ConstructionAdvisorToday

Worldwide Market for CAD in the Civil and Construction Industry Expected to Reach $578 Million by 2015

The global market for computer-aided design (CAD) in the civil and construction industry will total $578 million by 2015, representatives of London-based TechNavio told Construction Project Controls and BIM Report (CPC/BIM) via an email interview. The company foresees a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.05 percent between 2011 and 2015 with vendors Autodesk Inc., Bentley Systems Inc., Dassault Systemes S.A., and Intergraph Corp. dominating the market.

One of the key factors contributing to this market growth is the need for modular infrastructure development, according to TechNavio. “The global CAD market in the civil and construction industry has also been witnessing the development of cloud-based CAD solutions. However, the emerging threat from open-source and pirated CAD software solutions could pose a challenge to the growth of this market.”

Worldwide Market for BIM Software, Services Expected to Boom over the Next Eight Years

Expect the global market for building information modeling (BIM) software and services to soar over the next eight years, more than tripling over that period, according to a report that Pike Research recently released. The Boulder, Colo.-based research firm believes that annual worldwide revenue for BIM products and services solutions will rise from about $1.8 billion this year to nearly $6.5 billion in 2020.

Relatively strong growth is expected for the next several years in those regions of the world where BIM adoption has taken hold, including North America, Western Europe, and the Asia Pacific. Although North America and Western Europe are leading the market, Pike foresees a higher rate of growth in the Asia Pacific region. “Much of this is due to the fact that the Asia Pacific region has a large building stock as well as a significant amount of building and construction taking place.

No Pilot Project Considered Perfect by VDC/BIM Scorecard Standards

Washington, D.C. -- Of 28 projects evaluated for their implementation of VDC (virtual design and construction)/BIM, how many achieved a perfect rating under the standards of the VDC/BIM Scorecard? Zero, reported Calvin Kam, a consulting assistant professor at Stanford University. He revealed this finding at the AIA (American Institute of Architects) 2012 National Convention and Design Exposition late last month.

BuildingSMART Alliance Executive Director Outlines Timetable for NBIMS-US Version 3

Washington, D.C. -- On the heels of formally unveiling National Building Information Modeling Standard -- United States Version 2 (NBIMS-US V2), buildingSMART alliance (bSa) Executive Director Dana Smith has provided Construction Project Controls and BIM Report (CPC/BIM) details about the organization’s plans for Version 3. During the exclusive interview, conducted last week at the AIA (American Institute of Architects) 2012 National Convention and Design Exposition, he also discussed central funding for BIM in the U.S. and adoption of NBIMS abroad. Here is a transcript of the interview as well as other news coming out of the conference:

Open Geospatial Consortium Adopts CityGML Encoding Standard Version 2.0

The Open Geospatial Consortium’s (OGC) membership has adopted a new version of the OGC City Geography Markup Language (CityGML) Encoding Standard. CityGML is a community-defined information model and XML-based encoding for the representation, storage, and exchange of virtual 3D city and landscape models. CityGML is designed to provide a standard model and mechanism for describing 3D objects regarding their geometry, topology, semantics, and appearance and defines five different levels of detail. CityGML is considered highly scalable, and datasets can include different urban entities supporting the general trend toward modeling individual buildings, whole sites, districts, cities, regions, and countries.

Expert Sees 4D, 5D BIM ‘Taking Off’

Expect the use of 4D and 5D building information modeling (BIM) technology to flourish in the future, Turner Construction’s Treighton Mauldin told a group of construction professionals attending a webinar that WPL Publishing held April 17. He sees 4D, which addresses scheduling, and 5D, which involves estimating, “taking off because they bring all of the aspects of a plan, an estimate, a model, and a schedule into one environment that can be easily monitored and managed and communicated to the rest of the team, which is a huge benefit, and it really starts to eliminate errors in communication, miscommunication, and, in the end, makes people more money.”

Report on BIM Profitability, Market Trends Released

About two in every five contractors and project developers responding to a recent survey said they expect to see an increase in profitability over the year due to the use of building information modeling (BIM) applications. The finding is included in a new 114-page report, entitled “Building Information Modeling in the Global Construction Industry 2012: Implementation and Market Trends, Profitability and Budget Forecasts in the Global Construction Industry,” released by World Market Intelligence.

BuildingSMART, Others Launch Global Effort to Promote Open BIM Collaboration Workflows

BuildingSMART International and several industry partners have launched a worldwide initiative to help promote open building information modeling (BIM) collaboration workflows throughout the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry. BuildingSMART described open BIM as a "universal approach to the collaborative design, realization, and operation of buildings based on open standards and workflows." Partners in the new endeavor include Nemetschek Group, Tekla, and other software vendors.

Will Legal Issues Impede Building Information Modeling’s Growth?

Will legal issues impede the advancement of building information modeling (BIM)? “They certainly will,” Michael Vardaro, a partner at Zetlin & De Chiara LLP, told construction professionals attending a webinar that WPL Publishing held March 14. “I say that only because lawyers are very skeptical about doing something new. Lawyers, I think, are certainly one of the obstacles to the implementation of BIM. But, as with everybody else, lawyers will come around, and I know that there are a bunch of lawyers out there who are doing a great job in really pushing BIM, and I think that at some point we will get past the obstacles that are holding back BIM -- one of them [being] that building departments typically don’t accept submissions -- and once we do that, I think BIM will be off to the races.”

AGC Reports Huge Increase in BIM Use

Use of building information modeling (BIM) has skyrocketed among those construction professionals that Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) has been surveying. Firms reported using BIM technology in 35 percent of their projects last year, up from 8 percent in 2010. More than 1,300 firms, primarily from among the 20,000 general contractor or specialty subcontractor members of AGC, completed the most recent survey, which Computer Guidance Corp. helped conduct over the final three weeks of 2011.