Hello BIMfans,
As promised, after last week’s post about my Architectural model, I have resolved all the additional comments you have provided (Thank you).  This means that my information is ready to be formally shared, completing Plain Language Question 2.5.

Once again, a big thank you to everyone who took the time to review my project outputs.  All of your comments have been very constructive and have led to a better, and more compliant project; so thank you.  Right, let’s see that I have resolved this week:

Property Sets:

I was told that within my IFC files, I had not grouped my properties under the correct property sets.  To check this, I consulted the NBIMS COBie Responsibility Matrix, and the IFC 2×3 Schema.  When doing so, I found that I had indeed not grouped my properties correctly.  Luckily for me, this was a pretty quick fix as the property sets are controlled by the Property Set Definition Text File that I used when exportting.  I also had a few properties that didn’t fit into any property sets, such as the FensaCertID for my windows, so I created my own property set called ‘Addition_Pset_Custom’.  Note:  Revit can’t do property grouping, so this can only be seen within my IFC file.

Credit: Rob Jackson (@BondBryanBIM) of Bond Bryan Digital.

Default COBie Values:

I was told that some of the default values I had used in my COBie file were not correct.  Once again I referred to the NBIMS COBie Responsibility Matrix and found that some of my default values where indeed not compliant.  To be perfectly honest, I took the easy road any defaulted any values I didn’t know to ‘n/a‘, not applicable.  However, n/a isn’t always suitable, as it breaks the formatting of a number of fields.  For example, all elements should have an installation date and if the date isn’t known it should default to ‘1900-12-31T23:59:59‘. My house was built around then, so it’ll confuse matters for items I know were built later than that, but that’s the rule!

Credit:  Dan Mofakham of Cadan Design.

Drawing Annotations:

I was also noted that I hadn’t put any section or elevation annotations on my drawing sheets.  The reason for this is typically when using Revit , the BS 1192 file name is used as the sheet number, this helps locate the file when exporting, however, if do this your section head looks something like this…

Luckily for me, I have a solution; it relies on the fact that the file name isn’t the sheet number.  Those of you who read Drawing to Conclusions will have noticed that ISO 7200 requires a sheet number; however this sheet number isn’t the file name, it is a single number showing its place in the package being issued.

Now BS 8541-2 specifically states sheet number; not the file name.  So as I used both of these standards in tandem, I have a similar convention on my title block to get the following block and section head.

Note: I know A LOT of you will dislike this; tough.

Credit:  Me!

And there we have it.  Thanks to the continued support of this wonderfully open community, I have been provided with a myriad of comments to improve the deliverables within my information model.  The Architectural, Mechanical, and Electrical Native, IFC, and COBie files have all now been issued.  This means that PLQ2.5 is finally complete; Woohoo!

Model Generation:
2.1 What existing information is available?
2.2 Is there sufficient information to produce a BEP?
2.3 What is the layout of the house?
2.4 What assets are contained within?
2.5 What asset information can be linked to the graphical model?

Now that I have finished my model generation Plain Language Questions, let’s reflect on this year…

Note:  If you have any comments regarding my information model or how I have resolved these issues, then please let me know either on Twitter, or by commenting below.