I recently spent the day at the RICS BIM event at the Cavendish Conference Centre, An amazing Venue if anyone needs a quirky little venue for 200 odd people. During the opening remarks it was stated how much bigger the RICS event was this year compared to last. An increase from 10 to 200 in a year just goes to shows how much interest there is in this “new” system. I say new as it only really seems to be new in the building world other industries have been doing this for years, Car manufacturing, Aerospace and petrochemical.

First up was Paul Morrell OBE, I’m sure there were others including myself that were expecting a presentation from the government full of facts and figures. What we got was an amazing presentation full of humour and a very pragmatic and sensible approach to BIM from a government perspective. With a time scale of achieving a Level 2 BIM for Government contracts by 2016 not only sounded sensible but wholly achievable. Yes there will be standards but also flexibility to the approach so lessons can be learned along the way.

After Simon Rawlinson from EC Harries LLP gave us an insight to the world of BIM from a Quantity Surveyors point of view which clearly showed how current software will not replace the profession and how overloading the system with too much information is just as bad as having none, then came Paul Fletcher.

Paul the Co-founder of Through Architects had been busy working on his IPad throughout the first session, and to great effect. A passionate and punchy presentation drawing on points raised earlier. Including Cat’s and Cup’s.

After lunch the highlight was a great presentation by Dr Chris Millard, head of system integration for Balfour Beatty Construction. His presentation was full of real world examples where the use of survey grade Laser scanners were used on a daily bases for everything from the Fire damage on the M1 to work on the M25 and Heathrow terminals. He spoke about how the use of this highly accurate scan data was crucial to the integrity of their BIM models.

What struck me was just how much a company like Leica Geosystems is involved throughout the BIM process. From the 3D Topo survey of a brown field site used to sit a new design on. Machine control taking the design surface and doing the cut and fill straight from the model. Laser scanners for full as-built documentation. Cloudworx to create BIM ready models in packages like Revit. TPS and GPS setting out the design or monitoring the construction. Even Disto’s 3D Disto’s Linos setting out the stud work walls or placing the lighting. But there seems to be something missing, This may be the last stage in the creation of a Stage 3 BIM process and this is that most of the above are a one way system we take information out of the model but don’t really put back what has been done. With the increase in clever software and open formats this will be the killer app in the coming years.