Vico Workflow—5D BIM Case Study for a Hospital Project from Estimator's Perspective

LIANG GONG: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our presentation. Ryan is my co-speaker. Were both from Clayco based in Chicago. And Ryan's based in sales. Welcome to this presentation.

So this I our contents today. We're going to go through all this one by one today. They serve some keywords related to our presentation. So I'm going to be talking about VICO, Estimators, SQL-- very briefly, because SQL is the background database for most of the estimating softwares. And Ryan, who is our BIM manager, is going to be talking about Uniformat, Revit, anything related to Autodesk.

So this is a very quick rundown of Clayco. So we are ranked 22nd out of the ENR GC rankings. We have offices in Chicago, St. Louis, California, South Carolina, and we do projects globally.

RYAN TAUBE: Like Liang said, we're a design build firm. So we have an in-house architecture studio of about 120 people. But we're also a little bit bigger than that. We have a CRG, which is a-- it's like a reality group. So we purchase our land. We can develop the land, design it, turn it over to our clients. We also have Concrete Strategies, which is a structural engineer, civil engineer.

If you're doing any construction in St. Lewis, they're probably providing the concrete for your project, even if it's not a Clayco project. We have uplift, which is a new drone company. So we'll fly construction sites, process the data, give you overlays with CAD drawings, so you can determine cut/fill. If things have been dug in the right place-- so we make sure your pipes are actually going in the right direction and not going through your foundation. And we have MU/DAI as well, which is a technology incubator that will work pretty much on anything and help develop solutions for that.

And Liang came over from Ventana, which we'll speak about.

LIANG GONG: Yeah, so when I started with Clayco, I was working with Ventana. So as Ryan was talking about, Clayco is a design build firm. We have our in-house architecture firm called Forum Studio. So as Ventana is also in design build subcontractor for curtain walls and building for sites, Ventana has its own in-house engineer. We engineered our own curtain wall system, which has been patented. We engineered here in the States, and manufactured over seas, and bring it back to the States, and install it in the States. So this is our business model.

On this slide, I'd like to stress on how our culture of Clayco is about collaboration, because we are a very integrated firm. We have different subsidiaries. All the departments work together. And also urgency and transparency.

RYAN TAUBE: I think one of the good things that we have is we literally have architects and PMs and engineers basically in the same room, so that we can always bounce ideas off of each other. Get solutions quickly-- we're not waiting on emails to get responded. We can just walk over and get answers, which can be a good thing, can be a bad thing. But it seems to work for us.

LIANG GONG: When talking about BIM estimating right now, Clayco VDC and precon has two parallel tracks for the estimating. The first track is, we export model into VICO, or doing the takeoffs. And we export data from VICO to Winest, which Trimble product. And the second track is, we export the model from Revit to Naviswork. And we export the model from Naviswork to D-Profiler and the Estimator, which our Beck Technology's product.

Before this presentation, we're going to concentrate on VICO, the Trimble product here, and its interactions with Revit and some other designing software. This is a slide Ryan is going to talk in detail about.

RYAN TAUBE: One of the big benefits we have is that we have unique relationships with our design partners. We have our own Architecture Department, but we also work with-- do you want to go back?

LIANG GONG: Sorry about that.

RYAN TAUBE: Just skip to the end.

LIANG GONG: Yeah. Apologies.

RYAN TAUBE: OK. We have our own interior architecture firm, but we do a lot of work with other architecture firms. So with HOK, with Getch, Studio Gang, Gensler. We're working on some large projects currently. But with our own architecture office, it allows us to kind of have a unique approach to it. So it's not just a design architect, architect of record, and then building it. We can actually have our architecture firm work with a design architect from the very beginning. And that allows us to get our standards into the model very early. We use assembly codes in all of our Revit families.

We'll provide our template to the design architects, so they're working in our model, they have our views setup. We have filters applied to those views. So everything's colored the way we want to see it. It's filtered and turned off and on so that we can really easily integrate with our estimating, which we found to be very beneficial.

LIANG GONG: Right, that's the project for Zurich in North Carolina.

