Stop putting BIM models on iPads and expecting magic

Worked a project in Austin last month. Big commercial build. The GC kept talking about taking the model to the field. They gave the foreman a tablet with the full BIM file loaded. He spent more time zooming and panning than actually looking at the work. The model was great in the trailer. On site it was a mess. Layers turned on wrong. Details too small to read. We spent two days just syncing versions. Nobody asked us how the guys actually needed to see the info. Now I'm on a job where they want a kiosk station instead. Has anyone figured out a good way to get model info to trades without turning it into a slow tablet nightmare?

3 comments

3 Comments

paul_ramirez2d ago

Can you just give the foreman a printed PDF of the three key views and skip the tablet entirely?

xena5823d ago

Buddy of mine tried that kiosk thing on a school job. They mounted the tablet to a rolling stand and chained it to a beam, but the drywallers just unplugged it to charge their phones. We had a super who printed out the clash reports and taped them to the wall like a wanted poster, and the guys actually looked at those.

troyknight3d ago

Ngl I feel you on this. I watched a crew lose almost two hours on a Monday morning because the iPad model had the wrong ductwork layer turned on and nobody could figure out why the measurements were off. The guys just wanted a simple PDF with the critical dimensions called out but they got a 3D map with too much noise. It's like giving a welder a full blueprint when he just needs the joint detail. A kiosk might work if you lock it down to just the views the foreman actually uses, maybe three or four max. Keep it simple or it's just expensive wallpaper.