How "Smart" can a detail be?

As with any two people there are different types of "intelligence". There is the "out-of-the-box" intelligence that Revit comes with, and the "think-outside-the-box" value added intelligence developers and users bring to the table. I'm not knocking out-of-the-box standard intelligence, I'm simply exploiting one of the built in but lesser used options already available in Revit. And making it's usefulness more widely available in addition to keeping the standard stuff.

Recently a BIM manager exploring the possible use of the ARCxl detail library offered me some advice: if we want to be successful, we should dump our "dummy tag" annotations in favor of "intelligent identity information". He went on to explain that the "I" in BIM stands for "information".

As an architect and early BIM adopter, a University Revit/BIM instructor, an invited AIA/CSI presenter and panelist, the recipient of a "Visionary Award" for  work in BIM, I'm familiar with what the BIM acronym stands for.  The suggestion that I didn't know that the "I" stands for "Information" kind of ticked-me-off. But even if the product is free, the customer's always right, right? And I am always inviting comment, so it's a little hypocritical to complain about his sharing a perception if I asked for it. If this perception is shared by others it deserves attention.

There was also a blogger in Denmark that went even further suggesting that we didn't understand BIM at all because we were making 2-d details. Anyone might reasonably come to the same conclusion based on the fact that seemingly no one else is doing what ARCxl is, while everyone and their mother are building 3-d (and 2-d) component families. It's not because we don't know how or why. I've been 3-d modeling since 1991. Seeing the benefits led me to programs like DataCad, Archicad, and Revit in the first place.

Side note: anyone that thinks BIM is only about 3-d modeling needs to read "BIG BIM little bim" by Finith Jernigan. It's much more than Revit, the third, fourth and fifth dimensions, or access to keynotes. I'll elaborate on our planned contributions to these other dimensions below and in future blog postings. Yea I know, you might be thinking, with a name like Finith Jernigan, maybe he was the guy from Denmark dissing your details? I happen to know that he practices architecture and writes in Maryland. I can't say if he approves of our details.

When I hear that a firm is switching to Revit and then I hear it was a false start, it is invariably followed by.... "but you can't do details in Revit". With our own 40,000 and growing completed architectural detail library, I think we've proven otherwise. But their concerns are well documented as evidenced by all the AUGI threads and blogs devoted to the many "troubles" detailing in Revit. More to the point, with all the fuss over this real or imagined "trouble" it is clear there is still the need for architectural details or the issue would be moot.

So this answers the guy in Denmark, but what about the BIM manager who called our annotations "dumb"? He's at least partly right - we purposely did not include identity data knowing we could (and probably would) add it later, but at any time so could he. And is it really such a big deal to fill in the keynotes data and do it the way you want if you're going to have to do it anyway when building details from scratch? 


Important Note: with ARCxl details you must first import them into a project file before they know where to find your keynotes .txt file. If you don't do this you'll get an error message.

From a practical stand-point there are limits to what kind of identity data makes sense with a detail component. Without going into each, the only strong case belongs to the "keynotes" category.

And every firm will have their keynoting preferences. When I started laying the groundwork for ARCxl, Revit did not yet include a keynote .txt file for MasterFormat 04 and I thought we should be up to date. Additionally, I've counted 22 different possible keynote codes in the standard Revit keynote txt file to represent a 2x6. So which one should we include with our 2x6 component section? 06 11 00 - Wood Framing? 06 11 00.F1 - 2x6? 06 11 00.F2 - 2x6 Framing? 06 11 00.F8 - 2x6 Studs 24" O.C.? Or any one of the 18 others? See the problem? No one fits all, or its so generic as to be nearly useless, ultimately leaving the proper choice up to the individual user. So is it better for us to guess incorrectly at your preferences or not risk the error and have you make the determination?

Faced with no good or clear choice the decision was made to choose another path altogether, perhaps not well understood by everyone, but very obvious to others. We have left Revit users the option of deciding the keynotes that serve their use best, and replacing our "dumb" annotations if they like. Hyperlinks are not supported by keynotes.

Ours do contain "Information" in the form of these hyperlinks to product manufactures, specification pages (future), help files, and others as well as already being coordinated with the component they point to and a proper spec section MasterFormat ID. There is an ARCxl annotation family available that contains all section annotations that can be edited by the end user with some care.

Yes there are limitations to details and detail components. And 3-d BIM components serve a needed purpose as do these 2-d completed details. But what is the answer to how smart can a detail be?  If it's now practical and profitable to switch from CAD to BIM, if its flexible enough to allow your office standard keynotes and/or MasterFormat 04 annotations with hyperlinks to building product information, if it takes a fraction of the time to download and modify opposed to building from scratch or locating in your office detail library, or trying to convert from or link to AutoCAD details, if it brought you to the doorstep of a company that wants to help architects start to win back lost financial ground, it might not qualify as genius, but it aint exactly "dumb" either.  Compared to CAD details, relatively speaking ARCxl Revit built details are "an Einstein".