RYAN TAUBE: Yeah, this is-- the project you see up above is Zurich. It's in northern Chicago, probably pretty close to O'Hare Airport. There's a design by Getch partners. And very early on, they adopted all of our strategy. So when they built new Revit families, they were putting in assembling codes, putting in our naming conventions, which made it really easy down the road to get things built efficiently. And it was a very seamless project. It won a few awards.

And I think it opened probably about a year ago. But the result is that the families have embedded codes, design architect is working with our standards, and the views and the filters make things a lot easier down the road.

LIANG GONG: Yep. So Ryan was talking about our integrated methodologies, so we try very hard to build a strong trust between our architects and our [INAUDIBLE]. And this is the view from [INAUDIBLE]. And this is a view in VICO. So we're always trying to struggle to figuring out the discrepancies between the [INAUDIBLE] in VICO and Revit.

RYAN TAUBE: And one of the things that we try to avoid is, I think sometimes there's-- between the contractor and designer, there's kind of gotcha moments where you're trying to pin something on the other guy that it's their fault. And since we're an integrated firm, there's not really a way to pin it on ourselves and get away with it. But that also translates into working with other firms. We're really just trying to get a building built efficiently, and trying to help them achieve that.

LIANG GONG: Yeah, so whenever the estimator or the precon has questions in VICO, we just literally go upstairs to our in-house architecture firm asking them how to built up a certain specific object. So we have been trying to be very proactive towards our architects or kind of aggressive sometimes. So I think that's also the benefits of the design build firm with our in-house architecture.

RYAN TAUBE: And we have our precon department is now transitioning to-- they're not quite fully BIM yet, some people are still doing a lot of takeoffs on PDFs. But we're slowly getting there. And we don't have all the answers right away. It's been a slow process. But getting everyone fully integrated has been a challenge, but it's been a good challenge.

LIANG GONG: So for this presentation, we're going to focus on this project-- the Cook County Hospital, which is located in Chicago. And Clayco and our firm is a design build contractor.

RYAN TAUBE: With Gensler Architects.

LIANG GONG: Yes, with Gensler. And this is our final product today. This is what we're trying to present as a core part. Let me try to-- that looks great. It's working now. Yeah. So on the left side window, we see the 4D sequence animations of the building, how it is constructed and built up-- on the right side, the cost information. So we call this the 5D BIM for this project. And we're going to go through the procedure of how this is built up in this presentation.

So first of all, this is the Revit part. VICO can be exported into different-- exported from different architecture softwares, like Revit, Grasshopper, Cat. But the most commonly used is Revit. So in order to use VICO, it requires some level of Revit. So this is something I need you to pay attention to while you export from Revit, especially those visibility settings and how clean their motto is.

RYAN TAUBE: Yeah, and we'll have our view set up, like I said before, and we'll have a view set up that just has foundations, one that just has doors, one that just has the curtain panels. It allows us to make sure there's no mistakes, like floating objects, things kind of in the wrong spot. But it also allows us to group things a lot easier and coordinate a lot better.

LIANG GONG: The Cook County project is exported from Revit, but later in this presentation, we're going to show you in a case, we export a model from Rhino, and how we take hubs and [INAUDIBLE] from Rhino. So this at a view that architect's work with the estimators. Basically, what we're doing here is that the architects have the control here. They can export the Revit model into VICO into the estimators laptop directly here. So as long as an architect is typing the estimator's laptop's name right here, and then, the estimator can receive the model in VICO.

RYAN TAUBE: Again, this is showing how important the assembly codes are within our Revit families.

LIANG GONG: Yeah, and these are the two most important things, the assembly code and family type. So just to make sure those two are checked before you export into VICO, because the work breakdown structure in VICO is based on the assembly code and the family type here. Any questions so far for export from Revit to VICO. And then, it's now going to go into VICO here.

So that's what we were talking about the Uniformat. Would you like to talk a little bit, Ryan, the Uniformat.

RYAN TAUBE: Yes, I don't know if you guys know much about Uniformat. It's basically a-- it allows for some granulation. So I could say some object is a shell, or services, I could just assign it with a D, or it could be A 10 and just say its foundation, or you can drill down farther and say it's a drilled pier it's all kind of categorized within its subcategories. So you can start off by assigning some very basic granularity to the assembly code, and then refine it down the road.

