For the purpose of this book, we defi ne BIM as a modeling technology and associated set of processes to produce, communicate, and analyze building models. Building models are characterized by:
Building components that are represented with digital representations (objects) that carry computable graphic and data attributes that identify them to software applications, as well as parametric rules that allow them to be manipulated in an intelligent fashion.
Components that include data that describe how they behave, as needed for analyses and work processes, for example, takeoff, specifi cation, and energy analysis.
Consistent and nonredundant data such that changes to component data are represented in all views of the component and the assemblies of which it is a part.
Coordinated data such that all views of a model are represented in a coordinated way.