SmartBIM from Reed Construction Aims to Enhance Revit User Experience

by Heather Livingston
Contributing Editor

Summary: At the start of the AIA Convention in Boston in May, Reed Construction Data Inc. announced the release of its new SmartBIM product for AEC. With the launch of SmartBIM, Reed is seeking to enhance the Autodesk™ Revit™ user experience through its comprehensive object-organization solution, SmartBIM Library; provide high-quality parametric BIM objects with SmartBIM Objects; and enhance the user’s ability to value a project with the RS Means Quick Cost Estimator.

“We are taking 3D design to the next level by combining high-quality objects and powerful software tools with RS Means Cost Data,” says Iain Melville, CEO, Reed Construction Data. “The movement into 3D design has led to a number of advancements, including greater design and change-order flexibility, enhanced project delivery through better collaboration, and more cost-efficient and safer designs. SmartBIM addresses the challenges and opportunities that this new technology presents.”

A companion product to Revit, SmartBIM can be downloaded into the Revit toolbar. “It’s incorporated fully into the architectural workflow, but it doesn’t operate within Revit,” explains Melville. “It operates outside Revit, and that’s quite important because Revit is a very heavy user of memory and computer power. When you work with our library manager you effectively export your Revit content into the library manager. You retain all the visualization aspects, but you can work with our objects and work much more quickly because it’s sitting outside of the Revit environment.”

SmartBIM Library
The SmartBIM Library aims to improve content management by allowing design firms to organize, manage, and locate BIM content more easily and intuitively. It also allows users to generate libraries from data and objects that they currently use and drag and drop objects directly into Revit models. The product comes with a default library of Reed-developed content, but subscribers have the ability to create and view new libraries. Users could, for example, create a master office library, a library for each project, or a library for each building type. After selecting a library, users can find Revit Families hierarchically by category and type, through 3D visualization of thumbnails and DWF views, and by searching and inspecting property sets. Upon selection, users can drag-and-drop a family into a Revit project or save it to a directory folder.

Subscribers also can view guidelines that describe best practices for modeling on the Revit platform. The guidelines include basic modeling advice for each Revit type (door, window, etc.), recommend family and type name conventions, and offer tips and tricks of modeling for “count ability” as well as design representation.

SmartBIM Objects
SmartBIM Objects for building product manufacturers (BPMs) are high quality, need-specific, and reusable objects designed to simulate the actual product and embed critical product data and specifications in the Revit model. According to Melville, the release at the convention contained 800 SmartBIM objects within the library manager representing various models and assemblies. The latest count, he says, is about 14,000 generic and custom objects that will be made available to library manager users. “By providing the objects and the library manager, we’re allowing the architect to retain productivity because they can build the models quickly using our objects, keep them within the library manager, and then move on to being able to do all of the analysis phase that goes beyond that.”

RS Means
SmartBIM objects also will be able to link directly to RS Means data for costing and other analyses. The RS Means Quick Cost Estimator will instantly calculate the estimated value of a project specific to its location. Means data will be integrated with all SmartBIM applications and offer unique data for user models. Eventually, SmartBIM will contain sustainability information to help architects move beyond visualization into analyzing performance.

One of the major distinctions between SmartBIM and other companion products is that SmartBIM is not focused on visualization, believes Melville. “This isn’t just about how the things look,” he says. “It’s really about the data that sit behind that visualization so you understand all of the products and objects that have been used within the Revit model that you’re working on. You have all of the key parametric data sets that sit behind that and all of the links down to the manufacturer Web sites or back to RS Means for cost data.”