We tried to set things up very refined from the beginning, but obviously, you don't want to sit there and try to figure out every little thing while you're in the schematic design. So it allows some variation with that.

LIANG GONG: Yeah, and the thing we're trying to be proactive at [INAUDIBLE], we have been educating our in-house architects always to assign the right assembling codes to the right object in Revit, so it saves a lot of time for the estimators. But even though we have control with our architects, but we do not have any control for outside architects like Gensler. So it's kind of sometimes frustrating when we receive a model without assembly codes. So the estimators have to go back to the Revit model to assign assembly codes by ourself. Or we have been looking for an [INAUDIBLE] Dynamo trying to assign the assembly codes fast in Revit, when there is no assembly codes assigned.

RYAN TAUBE: And one of the good things of working with Getch partners is that they were fully onboard from the very beginning and really helped us out with that.

LIANG GONG: When speaking about Gensler, we're going to show another case later this presentation about the tallest tower in Chicago, Willis Tower, how we used VICO to deal with that project. So this is the window. This is the view in VICO. Basically, we can put all the information project-- the location, the architects, the owner, GC, everything in it and you can upload a general image of how this project looks like here.

So after you export the model from Revit, they come here. So in this project, I organize my model by share, interior, and MEP. So you can't list as many as you want to. So it really depends on how you want to organize your models and how you want to organize your estimates and takeoffs. On the left side here, these are all the different modules for VICO. And they have like, the location based brick down structure, they have the takeoffs, the scheduling, the 4D animations. Since it's a 5D software, so it can find anything you want out of this module.

So you can combine those modules together and create those views right here. And these are some filters. You can't filter what kind of family types you want to see in VICO. Since this is a 5D software, we strive to use the work breakdown structure. And this is the first step. We have location based definitions.

So the first step-- we do that with divide disputing to divide it vertically. We divide it by its 4 levels, either by the Z value or we can assign the 3D elements manually by yourself. And you can turn on and turn off any of these families here if you want a filter to see anything. So after, we divide it vertically by levels. You can't come to each level and divide the zones horizontally, as it is shown here, by joining these polylines for each floor. So it's very flexible.

So far, they say the preparation steps for VICO, before we began to do the takeoffs and scheduling and 4D animations. So these steps I found like extremely important, because all the VICO of the 5D software is like, all these modules, the steps are interlocked with each other. It's like, one step is based on the previous step. So if the preparation steps are not perfectly defined, are not perfect implemented, it's going to largely impact the later steps.

RYAN TAUBE: One of the things with this that we're trying to figure out in the future is that since this is working with a database that we have access to outside of the model, that we can take Dynamo and push some of this information. So like in this one, you were seeing sequences of when objects are being constructed. So that is being done in VICO, but it's creating a database that we can then use Dynamo and push it back into Revit, so that the architect can see when things are getting built and what order they're being built, and if that's going to cause any issues.

LIANG GONG: Yeah. So this is the first major step-- the takeoff view. These are all the light items. The takeoff item, we call that toy takeoff item. So for each toy, you can find different takeoff quantities-- so like, parameters, volume, length, everything here. And later, we're going to be talking about how to manipulate these quantities, and to do formulas to have new quantities here.

So I think the screenshot is not the latest version of VICO. I think VICO just released their latest version like one month ago. So in the new version, you can compare the discrepancies between the quanties-- the discrepancies of the quantities between VICO and Revit. So the Revit quantities are also lesser here. That's the new feature in VICO, of the latest VICO version.

RYAN TAUBE: Because if you ever try to do quantity takeoffs within Revit, it's not the greatest. It only measures-- like, if you're doing gyp board takeoff on a wall, it's only going to measure the area of the wall in projection. If you're wrapping around a corner, it's not going to measure that 6 inches of wrap. Even if another wall is coming into it, you're basically going to have 6 inches of nothing measured within it. Whereas VICO, you can go through and refine it a lot better, and basically paints.

