Masonry Magazine July 2008 Page. 40
TECHNOLOGY
# BIM: Revamping an Industry
Though the technology has been in place for some time, use of Building Information Modeling (BIM) is quickly gaining in popularity and promises to change the construction, engineering and architecture industries forever.
By K.K. Snyder
BUILDING INFORMATION MODELING, OR BIM, allows all parties involved in a building project to simultaneously create one 3-D computerized model of an entire building before the first bulldozer of dirt is ever moved. The result is a digital model that includes both the physical and functional aspects of a new building.
Chuck Eastman, professor of both architecture and computing, as well as director of the Ph.D. program in the College of Architecture at Georgia Tech, says the technology used by BIM is similar to that used for the last 10 years at the fabrication level by steel, piping and other specialty sectors of the construction industry.