BIM & Model Checking

BIM software treats a building as a database of components rather than a set of lines. That is what makes coordinated drawings, quantity take-offs and clash detection possible at all, and it is also why these tools are heavy, expensive and slow to learn.

The authoring end is the expensive one. Revit, Archicad and Vectorworks Architect all model in components and all run to four figures a year. Revit LT is the cut-down version for small practices doing architecture without MEP or structural work. SketchUp is the accessible way in and stops well short of full BIM.

Model checking is a separate purchase and a separate habit. Navisworks is the long-standing tool for federating models from several disciplines and running clash detection across them. Revizto and BIMcollab handle coordination and issue tracking, BIMcollab around the open BCF standard, so issues survive the move between tools. Bluebeam Revu does the same work on the PDF side, which is still where much construction markup actually happens.

The browser-based challengers — Snaptrude, Arcol, Rayon — target early design, where Revit’s cost is hardest to justify. Speckle is the open-source way to move geometry and data between Revit, Rhino and Blender without a proprietary bridge.

Prices are checked by hand and the drawbacks are stated plainly.

For the full comparison with prices and trade-offs, see BIM and model checking software compared.