LIANG GONG: Yes. Yes, we're going to talk--

RYAN TAUBE: But we'll talk about that later.

LIANG GONG: Yeah, we're going to be talking about the great painting mode in the next slide or so? Yeah, this is the painting mode. So as Ryan was talking about, if the quantities is here, you're not satisfied with any quantities here, basically, you can do the painting mode, like paint part of the quantities from one toy to another toy. And these are the types of all the different toys. And they have limited types, which covers all the basic Revit objects here.

This is the takeoff pad. The good thing about the takeoff pad is that give you a breakdown of how each toy looks like. For example, for the H double doors, when you click here in this toy in this take off manager, they give me the breakdown of how this, a door, is structure. You can see the weight and type of each door, so if you want to get to know the details of this level.

So VICO is not only in a 3D software or 5D software. You can also do 2D takeoffs here in this takeoff pad mode here. So after we finish our takeoffs, we want to generate some quantities. And this is the report view, not VICO. So VICO use a very special report engine, which is DevExpress. So Beck Technology, the deep profiler and DSF estimator also use DevExpress.

So the syntax of DevExpress is C#. So if you know some C# syntax, it's going to benefit you to write these formulas. So give you an example, like for those takeoff quantities for this concrete slab, they give you the volume, but I want the weight. It didn't give me the tonnage of the weight. But I can utilize the volume of this concrete to create the tonnage weight of the slabs by multiplying the 150 pounds per cubic yard per unit weight and divide it by 2000 pounds per tonnage together weight of concrete by just writing all these formulas here.

So what this creates, you can export this report into an Excel. So this is how it looks like. And we hand over this Excel to our precon team. And they can utilize this Excel however they want to. So this is the view. We're mapping our quantities from takeoff manager to cost planner to do the estimates by applying those consumption rate and waste.

And I was talking about previously, like how we're trying to change these quantities from here to the quantities in the estimate by utilizing and applying the formulas here. So after we finish our estimates, we want to assign tasks to those materials, to other objects. Basically, we assign a verb to all of those materials. That's what we're doing here. And there are two different ways to assign the verbs or assign the actions to all the materials.

So for example, if you hire a subcontractor to do the concrete work, you just assign a unit price dollar per unit here. So it's just a one line item. But if the GC wants to self-perform the work, for example, here-- this pile. No, sorry. It's metal doors. If the GC wants to install the metal doors themselves, and also GC buy the material themself. And we have two line items, and you assign a verb, you assign the action to the install metal doors.

And right here-- and here is the to install hollow metal door 2 under the consumption, which means, two matadors per hour. That's a production rate. That's how we define the production here. And we're linked to the production here to this Task Manager to assign a verb to that.

After we assign these verbs, assign these actions to different elements, to different materials, we're going to group these actions in order to do the 4D simulation So what we're doing here, for example, for all the different [INAUDIBLE], like, from the high rise commercial building, you have a curtain wall, you have a window wall, you have stones, you have [INAUDIBLE], so you have different things. But we want to group all of those [INAUDIBLE] elements into one task. [? Generate ?] task here, which is called exterior elements. And give it a color for yellow for later 4D animations.

RYAN TAUBE: And one of the things with 4D, again, we're trying to push that sequential time back into the model, because then we can also just take our Revit model into Navisworks and provide a construction sequence. Or we're working on a project in St. Louis where it was very critical to know when our soldier beams were getting drilled into the site. So we were able to sequence all of that using some of the 4D data, so that Clayco knew how many people needed to drill the piers, if we needed one team or two teams, how many people could excavate the dirt out, if we needed one or two teams, and then throwing a blackboard as well. So using the 4D simulation was very important for that.

LIANG GONG: Yeah, and we're going to see the 4D simulation. And in this step, our VDC team and our precon team works with our project and [INAUDIBLE] team and the scheduling team to create those schedules, to exhibit dependencies and sequences of these activities. The good thing about the [INAUDIBLE] is that you have different ways to define. So the flow line view give you a general idea, like a good view of the complete activities to actions here.

