Special certification for BIM professionals launched

The Canada BIM Council has launched a specialist certification and accreditation program for professionals who work with building information modeling (BIM).

The council, which is based in Toronto, says the aim of the CanBIM Accreditation & Certification Program is to create a national body that will be a benchmark for individuals as well as companies and other organizations. They will be certified in BIM Competency and Process management, with progressive levels of certification.

Pietro Ferrari, a director of CanBIM and chair of its research and education committee says: “By clearly defining standardized certification and accreditation, we will be able to turn our attention to establishing qualification profiles for BIM positions in companies, and map those same profiles to BIM education outcomes.”

The council has also released new versions of its BIM Protocols: AEC(CAN) BIM Protocol v2 and AEC(CAN) BIM Protocol for Revit v2.

The protocol was initially developed in 2011 based on a U.K. protocol but has developed into a standalone document. The latest version was developed by representatives of engineering, architecture and construction companies from across Canada.

Gerry Lattmann was appointed as new executive director for CanBIM at its annual meeting on September 30.

Building Information Modeling (BIM) is an increasingly popular tool for designing buildings in a model that contains a wide range of information and attributes. According to Wikipedia, “BIM involves representing a design as combinations of ‘objects’ – vague and undefined, generic or product-specific, solid shapes or void-space oriented (like the shape of a room), that carry their geometry, relations and attributes. BIM design tools allow extraction of different views from a building model for drawing production and other uses.”

For the full definition of BIM in Wikipedia, click here.