Caleffi North America has updated all of our Building Information Modeling (BIM) files to the 2021 Revit® file protocol. You can access our full library of individual products, product kits and full system schematics here.
Taking a step back, how do we know how to make BIM files better and what to update? Some things are simple to update. If additional connection types or sizes are required, the BIM file must be updated. However, there is a deeper analysis to be done. That is where we lean on the experts. Our key contact is Jisell Howe with ENGworks Global. If that name sounds familiar, she was a guest on Coffee with Caleffi™ webinar in 2023, titled Prefabrication Trends to Optimize Construction Timelines with BIM.
Specifically, here are some of the BIM file attributes necessary to make files useful, while staying close to a 1.5MB target file size. Each file should incorporate important features related to: geometry, functionality, management, user experience, and product data.
In a BIM environment, you don’t need to see every bolt and washer required to build that product. That level of detail is often seen in BIM files that began as CAD production files and were migrated over to Revit. These production files can be unstable and difficult to use for Revit design. We provide the BIM details that are most important for designers, so we don’t bloat the project or cause confusion with non-critical information.
To best benchmark the functionality of our BIM files, we use BIMspector Premium analytic services. These user-data-driven analytics lead to many upgrades and continuous improvement efforts across our entire BIM library.
For more information about BIM files, here is an ENGworks Global blog post, titled Visualizing BIM Content Quality and Its Impacts.
- Woody Dickinson, Technical Marketing Manager