And the Gantt view give you the chance to do the critical pass meta analysis. In the network view, it's actually the first step, you're linked up and assigned the dependence of all the activities. And you can also do some risk analysis. You can even do Monte Carlo simulation in VICO.

So we work closely with our scheduling team for this part. This is the general conclusion of what we have down. As we have been talking about from the very beginning, the location based dividing zones. And then, the takeoffs, the scheduling, the 4D animation. So it's like every step is based on the other. So if you make a mistake in one of the steps, it's going to impact all the interlocked steps. And that's the video we had seen at the very beginning. Any questions so far? Yeah?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] way you import [INAUDIBLE]

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

AUDIENCE: --how to divide the exterior walls, if each [INAUDIBLE] is not divided by [INAUDIBLE]?

RYAN TAUBE: We'll typically isolate our exterior with its own work set. So that's one way of separating exterior. Another will have-- sometimes we'll use shared parameters and assign objects to an exterior skin. But usually one of those two ways.

LIANG GONG: I think what you mean is that-- you mean curtain walls? Usually, the curtain walls is not stayed on the slab, right? Is that what you mean? Like the curtain walls is actually past the slab? So it's like not perfectly by the floor level. And how do you divide that. I think that's more like your question.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] the example is when you show the [INAUDIBLE] exterior wall in [INAUDIBLE].

RYAN TAUBE: Oh, and how it relates to the level? I think that's more of a subjective thing where we assign it. Because it could be halfway between levels, so we would assign it to a level, rather than letting Revit kind of dictate. Because if you start copying things in Revit from level 1 to level 2, it might still associate itself to level 1 and just be off by 20 feet, or 30 feet, 40 feet. So we have to go through and kind of clean that up and manually assign that.

AUDIENCE: And then you mentioned that creating and adding polyline to divide the [INAUDIBLE].

LIANG GONG: Yes.

AUDIENCE: Is that also applying to that-- applied to that [INAUDIBLE]?

LIANG GONG: Yes.

AUDIENCE: So that when you [INAUDIBLE] polylines for each of [INAUDIBLE] zone, then those elements is shown in the [INAUDIBLE]?

LIANG GONG: Yes. Depending on the zones, yeah.

AUDIENCE: Can it do that for the exterior walls, too?

LIANG GONG: Yes. And I actually like go back to that takeoff view then, because if you put this window here to the right side, you're going to see all the zones we have predefined here, like level one, level two, the quantity is going to list here. So it's just because I didn't put here to the right side. If I put to the right side, you're going to see all the quantities break down by the zones. And you can assign the quantities under each zones into schedules. Yeah.

So this is the project we were talking about at the very beginning. The Willis Tower, it used to be called Sears Tower in Chicago, the tallest tower. They were doing a repositioning project with it, like, they were basically expanding the podium. Clayco is working with the architect Gensler to do this project.

The problem here is, the architect wants to hear the feedback from the general contractor based on their revised on their models. They want to know how much quantities have been changed. They want to know the change of their budget. So because they are changing their model constantly, like, they can send off 2 revisions per day. So like, it's really time sensitive. So once they send us the model, we'll plug this model-- plug their Revit model-- plug the Revit model into VICO. And we did design comparison.

So you can see, we put two different versions here. You can see, what has been changed, what has to be modified, what has been added, what has been deleted. It's very, very clear. Right here, this is for the structure parts. And this is the architecture for the slabs.

So not only VICO can do 3D and 5D stuff. So this is another project we just did, because the architects only give us the PDF drawings. They want to know-- our precon team want to know all the differences and the changes on the PDFs. So I know some other software had this function to compare different versions of PDFs like BIM 360. Well, the good thing about VICO is that VICO can create batch reports in a few seconds. I don't think BIM 360 can do that. They can see every single page.

I'm sorry. I'm not depreciating BIM 360 here. I'm just seeing some new features in VICO. So the good thing about it is it can't create batch reports for every single PDF comparison here. You can see what has been changing, add-in [INAUDIBLE] right here, and create a PDF report with this view, how it looks like.

AUDIENCE: Are those sheets from [INAUDIBLE]?

