BIM is the acronym of "Building Information Modeling": more precisely, the BIM concerns a model of graphic data and attributes concerning the entire life cycle of the structure, organized as a database. According to BIM, the data relating to a building, from the design phase to the maintenance phase, can be stored, combined and managed in a single digital model. This is a revolutionary concept compared to the simple traditional 3D model. This allows to create interoperable data the designers can deal with using the IFC language, avoiding the loss of information and / or errors due to the different steps and actors. That’s the reason why, nowadays, more and more professionals declare themselves "BIM oriented".
SIMES is BIM Ready
The world of lighting technology is deeply involved in this change. To be ready for this change, SIMES has been working hard for several years on the arrangement of all libraries necessary for the lighting design, in several extensions, including those for SketchUp, Archicad and Revit.
The 3D Model is rich of information, from the simplest ones concerning volume and dimension, to the more complex ones concerning material, appearance, technical characteristics. According to this revolutionary approach, the main role is played from the high quality photometries that come from the internal certified laboratory, which allow to authentically recreate the light effect once introduced into the rendering engine. Managing BIM libraries of luminaires means to manage costs directly from the computation tables, dealing with a detailed list of items and costs that can be updated in real time. Thanks to the new generation we can now design, simulate and control the behavior of light sources to model any type of building.
Design with different detail levels
As previously mentioned, to design buildings and simulate lighting, we can use different software and extensions, which are more or less convenient according to the design phase in which the professional is dealing with. To choose the most performing instrument it may be useful to consider the level of detail required.
Propositive Creative Step
It is the training phase: the designer goes deep in the customer's needs and tries to develop a first draft of the project. The designer is called to focus in listening, understanding and use flexibility in personalization. The customer expresses needs that force the designer to go beyond his own taste and perception, taking note of projections that express the personality of the client, rather than his own. The main concept is IMMEDIACY. The "first sketch of the project" becomes a sort of interchange sheet between the designer and his client and numerous variations can be made, which therefore require an immediate and fast tool. In this planning phase, SketchUp comes to our aid: easy and intuitive, SketchUp allows to make quick changes, until the perfect ideal mediation point between designer and client is reached and the customer is satisfied of the proposed project. The SIMES’ libraries in SketchUp extension are available in our 3D Warehouse, which is well organized to make available all 3D models to lighting designers, with a quick and slim access to the main data such as shape and size of each product, and a faithful simulation of the light.
Executive Planning Step
Once the project is nearly outlined, it must be developed and detailed, in order to elaborate a complete modeling, and produce faithful renderings, to guide the realization step. The technical data are therefore fundamental: a more detailed technical sheet will lead to a fast and clear realization phase. The key word is PRECISION. In this step, the use of the more traditional lighting design tools such as Revit and Archicad can guarantee greater accuracy to the designer's work, as well as greater reliability in the following implementation phase. The SIMES’ libraries are strategically complete with all the photometric data for each product to help the implementation step with the maximum realism in the light simulation and distribution. All libraries are moreover complete with flows and energy consumption.
Video guide to use SIMES product families in Revit and Archicad.
Technical Information Revit
Technical Information Archicad
Casa Magayon, SARCO Architects, Costa Rica, Graphisoft Italia
Casa Magayon, SARCO Architects, Costa Rica, Graphisoft Italia
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Since 1973 Simes has been producing design lamps to illuminate architecture, the garden and the outdoors. Our libraries are all available at the following link. If you need further support for your project, please fill in the form herebelow and we will revert back to you asap.
