Acoustics in BIM

Currently to produce our mark-ups and reports we take a set of drawings from the architect, measure these up, enter room and wall data manually into a calculation spreadsheet and use the results to draw coloured lines over the top of the original drawing in the case of sound insulation ratings for walls.  When the design changes the cycle repeats.  When there’s a query, we need to rerun this through our calculation sheet.  We aim to answer as soon as possible but inevitably site visits, annual leave and other projects can leave this query awaiting a response for days, even when it might only be 15 minutes’ work.  

As a company we already use a lot of programming and in house software to make us more efficient.  With the current push on BIM, we realised that we could use our knowledge to help us integrate into the BIM concept.  Rather than cycles of drawings we can connect directly to architectural software such as Revit.  This makes us quicker, more accurate, up to date at each design stage and allows us to make the process easier for our clients as well.