Seeing the data in plain language

We always talk about our data first approach. But why do we go on about it so much?

It’s because it’s critical to enabling you to have full control of all of your project information.

When you start any new project using our solutions, you import your information, and we ‘normalise’ the data – that means, we strip out every component of data from a file so that it’s independently updatable and stored in a structured database environment.

It means you have easy access to the information you need, when you need it because we can surface it in our tools in different formats – it also means it’s really easy to export it in an open standard format.

When you start using BIMXtra, you import your models – but we separate out the data and the geometry.

That means that when you need to update the data about an object, you don’t need a CAD specialist to go back into the authoring tools to do so. You just update it in whichever of our tools you are using, and it’s associated back to the object with a full audit history.

Everyone who has the appropriate access can see the changes. There’s real-time project knowledge all stored in one place that enables better planning and predictability.

It also means that, when it comes to handing over your data to the client at the end of the project, it’s really simple to give it to them in an open format so it can be imported into their FM system easily.

We’ve taken this data first approach because we’ve always had the big picture in mind, we know it delivers better information throughout the lifetime of a project.