modeling solution. Second, they continuously expand their software capabilities to better satisfy customer demands, which makes it difficult to classify these tools strictly as product model creation, process management, or control layers within the BIM system.
In reality, current BIM modeling software spans all three layers defined in the BIM framework and shares several common characteristics:
- They can create digital building models. However, the information included is often incomplete, and extracting and utilizing the data efficiently remains a challenge.
- They offer analysis and calculation capabilities. Yet, these functions are limited in scope and weaker compared to specialized analytical software.
- They support data input and output based on open standards, though the exported data is not always easily or quickly usable by other programs, and the software struggles to keep pace with the latest open standards.
Therefore, both BIM modeling software and the underlying BIM theoretical system are still evolving. We can expect significant changes in the software and the surrounding industry ecosystem in the coming years. Despite their current immaturity, these tools and their implementation frameworks already hold tremendous value and a promising future. BIM modeling software represents a major breakthrough in both technology and theory.
This article is sourced from the WeChat official account of Huazhu Building Science Research Institute.
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