LIANG GONG: No, PDF.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] PDF version of the sheets in [INAUDIBLE]?

RYAN TAUBE: It could be. It doesn't--

LIANG GONG: It doesn't matter. As long as it's a PDF. It came from Rhino or anything CAD. Yeah?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] sheets then the option to publish the sheets, add them [INAUDIBLE]?

LIANG GONG: What do you want to do? What's your purpose? What's your purpose to do that, like bring the sheets from Revit into VICO? You also want to do this design comparison, or?

AUDIENCE: Well, I mean, I was just wondering [INAUDIBLE]?

LIANG GONG: You probably, if you want to do that, I think, if it's not a model, if you're only exporting a sheet from Revit, I'd rather export to PDF first, and then import into VICO. I never like, personally, I never export a sheet directly from Revit to VICO. There may be a function to do that, but I haven't figured it out why to do that yet, personally. But we could try.

RYAN TAUBE: We would typically just use the model if we can just for the quantity sake, which we can't get from sheets. And then use the sheets as kind of a-- if that's the only thing available, that's the only thing we can do.

LIANG GONG: Yeah, I think this function is really like a practical for the estimators, or the precons who does not want to use model. And it's another thing about comparison. Basically, you can see how they're working here. Two different versions-- the old ones and new ones. You could slide this paint to see the changes or what has been changed. Architecture structure, it went sliding from here to a different version here. You can see the columns has been pushed inside.

So I think it's more dynamic, it's more live to show this. It's another mode of the comparison, or how it looks like. So after we compare, we have a general idea, after the comparison, how these design versions have been changed. We go to the deeper takeoff.

So we generate these takeoffs within an hour. And then we hand over these takeoffs in the reports, and give them the thumb up, the total numbers into the owner and to the architect. And they can decide what's their next design changes. So it's like a very fast feedback. That was about the Willis Tower project.

This is the project 100 Kings Highway based in St. Louis. It has a super crazy curtain wall facade.

RYAN TAUBE: If you're familiar with the Aqua Tower in New York by Studio Gang, this is one of their latest designs that will hopefully be built soon.

LIANG GONG: So what the architects have is only in a Rhino model. So [? this tool ?] has no Rhino model, they do not have a Revit model. And we do not have time to boot up the Revit model for the time period they gave to us. So we have to figure out a way to calculate the quantities from the Rhino model. And the thing is, you can imagine how hard it is for an estimator to use our scoring takeoff or PDFs or Bluebeam to calculate the accurate facade square feet for the curtain walls.

So what we did here, we convert the Rhino model into CAD. We export CAD into IFC, the industry standard, and import it into VICO. This is how it looks like in VICO right here. But based on the model in VICO, we did a lot of calculations by writing these formulas, trying to get the right highlighted curtain wall for [INAUDIBLE] square feet here. And then generate the total number here, and give a breakdown of each curtain wall system.

Some people may say, like, it's such a hassle to write this formula, it's like, I cannot make them write. But the thing is like, it's kind of [INAUDIBLE] at the very beginning, if you setup this formula right, so whenever later when the architects change their design again, for example, they change some of the curtain wall systems here, we can quickly generate these numbers again. But if you only do the takeoff in 2Ds, like in PDFs, in Bluebeams, the on-screen takeoff, you have to do all the takeoffs from the very beginning, from scratch again. But in Revit, you do not have, because I've already set up these formulas here. And the total number can generate instantly.

So I think it's really like a long term thing, like a sustainability thing, if the manager can notice that, rather than be intimated by the [INAUDIBLE] formula here. Because you can always change it later once there is new designs popping up.

RYAN TAUBE: Yeah, I don't know if you can see the design on this. One of the reasons it's so difficult to do in Revit-- basically, it's three levels of curtain panel that's slipping out. And in every three levels, it comes back in, and then slips out. And it's also got kind of a leaf shape. So it's kind of zigzagging around the outside with some curving that's going-- I think it's a 2 dimensional curve. So with Revit, it's fairly difficult. Rhino is a little bit easier. So that's why we have to approach it this way.

