Chapter 1: Introducing Units of Digital Information

Welcome to the world of BIM data and digitalization!

Before we start digging into the core of digitalization in the Architecture, Engineering, Construction (AEC) industry, BIM data visualization, or management with Autodesk Dynamo and its business intelligence tools, I would like you to know why every business on earth is becoming a data-driven business. If you look around, every type of company, small or large, non-profit or governmental, is walking through a digital transformation, implementing and applying ones and zeros to every process they can. However, in the end, all that matters for company owners is that their company has to adapt to the new business model. It will take time for all of us to go fully digital, but we all will, whether it takes 10 months or 10 years; we are all already in that queue.

Even though this book's aim is to give you some knowledge on BIM data visualization and management, in the first chapter, we will start talking about data. Though we will set BIM aside for now, we will return to it later on, once we get more comfortable with digitalization and basic computer science concepts. We are going to learn about the events that started our digital era, and how modern devices use binary code to represent things such as pictures and videos. Then we will talk about types of digital data and about all of the data that surrounds us, all the time, everywhere (that's why they call it big data, right?!). Finally, we will explore so-called hybrid jobs.

But don't worry, I won't go too much into technical details, although we will cover some technical notions when it comes to Dynamo, data manipulation, and databases. So, get a cup of coffee and if you can, get an Italian one (even better if it's Neapolitan), and meet me in the first chapter!

Figure 1.1 – Say "big data" one more time meme!

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

• Exploring the beginning of the digitization era
• Learning how simple digital data is
• Getting to know types of digital data
• Understanding how much data we produce
• Learning about hybrid jobs