With projects growing increasingly complex, the chances of conflicts in BIM data rise. Mature BIM tools have developed substantially over decades and are complex to learn, so individual skills can vary wildly within any company. And while most firms do have quality standards in place, checking output is typically done manually and good model checking processes are rare. Against a backdrop of constantly shifting industry standards, it’s no wonder that BIM workflows and deliverables are plagued with issues of data inconsistency.
With the industry now working towards the goal of more widespread use of digital twins, it’s never been more important that source BIM data is as error-free as possible, from a project’s initial design data to its as-built information.
Conventional tools for model checking and verification fall short of what many practitioners need today. They frequently run into problems when dealing with large datasets and diverse file formats. They require a high level of user knowledge, resulting in low productivity and error-prone outcomes. Such tools, like Navisworks, are typically standalone desktop applications, which simply aren’t designed for collaboration.
Verifi3D is a modern, cloud-based SaaS offering designed to help users overcome these issues. Developed by Xinaps, a company based in the Netherlands, it’s a rulesbased checking web solution, which supports the main design file formats (IFC, Revit and so on) and which integrates with the most popular common data environments (CDEs). These include Autodesk BIM 360, Autodesk Construction Cloud, Procore, Trimble Connect, Dropbox, Microsoft Sharepoint, Microsoft OneDrive, Google Drive and Aconex.
Since the last time that AEC Magazine looked at Verifi3D, the software architecture has undergone significant reworking. This was carried out in order to improve the system’s speed when it comes to loading, displaying and interacting with large models. New features have also been included, including big-ticket items such as clash detection.
These new features are apparent right from the moment of log-in. Verifi3D now supports Microsoft single sign-on (as opposed to relying on Autodesk or Verifi3D credentials). Supporting Microsoft OpenID saves a lot of time that might otherwise be spent on IT security management – good news for IT admins.
The user home screen has also been tidied up, essentially guiding you through your workflow. Under the Organise menu, users access their projects, and connect to their CDE, where project files are imported. From there, the next stage is Classify, which provides the 3D viewer for graphical information and non-graphical BIM data and enables users to define elements based on their properties.
Once results come back from the Classify stage, the Validate stage carries out rule checks. There are four main checks: clash check, property check, free space check and (new for this release) duplicate check.
Report is the final stage of the process. When a clash or other issue is found, it is added to a report and gets synchronised with a supported issues tracker. Currently these are Newforma Konekt (formerly BIM Track), Autodesk BIM 360 Issues or BIMcollab.
Everything starts in the project tab. Various access rights can be allocated to project team members from Admin. Projects may be imported from the many CDEs supported or loaded from local file sources. Model Sets, meanwhile, can be built up from numerous sources, creating a federated model.
Verifi3D does not alter original files in any way. When models come in with different coordinate systems — a common issue when mixing IFC and Revit (.rvt) files — elements can be relocated.
Once that’s done, models are saved in the Verifi3D engine and optimised for cloud streaming by the Verifi3D service for display in a browser. This service effortlessly eats up multi-gigabyte models because the new proprietary model engine works mainly server-side — or in other words, in the cloud. (That’s a big change from the previous approach, in which Verifi3D relied on the Unity engine and thus on the CPUs and GPUs of the local desktop.)
