A happy belated Valentine’s Day to you.
Did you mess up? Got the flowers, but you forgot the Reeses – chocolate is required they say. The “chef” at the chain restaurant couldn’t actually deliver the gluten-free pasta your spouse needs?
We get to fail forward. Then again - the poem did rhyme.
“Pomegranates are red not purple
I’m hefty and sturdy like Yertle
As each little fruit is mostly a seed
My passion for you is so guaranteed”
President’s Day Was Here
That reminds me that my famous ancestor is the man who helped George Washington build the famous state of the art greenhouse at Mt Vernon. Occasionally, such a strange thing seems to come in handy in Virginia as the half the country discovered last week. What do soldiers do while they wait for a Congress to make up a country? They build stuff don’t they?
American Revolution
Yes. It officially took over five years to win that most impossible of wars. George and Tench started early but that’s another story.
It took almost six more years for the Constitution to be ratified and two and a half years after that for our first president to take office in April of 1789. April still makes more sense to me. Tench is the only person in history allowed in armed into Congress for good contentious reasons.
At 42, Tench Tilghman died in April of 1786 of malaria contracted at Yorktown. Everyone expected Tench would be the first Secretary of State. Congress expected he’d also be around to watch Washington’s expenses. They say when he wasn’t, Congress added in the Presidential salary clause to the Constitution. George was none too pleased.
Life, like our projects, seems at times to be about the details. Really it is about the development.
My examples above direct one’s attention to the constructive, fiscal, and project execution points that LOD is not really about a “Level of Detail”. We design to build it. This point can be easy, painful, and expensive to miss.
In official BIM speak “LOD” means…
Level of Development
The descriptions of the Level of Development (LOD) Definitions are given below:
- LOD 100: The Model Element may be graphically represented in the Model with a symbol or other generic representation, but does not satisfy the requirements for LOD 200. Information related to the Model Element (i.e., cost per square foot, total length of curbing, etc.) can be derived from other Model Elements.
- LOD 200: The Model Element is graphically represented within the Model as a generic system, object, or assembly with approximate quantities, size, shape, location, and orientation. Non-graphic information may also be attached to the Model Element.
- LOD 300: The Model Element is graphically represented within the Model as a specific system, object or assembly in terms of quantity, size, shape, location, and orientation. Non-graphic information may also be attached to the Model Element.
- LOD 350: The Model Element is graphically represented within the Model as a specific system, object, or assembly in terms of quantity, size, shape, orientation, and interfaces with other systems. Non-graphic information may also be attached to the Model Element.
- LOD 400: The Model Element is graphically represented within the Model as a specific system, object or assembly in terms of size, shape, location, quantity, and orientation with detailing, fabrication, assembly, and installation information. Non-graphic information may also be attached to the Model Element.
- LOD 500: The Model Element is a field verified representation in terms of size, shape, location, quantity, and orientation. Non-graphic information may also be attached to the Model Elements.
You can read more about LOD from the architectural project perspective here.
The construction project management perspective becomes much more telling.
The civil engineering and survey disciplines need to take this form of BIM very seriously.
Until we do, business will not get better. Why should it?