The AEC (UK) Standards Committee today announced the Phase 1 release of its new BIM Standard documents. The standard, targeted at companies migrating from CAD to BIM, provides a practical & pragmatic BIM standard for the Architectural, Engineering and Construction industry in the UK. It includes protocols and procedures for:
- Central and project resources
- Model naming
- Object naming
- Drawing composition for CAD/BIM and 100% BIM workflows
- Spatial co-ordination
- Component modelling
- Data exchange
- And more
The committee members include architects, civil, structural and MEP engineers, multi-disciplinary firms and technology consultants, representing a broad cross section of the AEC market. Nigel Davies, chair of the AEC (UK) committee, and CAD/BIM Management expert, feels this is an important factor in the AEC (UK)’s successes. “The fact that this is a standard written by people who are using BIM tools in their day-to-day work sums up what the AEC group has always been about,” he says. “This isn’t a ‘What Is BIM’ brief, this is the foundation for a common way of modelling, managing and exchanging BIM data in the UK. This is for people who have been sold the idea – and the software – but are asking ‘What now? How do I go about doing this?”
Paul Woddy, Revit guru, sees the standard as an important step forward in the on-going modernisation of the construction industry: “By bringing together in agreement, two opposing forces of Revit users and Bentley users, we have a robust and thorough framework for a universal BIM methodology.” He goes on to add, “We still have a long way to go and are now working on product-specific documents, templates and libraries, which will assist users to comply.”
The AEC (UK) BIM Standard is available for download from the Documents page of this website.
AEC (UK) CAD & BIM Standards Site 
It’s a bit lacking in the MEP side of things.
There are other services using BIM other tahn Architects and Structural You know.
Hi Andy. The conventions published are based on Uniclass, so they only reflect what is available there. There should be enough scope with the Uniclass classification and the Description to provide for most, if not all, of the MEP needs where Uniclass doesn’t go far enough.
I transposed a lot of the Architectural and structural settings across to the MEP side of things when I was setting up a standard services template in Revit MEP.
However, I’m looking forward to a revised AEC BIM standard which encompases all the services in a single document.
Until then there is a gaping hole in the collaboration aspect of the AEC standard, which may only lead to problems when working on shared models.
Can’t seem to locate the templates that the BIM Revit Standard refers too. Are these available yet and can I get a copy please?
You can download the templates from this website. Go to the DOWNLOAD page:
http://www.aec-uk.org/downloads/
I wish I had a week or two to learn this and apply it to my topo surveys. I would then then to have a conversion routinue to put it back into a format my clients can understand without having a code book to hand.
This layering convention is far too complex. Consider making it simpler.
A layering convention should be usable!.
The basic convention follows the bare minimum requirements of BS1192 (discipline – classification – presentation – description). Understanding how to implement the standard so that it is a) usable and b) interchangeable with others is key to success. You should only use the layers that apply to your production methods. You could also use the layer codes in conjunction with layer descriptions. Karen’s Guide to the AEC layer standard may help you join the many UK practices who successfully use this standard.
Thankyou, but I think I will stick with the basic elements of the BS1192.
As one very knowledgeable person put it on the AUGI forums:
“Yikes! You folks across the pond sure make things tough. This is the “new” standard? A shame it wasn’t made similar to the National CAD Standard over here”
Which I tend to agree with.