Comparing Navisworks and Solibri for BIM coordination

Clashes are common in construction, and they are the main cause of project delays and overruns. As project complexity is increasing, software like Autodesk’s Navisworks and Nemetschek’s Solibri Model Checker is gaining traction in the market space. However, with these two software options available in the market, industry professionals now need a guide to comprehend which one is better for their BIM coordination needs. So, let us now understand in detail the comparative analysis between Navisworks and Solibri.

Table of Contents

Model checking

A software user may set requirements and exceptions to a specific item that he wants to verify for Building Information Modeling to acquire good performance. This kind of conditioning makes the service easier to use by reducing the number of conflicts that the user must examine.

Navisworks offers a relatively basic rules system; in contrast, Solibri has a highly comprehensive rules system that supports many forms of conditioning.

Model Checking Capabilities

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Interoperability

Interoperability is an extremely crucial metric to decide your BIM software needs. A software’s ability to interact with other software by assessing their various file extensions is interoperability. Industry Foundation Class, or IFC, is one very common format used in the BIM industry for interoperability. This format is the only one that Solibri supports. On the other hand, Navisworks can read several extensions. This makes Navisworks a better choice to integrate models that are exported from other applications.

Communication

To properly complete the compatibility study of the models, team communication is essential. But frequently, the team does not convene in a physical space, demonstrating the importance of an efficient information exchange between team members.

After each event is evaluated, Navisworks makes it possible to create an HTML report that can be seen in any web browser. Although it’s a good way to give reports, it doesn’t automatically allocate responsibilities to team members or log mistakes.

Solibri uses a platform called BIM Collab that combines all types of events and the tasks that go along with them.

Reporting of Coordination Issues

The conclusion is both Navisworks and Solibri have their own advantages. Construction can benefit greatly from Solibri’s proficiency in model validation and compatibility with IFC. And Navisworks is more appropriate for projects that don’t exclusively use open BIM files for compatibility.