Evaluation of interoperability between software used

Once all different levels of interoperability between used software were analyzed, it’s possible to evaluate it by adding a value or grade for each case. For this, 4 different grades will be considered as shown in the next table.

Table 18. Interoperability evaluation grades

As it can be seen, the interoperability will be evaluated with 4 different ways. First a good interoperability between two software will be marked with a green cross. Then, a medium level of interoperability will be marked with a yellow cross. For the case of software that didn’t have any level of interoperability or it was very low, a red x will be graded. Finally, there are software that didn’t interact during the BIM methodology, for these, it will not be considered any grade, just a line as it’s shown in last table.

Now, the interoperability of the BIM project will be evaluated in the table shown next, where it will be analyzing each relation between the different software.

Table 19. Interoperability between software

The table just presented contains the evaluation of level of interoperability between the several software that were used during the BIM methodology of the present pedestrian bridge project.

In this evaluation it’s represented graphically the description made before about the relation between the couple of software. As it was expected, the software that are from the same family (Autodesk or ACCA) have a perfect level of interoperability, specially, compared with the relation between those who don’t.

It can be said that Revit was the central software of the BIM methodology, as in there were managed the architectural and the executive design. For this case, it can be seen how the model in Revit had a good level of interoperability with the other Autodesk software as Navisworks and AutoCAD and also with other software from different families. This condition, may indicate that as Revit has the potential of being a good software to manage central models of the BIM methodology, other companies have been trying to create a good links to import the models or information from it.

SketchUp is a good example of what it was just explained. During the development of the model in this software, it could be seen how the model could be exported easily to other software as Revit, AutoCAD and Lumion. However, it’s important to mention that for this case, the software only had a good level of interoperability with design or model software and not with software that manage structural models or the project management.

For the case of SAP2000, it needs to be clear that this is a software dedicated purely to the structural design and algo the earthquake considerations. Then, the interoperability with other software from different families was not good. As it was mentioned several times, once the structural design was completely performed, the elements (IPE sections) had to be changed.

For this, it was necessary to redrawn manually in the Revit model and exported again to other models as SketchUp, representing a bad efficiency in the BIM methodology process.

Continuing with the software used for the structural analysis, it can be said that IdeaStatica didn’t reach a good level of interoperability with other software. For the case of Revit, it was explained that the connections created in the model were not completely recognized by IdeaStatica. However, it’s important to mention that the existence of Plugins helped to make an efficient work between the 3D model and the evaluation of connections that was performed.

This evaluation of connection needed also the use of SAP2000 results from the structural analysis. As explained before, also this work wasn’t efficient as was necessary to take manually the values of bending moment, shear and axial forces, meaning a increase of time spent in the model.

Microsoft Project and Navisworks are software dedicated entirely to the project management phase of the BIM methodology, as it’s known, both tools are from different families of software.

However, they present a good level of interoperability, where also is possible to import and export the models without any plugins or extensions. This level of interoperability was not expected; however, it means that this two software are commonly used together in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry for project management phase of buildings and constructions.

For the case of the estimation of costs, Primus didn’t present a good level of interoperability with other software. As it was mentioned before, the model in Revit can be exported to Primus but first it must be exported to other ACCA family software called Edificius. Then, even by doing this process, the estimation of cost it’s not an efficiency step of the BIM methodology, taking into account that it’s needed to input manually several cost of activities that are not present in a 3D model as the one from Revit.

After some research, it wasn’t possible to find any good examples of tools that allows a good level of interoperability for the estimation of cost of the BIM methodology. For instance, between Navisworks and Microsoft Project can be managed the cost estimation process of a project. However, it’s important to mention that still many costs of activities will need to input manually the data about costs. In this part, Primus presents an advantage comparing with other software, as it was possible to directly link the data from the Prezzario della Regione di Piemonte. This possibility allowed an efficiency in the estimation of costs process, as it was possible to assign the descriptions and costs directly to all different activities that were part of the construction of the pedestrian bridge.

Finally, it could be seen how the 3D model, render and VR software as Revit, SketchUp and Lumion had a good level of interoperability. As the example of project management, for this point of the thesis, it was possible to import and export the files directly without the necessity of any plugins. This means also that the software used in thesis are commonly used together in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry.