A drawing set is read from the outside in: the list of drawings, then each sheet's title block, then the drawing itself. The title block tells you what the sheet is, who is responsible for it, which revision it is and whether you may build from it.
Drawings are still how most projects are built. Even on a fully modelled job, the contract, the site and the fabricator usually work from issued sheets. A BIM coordinator who reads drawings as fluently as models catches problems the model can't show: a sheet that was edited by hand, a note that overrides a detail, an out-of-date print on site.
This track uses a real construction set: the Benton Street Bridge over the Iowa River in Iowa City, designed in 1947–48 by Ned L. Ashton, consulting engineer, and recorded by the Historic American Engineering Record. The drawings are in the public domain, and they are a good teacher because nothing in them is hidden by software.
Read the full lesson on BIMpedia →
