Overview

BIM projects become more valuable to to the processes of design, documentation, construction and facilities management when they expand beyond simple geometric models and embrace data modelling. Metadata like properties and classifications, for example, enable relatively simple objects to play a wide variety of roles with no ambiguity. This is particularly true for costing. Even if it was possible for cost to be calculated exclusively from BIM element geometry, the effort involved would be prohibitive.

For example, properties enable a single chair object to represent a wide variety of products from different manufacturers. The key is to carry this information in the object metadata. However, this places a heavier burden on the BIM modelling and QA checking processes. Errors or omissions could result in serious cost or scheduling miscalculations.

The Metadata add-on has been designed to help avoid these problems at every stage of the modelling process, providing interactive viewing and editing facilities for managing element properties and classifications.

The standard ARCHICAD Settings dialog and Info palette can be ineffective for a variety or reasons:

• Variations between selected elements cannot be seen;

• Different element types cannot be edited simultaneously;

• Discrete property value selections cannot be easily transferred between elements.

The Metadata palette is explicitly designed to target these issues, enabling:

• Unexpected variations to be quickly identified and remedied to a fine level of detail.

• Metadata viewing and editing for multiple elements, even when they are of differing types.

• Extraction and insertion of selected property values across any number of elements.