Solibri BIM Tools
Solibri,
Inc. was established in 1999 to develop and market solutions that improve the
quality of Building Information Models (BIMs) and make the entire design
process more productive. Their global customer base includes many building
owners, construction companies, architects and engineers. In the past few
years, Solibri has emerged as a world leader in developing BIM
software. Based in
Solibri Model Checker™
Work Processes in the Construction
Industry are Changing
There is increasing pressure to find more productive ways for sharing information and knowledge through the entire lifecycle of the building, including design, procurement, building, and facilities management processes. Several studies and reports indicate that billions of dollars are wasted every year using legacy design, construction, and operations processes.
Building Information Modeling (BIM)
Building Information Modeling (BIM) is widely seen as the answer when striving for improved information sharing and higher productivity. As building owners in several countries have started to require delivery of BIM models, construction companies and building designers face a new challenge: How to provide all this information efficiently without compromising information quality?
Solibri Model Checker™ was developed to help organizations to adopt BIM faster, easier and with a lower risk. By checking the design model for flaws and analyzing its integrity, Solibri Model Checker (SMC) automates this time-consuming task, saves time and money, and improves the quality of the design process and BIM delivery.
Solibri Finds Problems and Helps to Correct Them
Solibri Model Checker analyzes the building model and reveals potential problems, It can also be used to highlight clashing components and check conformance to BIM standard - be they national, client driven, or even an organization’s own best practices. The building design can easily be checked after every revision with a single click of a mouse. SMC also includes easy-to-use, high performance 3D visualization and intuitive walk-in functionality.
SMC highlights potential problems in the 3D model with highlight colors and explains each finding. A prioritized issue list is generated automatically, and users can add resolution comments to each during review. Issues can then be reported in PDF, RTF, and XML formats. Finally, users can resolved these issues using the Solibri Issue Locator, which loads the issue list directly in the BIM Authoring application. The result is a streamlined process for finding and resolving problems in the building model - ensuring the highest level of quality and accuracy with minimal time and cost.
Dynamic Slide Presentations
Once a building model has been checked and reviewed, a slide presentation can be made to annotate design features, highlight design elements to facilitate discussion, or simply communicate design issues. Never before has solving and communicating design problems been so easy!
Compatible With All Major Design Software
The International Alliance for Interoperability (IAI) developed an open, international standard for exchange of Building Information Models called the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC). This standard is supported by all major BIM capable design software, plus many other applications capable of using such building models. SMC is certified by the IAI for correctly supporting all versions of the IFC standard and is used daily to import Building Information Models from all major design applications. This means SMC can be used to analyze BIMs created using Autodesk’s ADT, Graphisoft’s ArchiCAD, Bentley’s Architecture, Autodesk’s Revit, Microsoft’s Visio, and all other design applications that can generate IFC BIMs.
Design Coordination between Versions and Domains
SMC can import and show several IFC files at the same time (e.g. models from architect, structural engineer, and mechanical engineer). Design version comparison rules are also available that highlight the changes between two different versions of the same design. SMC can even verify that elements in a structural model are in same location with the intended locations in the architectural design.
SMC’s clash detection feature organizes the findings using components’ design domain and type, and severity of the clash. In one glance the user can see, for example, all building services components intersecting with a slab, or similar wall intersections in different building floors.
Solibri Model Checker Transforms Your Work into BIM!
Solibri Model Checker is delivered with a comprehensive set of general purpose BIM checking rule sets, but users can also create their own, company specific rules regarding. Examples created by existing users include: checking component types, classification, and escape route distances.
SMC can be used by:
· Building owners evaluating proposed design alternatives
· Building owners and facility managers checking design proposals against BIM guidelines, program requirements, cost and energy budgets, and security requirements
· Architects checking model integrity and completeness before sending designs to their clients
· Structural engineers checking their design for consistency with architect’s design
· MEP engineers looking to optimize duct/pipe routing and avoid clashes with other elements
· Design teams cross-checking their designs by merging models into one environment
· Construction companies checking that building models have valid and sufficient data to support cost estimating, scheduling and project planning
· Facility managers evaluating material life-cycle costs and maintainability
Automated Space Validation and Quantity
Take off
SMC is also able to automate validation of the spaces in a building design, relative to the original space program and provides sufficient information to support quantity take off. This feature enables building owners to evaluate design performance relative to the original program requirements.
Advanced Security Analysis
SMC’s built-in functionality streamlines security related analysis. The system uses a sophisticated algorithm to identify all alternative escape routes, calculate their length and mark them in the 3D model. It can also analyze fire zones and security compartments, providing a secure method of ensuring that safety criteria have been met.
Solibri Issue Locator™
Locating Design Issues in the Original CAD
Environment Saves Time & Money
Solibri Issue Locator lets a CAD user access the issue list directly in the CAD tool. This streamlines fixing of the model and saves labor and cost. With improved integration of analysis and design tools, Solibri supports closed-loop design process and improves the overall productivity of the design process. Solibri Issue Locator is currently supported in AutoDesk Architectural Desktop (ADT) and Graphisoft ArchiCAD environments
Solibri IFC Optimizer™
Challenges
Data storage costs increase as the amount of information grows. Increased collaboration and regulatory requirements to save data also drive these costs. The most commonly used IFC exchange format is inefficient, from a data space point of view. The size of building models range from few megabytes to hundreds of megabytes.
Solution
Solibri IFC Optimizer is the ultimate tool for optimizing IFC files. It removes all redundancy from the IFC model. This optimization is lossless and the size of the resulting file is normally 5-10% of the original.
While pure compression (zip) yields reductions of 70-80%, the typical loading (IFC import) time does not change. With Solibri IFC Optimizer the file is not only smaller, but it typically load in 1/5th the time of the original. Of course, actual ratios depend on the level of redundancy in the original file.
These numbers were averages from measurements for an office building modeled with Autodesk ADT, Autodesk Revit, Graphisoft Archicad, and Bentley Architecture and exported in IFC format.
Solibri IFC Optimizer is free software. Java Webstart technology allows you to use Solibri IFC Optimizer in almost any operating system from anywhere without stand alone installation.
Benefits of Optimized IFC Files
· Suitable model size for email attachments
· Smaller loading times in IFC applications
· Smaller memory consumption in IFC applications
· Lower data storage costs