LIANG GONG: Yes. And another thing is like, not only our own VDC team is doing those takeoffs in VICO. The thing is like, our precon team is doing their own takeoff on the 2D drawings along the traditional way to do takeoffs. Actually, our number is just like three hands or more, about like more square footage than theirs. So I think it's pretty good, which we demonstrate, we verified each other's quantities by doing these parallel takeoffs in both the VICO and in their onscreen takeoff, or Bluebeam.

So previously, we were talking about the reporting thing. So basically, reporting and the scheduling are the two most difficult parts in modules in VICO. And they have tried striving to make it easier and easier, but we're still finding it kind of hard to use the reporting module and the scheduling module within VICO. And this is the customizing report items. You can manipulate however you want to on these items.

And write in the formulas here, and list all the types here, and generate Excel report. And you can also save the assess your own takeoff templates for estimating templates.

RYAN TAUBE: Yeah, I mean, it's basically a SQL database, so you can kind of do whatever you want as long as you have-- for the customization, you don't really have to understand SQL to know it. But if you really wanted to customize it well, you can really dive in there and manipulate it pretty well.

LIANG GONG: Yeah, so we have been trying very hard to integrate it in our estimating platforms. And we use different-- we have been using different takeoff softwares, I mean, the 3D takeoff softwares, like, we tried VICO, we tried Beck Technology, we tried to Assemble. But right now, for model based takeoffs, we're just using VICO and Beck Technology, because the things like, we're trying to utilize our historical data as much as we could. And we have been striving very hard to use the Uniformat trying to educate our architects to apply the right assembly codes, as we were talking about at the beginning.

And we have been trying to integrate all the different other softwares, like [INAUDIBLE], Excel, and other scheduling software's-- MSP. Trying to integrate them together to work with VICO. I think that's about it. If there is any questions? All right.

AUDIENCE: So in the beginning of the presentation, I just saw the picture that-- information that [INAUDIBLE] and when you do the [INAUDIBLE] does it use [INAUDIBLE]?

LIANG GONG: The thing is that [INAUDIBLE], our Trimble product, there is a thing called Trimbo Connect to connect this software together. Basically, we don't do too much of our estimates in VICO, because it's not--

AUDIENCE: You mean pricing.

LIANG GONG: Yeah, pricing. Estimates, pricing. Sorry. We don't do much pricing VICO itself. VICO is just a very powerful tool for us to do takeoff, like the design document comparison and documentation. We export the takeoff data from VICO into Winest to do the pricing and estimates. And I have been hearing from Trimble, they're trying to actually combine this software, trying to make it one software in the very near future. That's what they have been trying to do.

AUDIENCE: And then Winest map across the database across the line item with the Revit line item of the [INAUDIBLE]?

LIANG GONG: Winest, like, we can apply in our own cost database. Is that what you were asking? The unit price, we have our own historical unit price.

AUDIENCE: How does Winest know the price of the Revit elements that it [INAUDIBLE]?

RYAN TAUBE: We have our own database that our--

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

RYAN TAUBE: Yeah, our precon guys will have their database. I'll update as it changes. Hopefully, they're not using prices from 5 years ago. But yeah, we have our own guys. We'll update our database.

LIANG GONG: Any other question or? Yeah.

AUDIENCE: Yeah, it seems like they go right out of the box [INAUDIBLE] a lot of formulas. Do you find--

LIANG GONG: Yeah.

AUDIENCE: --that to be the case when you [INAUDIBLE]?

LIANG GONG: Yes, we do. And we have to make sure and verify, for example, the surface area is right. I have to be very careful. Actually, it's not really one click. At least at the beginning, you have to verify everything before you make it one click tool. And we do write a lot of formulas in order to make it work. Yeah, like a lot of trial and error thing. Yeah.

Thank you. I'm sorry, it may look a little bit dry or like this [INAUDIBLE]. But that's what we really want to express here, like our company really pays attention to the details of our work and the quality. I think it's the [INAUDIBLE] network company [INAUDIBLE]. That's how I structure this presentation to show all the details, because we believe things the details decides if the project is going to be successful or not. We're really pacing to every single detail in our company. Yeah.

