Building Systems Design, Inc. (BSD) today announced the release of an updated BSD LinkMan-E software product that coordinates specifications with a Building Information Model (BIM) created in Autodesk's Revit software. The new LinkMan-E release has two totally reconfigured dashboards that clearly show correlations and discrepancies between information in Revit and the corresponding specification text in BSD SpecLink-E, BSD's automated specification writing product.
BSD LinkMan-E is an interoperability tool that presents data from Revit and SpecLink to allow review and coordination by a project manager. The two new dashboard views that compare the data from the two applications can be collapsed to show discrepancies, and any missing information in the specifications can be automatically activated in SpecLink from within the LinkMan program. The new release of LinkMan-E also includes color-coded tabs that display more complete data from Revit and the actual specification text from SpecLink. In addition, there is a keynote tab that displays current keynotes from Revit, suggested keynotes that are coordinated with SpecLink, and functions that permit editing and exporting of the keynotes for subsequent use in the Revit project.
BSD has pre-linked many Revit elements to SpecLink-E, but users typically create their own Revit libraries of objects (such as wall and door types), which require the creation of links within LinkMan-E to connect them to the specifications. Creating these links is a relatively simple process of dragging and dropping a Revit element name onto the appropriate LinkMan assembly or product name. Now, however, Revit users can simply apply any of BSD's 1,700 pre-linked materials to their customized building elements within the Revit software, without any need to open the LinkMan program at all. When the current version of LinkMan-E is installed, any Revit objects that have had these materials applied will appear in LinkMan-E already connected to SpecLink-E.
The LinkMan-E product has been on the market since early 2010 and has been expanded and improved on a quarterly basis ever since its introduction. Robert Paul Dean, president of BSD, says "LinkMan-E's new assemblies and products dashboards will make it crystal clear where there are inconsistencies between the information contained in the Revit model and the text of the specifications in BSD SpecLink-E." According to Dean, any products missing from the specifications can be automatically activated by clicking a single "Synchronize" icon in LinkMan-E. In addition, BSD offers a catalog of several hundred Revit objects that have been pre-linked to BSD SpecLink-E. Each of these have the pre-linked materials already applied, so Revit users are not required to do anything except use the objects in their Building Information Models (BIM) to coordinate them with their specifications.
