Driving BIM Forward: Pioneering Object Data Linking on a U.K. Highway Project

The U.K. government has mandated that all government-funded projects must be delivered to Level 2 Building Information Modeling (BIM) by 2016. In a breakout from U.K. convention, companies have used AutoCAD Civil 3D software as the highway design tool for the Building Information Modeling (BIM) model and Revit software and Structural Bridge Design software for the major bridge structures. While 3D BIM models have been around for many years, there usually has not been any attendant data attached (beyond the inherent geometry) to models generated from AutoCAD Civil 3D software. We will discuss various strategies and methods for creating additional asset data in AutoCAD Civil 3D, and propose and demonstrate a method of attaching additional data to the BIM model and linking this to both the AutoCAD Civil 3D software entities and the Navisworks objects for Field BIM software. As part of this process, we will also discuss how Civil 3D objects may be used to represent real-world assets in the BIM model. Finally we will explore the result of customisation using .NET plug-ins to Civil 3D to further enhance the ability to link data to the BIM model.