Any other questions or comments? Our VDC team within Clayco would not only serve our company, but we also would provide VDC services to external companies. So it's kind of business units within Clayco are VDC. So if you are interested in our VDC services, you can contact us-- Clayco. And we do not only the BIM estimating stuff. We do a lot of virtual reality, [INAUDIBLE] captions, and we scan in buildings, we bring it back to ReCap and build up the Revit model. So everything. So our VDC services at Clayco. And this is our BIM manager, Ryan. Any other questions? Yeah?

AUDIENCE: Sorry. I came in a little late, so you might have already covered this, but can you speak to impacts of [INAUDIBLE] on your cost estimations and how you actually manage that to make sure every [INAUDIBLE] that you get [INAUDIBLE]?

RYAN TAUBE: That has to do a lot with our expectations with the design architect. So we have to know ahead of time, what kind of level of detail is getting put into the model. So with our integration with Form Studio, that's built into our templates. And the knowledge is there. We have to educate our designers if it's outside of the enterprise. And yeah, but it's a conversation that has to happen early on so that they know what to expect and what we're expecting.

LIANG GONG: And we depend on those Uniformats to see which level they have been developed into.

RYAN TAUBE: Yeah, and within Uniformat, there's different levels of detail.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

RYAN TAUBE: Yep. Yep.

AUDIENCE: How do you feel about using [INAUDIBLE]?

RYAN TAUBE: Yeah, I mean, it's a large task to manage. So we're not going to say it's perfect all the time. But trying to just keep having that conversation, and get people knowing what's going on, and just at least starting with the level of detail to get things assigned properly. It helps. And then, we can refine as we go. Yep.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] by [INAUDIBLE] or location, whatever. So does your report-- were you able to get like an esimate for [INAUDIBLE]?

LIANG GONG: The quantities like the takeoff quantities, you definitely could in the report. But as I was talking with this gentleman, we're going to export these takeoff quantities into Winest. And then Winest is going to create its own report. So it depends how the estimator want to structure their pricing structures. They can do that way too. But I can't guarantee we can do that takeoff plan that is-- present those based on the dividing zones.

RYAN TAUBE: It's a parameter, like the sequence is a parameter. So these objects are sequence 20 or sequence 30. We can isolate that sequence. I don't see a issue with isolating that.

LIANG GONG: Yes we could. That's the answer.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

LIANG GONG: Yeah, like you I didn't drag it there, I think, but I can try to show. If I can't see that VICO like it's there right here, because it's super small on my side. Sorry about that.

AUDIENCE: So are you guys using Winest right now for estimating your platform?

LIANG GONG: Yes.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] just for takeoff and then Winest for estimating?

RYAN TAUBE: Yep.

LIANG GONG: Yes. And we're trying to [INAUDIBLE] Beck technology right now too.

AUDIENCE: So parallel effort [INAUDIBLE]?

LIANG GONG: Yes. Depends on the project, and depends on the manager.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] report, and what are you using for reporting that, so [INAUDIBLE]?

LIANG GONG: For reporting pricing estimates?

AUDIENCE: Yeah.

LIANG GONG: Yes, Winest.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

LIANG GONG: Yeah, it's Beck Tech thing. But the funny thing is, Beck Tech also use VICO's Reporting Engine, which is DevExpress. Personally, I think it's not very user friendly, but they're still using the same text as C# to do a lot of work in the reporting template. And they charge you for the service unless you do it yourself. Yeah.

Any other questions or comments or-- And Ryan is the expert in Dynamo and in Revit. So I have been trying hard to find different [? scrapes, ?] trying to make it more automated in this precise procedure.

RYAN TAUBE: Thank you guys.

LIANG GONG: Thank you guys.

AUDIENCE: I'd like to connect with you guys--

RYAN TAUBE: Yeah, for sure.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] We use VICO, but we've use it all for [INAUDIBLE].

RYAN TAUBE: OK.

LIANG GONG: Yeah. [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] for takeoff and for [INAUDIBLE].

RYAN TAUBE: Oh, yeah.

LIANG GONG: [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

LIANG GONG: Thank you so much, Ryan.