OpenPiM framework — Project information interface for integrated Life-cycle Management.
This is a technological interface that helps AEC professionals to close the existing gap between the BIM abstract data and the factual data captured from the real world, in order to streamline all the manipulation of project information, to reduce costs due to inefficient processes and to achieve successful buildings.
The PiM technology is developed with flexibility and modularity in mind, since the AEC industry has a wide range of needs and capacities all around the globe. In order to respond to the requirements of any type of project (let's say public infrastructure, or private buildings, or industrial facilities, etc), PiM integrates features for both fundamental technologies, applicable for any and all assets construction/management projects, and edge technologies for the most ambitious projects that will reshape the future of human kind. Some of these features are commented next.
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Core modules: The PiM technology is built around 3 core components that communicate the project information in a two-way fashion, allowing users to track, control and manage the relation among all the BIM and real world data manipulated in the job site.
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Real-time connectivity: Supported by modern technologies like WiFi and IoT (internet of things), PiM connects digital and analog sensors to computing devices through local networks or internet, setting up a framework for near real-time communication of the project's BIM and real world data, improving with it, the decision making process among designers, contractors and managers of any type of asset/building project.
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BIM integration: Most of modern software for designing, documenting and managing asset projects, support BIM data integration and standard protocols. PiM is built from the ground up to work seamlessly with international standards and software tools, implementing BIM data structures and protocols, offering users an impressive level of general cross-platform compatibility.
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Open-code implementation: The PiM technology aims for mass adoption and future-proof development. By adopting an open-source software approach, it allows the global community to research and improve on the features of PiM. This will lead to a greater market adoption and an overall better technological evolution, while helping BIM expand on a wider adoption base as well.
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Forward compatibility: Current implementation of PiM technology is built to allows AEC professionals to make use of modern cameras, drones, lasers and sensors to capture real world data from the job site, link it to its BIM correlated model and communicate it to the decision making agents; while preparing the foundations for future technologies to work seamlessly with PiM.
Modern AEC industry is so complex and specialized, that no single product could respond to the growing needs of professionals and projects. That's how PiM promotes the creation of several products, both hardware & software, working integrally to effectively interface and communicate the real world data and the BIM data to everyone involved in the project's development and life-span. The three types of products that PiM foresees being developed anytime in the future, are as follows.
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Job site trackers: Passive and active devices that utilize digital and/or analog technologies to detect and measure the real world equivalent of the BIM data extracted from the project's models.
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Monitoring software: Suite of cross-platform applications for mobile and/or desktop computing devices that helps AEC professionals to monitor and control the real world live-feed/asynchronous captured data in order to compare and match it to the BIM models for the project.
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Online platforms: Web services that allows users to communicate and manage BIM data in real time with the project's designers, contractors and managers. These products categories offer a huge range of opportunities to companies and individuals, to create new products, devices & apps and to develop innovative businesses around a common integrated interface for BIM implementations on integrated AEC projects.
To find out more about this initiative, please feel free to send your comments and contact us.