We often hear the question "what are some modeling best practices for Autodesk Tandem?"
While not an exhaustive list, our team compiled some general guidance on quality and suitability aspects to look for in Revit models for efficient creation of a digital twin. Have you come across some modeling workflows that worked well for you that you would like to share with the community? Join the discussion!
Within Autodesk Tandem, Assets, Spaces, and Systems are hosted in source models. There are two avenues to add models; either directly upload a Revit or IFC file or connect to ACC/BIM360 Autodesk Docs account to source models stored there.
For efficient creation of a digital twin and optimal usage, the model data should be of appropriate quality and fit for purpose. The following is general guidance on quality and suitability aspects to look for in Revit models. In addition to the guidance below, users can set up workflows within Autodesk Tandem for model data audit and cleanup. The completeness of a facility's BIM data can be assessed using Data Dashboards in Tandem. This can be done at any point in the project lifecycle and reassessed as updated versions of the model files representing the facility are consumed by Tandem. Additional steps can be taken to clean up specific parameters and views in Tandem for improved user experience navigating in the 3D viewer and improved context when drilling into details.
Practices to be addressed within Revit:
- Model completeness - Do we have a complete (fit for purpose) representation of the facility in the models? It could include multiple models as long as they represent the facility with all the elements relevant/required for the twin.
- Check that there are elements in the model to represent assets, systems, and spaces, as determined by the outcomes of the digital twin.
- Check if there are any data gaps in the model.
- Model naming convention - A facility would typically consist of multiple models from different disciplines, quite often from different sub-contractors. This could lead to inconsistent naming convention for the BIM data. For efficient use of digital twin, it is imperative that we have standard naming convention for rooms, spaces, floors, and other model elements across all the models.
- Check naming convention for assets, levels, and spaces/rooms. Naming can be normalized in Tandem as well for levels and spaces/rooms.
- Check if elements spanning multiple levels (stairs, elevator shafts, curtain walls) are correctly associated with spaces/rooms and levels.
- Level of detail, association, and location - The models should have enough detail i.e., granularity to represent all the assets that are required by the digital twin.
- Check if the model elements represent the assets at the appropriate level of detail.
- Check if the main and the sub elements are associated i.e., door handle is associated with the correct door (if relevant to digital twin outcomes).
- Check if all the assets represented in the model are at the correct location in relation to the facility.
- Check there is no duplication of objects in multiple models to avoid skewed analysis and increased costs.
- Model element association with Rooms/Analytical Spaces - The model elements representing assets should be logically associated with rooms/spaces and levels.
- Tandem creates room association on import. Check that model elements representing assets are correctly located in the 3D space to ensure that they automatically associate correctly upon import into Tandem.
- The Spaces Panel allows users to directly engage with Spaces and Levels in a Tandem facility creating a better user experience to access, explore, and navigate a digital twin and its data more efficiently.
- Model element properties - The model elements contain design and engineering properties. While it is not required that they contain all the asset maintenance information, they need to contain asset identification information at a minimum. In addition, they can also contain asset data collected or created during design and construction phases. Check for the following:
- Do the model elements contain asset identification information?
- Do the model elements contain asset information collected or created during design and construction phase?
- Are all the model element parameters populated with appropriate values? Note: With Tandem Dashboards, you can easily verify the presence of values in parameters. However, you'll still need to confirm the accuracy of these values. This is especially true for Revit models as Revit properties cannot be edited in Tandem.
- Are the element models under the right category? This is critical when using Tandem Filters and creating Views based on Revit categories.
- Are the parameters properly set up as type or instance? Relevant for data input via mapping and asset tag count.
- Is there duplication of parameters? This can get really confusing when mapping parameters to values.
- Is there data that is not relevant for the project? (Less important but nice to know).
- Geolocation and model alignment - The Facility models should be correctly geolocated.
- Are all the models correctly geolocated?
- Are all the model elements correctly aligned?
