Cloud Collaboration Service with BCFs Launched

BIMcollab: Send and receive BCF annotations

BIMcollab: The cloud-based BIM collaboration service launched today by the Dutch company KUBUS.In the company's own words, which I freely translate here, "BIMcollab centralizes management-related issues in the cloud, simplifies the process, and offers a structured way to store, share, and manage them. But most importantly, you have the information right where it's most needed: directly in your BIM model-checking software and in your BIM modeling tools". With BIMcollab, you and your partners (from within your own office and/or from other offices) can track and manage all projects in an integrated, simultaneous way, sending and receiving BCF (BIM Collaboration Format) annotations, which may have been created in different solutions, such as Solibri Model Checker, Tekla BIM Sight, Revit, ArchiCAD, among others. Contrary to what it might seem (and, I admit, I was confused about this myself at first), BIMcollab does not store or manage IFC files. For now, the most practical and simplest solutions for sharing IFC files are still services like Dropbox, OneDrive, or Google Drive. Even so, centralizing BCF project notes issued by various partners in a single place speeds up the exchange of information, drastically reduces rework, and greatly improves communication between partners. Professor Leonardo Manzione, on his blog, in the post "BIM Is Sealing the Fate of Extranets," goes into detail on this subject. Based on what Manzione (and other scholars on the topic) has written, it's possible to say that, given the collaborative and synchronous nature of BIM-based work processes, rudimentary methods that are still widely used—such as transferring files via physical media (flash drives, CDs, and other media carried back and forth by couriers, provocatively and aptly nicknamed by Manzione as the Moto-BIM process)—and today's ubiquitous extranets (services based on FTP servers that are about as old as the beginning of the commercial internet, that is, nearly 20 years, which in technological terms could be understood as DinoBIM services)—may have their days numbered. [caption id="attachment_94" align="alignnone" width="404"] This image of the Dino was found in a very interesting post, on a subject not thaaaat directly related, but that actually does connect: http://www.activegarage.com/social-media-and-tribes-14-taking-dinosaurs-online[/caption]To give you an idea, besides the free trial account, you can get 5GB of space to use with up to 10 people simultaneously, with as many projects as you like, for 20 euros a month—which is quite affordable. I just created an account today and am running my first tests. More news to come soon!

Song for this post: Capital Cities, with Safe and Sound. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qK5L84lVkqE[/embed]