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A somewhat thin attendance at University College London in early June did nothing to detract from the value of the event, staged by FARO UK.
The tone was set by David Southam, FARO Regional Manager for Construction BIM, whose introduction stressed the importance of data accessibility as Building Information Modelling is extended to encompass ‘live’ data deliverables as well as traditional documentation.
“Really clever AEC companies are already harvesting, classifying and storing data for which they have no present use but which will represent a valuable resource, given rapid advances in Artificial Intelligence. The ability to access and share that archived data at some future point will be crucial,” he said.
It was a view was echoed by Anne Kemp, chair of the UK BIM Alliance, who provided an update on its activities following last year’s merger with buildingSMART UK & Ireland. The current implementation of BIM was, she said, still patchy, with whole tranches of industry yet to achieve compliance.
BIM Level 2 was an even more challenging prospect, requiring businesses to ask themselves what data they need and in what they should be investing to create a digital twin. “Future decision-making could be much improved if thought on these issues is given in the here and now,” suggested Kemp.
Subsequent presentations revolved around the process of capturing, classifying and sharing data for construction verification, with speakers from FARO exploring point cloud modelling, web-based deliverables, and the powerful onsite registration tool in WebshareCloud, FARO’s hosting solution for scan data. Dr. Jan Boehm from UCL’s BIM Lab described its long-term collaboration with FARO, while representatives from BAM, Skanska, Willmott Dixon and Active Plan all provided a valuable customer perspective on issues ranging from 3D laser scanning to Facilities Management.
