VanBoxmeer & Stranges - page 7

APRIL 2014
H
business elite canada
7
eling) and in particular Revit.
“When I first started as an
engineer, we were transition-
ing from drafting by hand to
CAD and that was a big step.
People had been doing board
drawings since the beginning
and were then told they had
to use AutoCAD,” says Rick.
“Now we have transitioned
ourselves into BIM software.
For structural engineers, the
BIM concept comes quite
easy because we imagine our
structures in 3 dimensions.
It’s almost a natural progres-
sion for us.” The company
has evolved from CAD draw-
ings to constructing the entire
building 3-dimensionally in a
virtual world using BIM soft-
ware.
The operational procedure of
the business is split into two
distinct areas: the design as-
pect and the drawing aspect.
“The design software we use
is quite sophisticated and it
is the best that we can buy.
We rely heavily on analysis
software to get us to a build-
ing that is economical to
construct and to help us un-
derstand the behavior of the
structure which is something
we couldn’t readily do before
these programs came along,”
he says. As for the drawing
production, “BIM was initial-
ly requested by the owners
once they saw what it could
do. They like the coordina-
tion aspect of the program
between all the different
consultants. They don’t want
to find out there is an issue
while the building is under
Wilfrid Laurier University - Diamond Schmitt Architects
1,2,3,4,5,6 8,9,10,11,12
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