BCF (BIM Collaboration Format – where BIM stands for Building Information Modelling), is a file format that facilitates collaboration with BIM methodology in construction projects. BuildingSMART International developed BCF as an open standard that centralises communication, eliminates the chaos of scattered emails and annotations, optimises incident management and reduces errors, and therefore improves collaboration between teams.
Among the advantages of using BCF in construction, we highlight the following:
–Effective collaboration: construction professionals, architects, engineers and contractors communicate efficiently about problems or comments related to a BIM model.
–Comments and observations: They can directly add comments, screenshots and annotations to the BIM model, making it easier to identify and resolve issues.
–Open format: the format is not tied to any specific software, which promotes interoperability between different applications in the BIM environment.
–Information exchange: by using the XML format, BCF ensures that contextualised information about specific problems can be transferred between applications without losing important details.
As we can see, BCF is key to improving communication and collaboration in construction projects. It makes the process more efficient, organised and adapted to the needs of multidisciplinary teams.
By Raúl Soriano, senior modeller in Amusement Logic’s Architecture Dept.
