Build your own BIM common data environment
Build a common data environment (CDE) with the xeoVision framework. Bring project files, federated models and review teams into a shared workspace, then shape access, delivery workflows and integrations around your process and the environment you choose.
What is a common data environment?
A common data environment is the single agreed place where a project’s information lives: the files, the models, the revisions and the record of who approved what. The idea is standard practice in AEC delivery. The difficulty is rarely the concept; it is that most CDE products expect your process to match theirs.
Why build one rather than buy one?
Because the process is the differentiator. Organizations that run complex delivery have usually already worked out how their approvals, revisions and hand-offs should work, and the cost of changing that to suit a product is higher than the licence.
Starting from xeoVision gives you a working viewer, federation and file handling from day one, and leaves the workflow around them yours to define. You aren’t writing a BIM viewer; you are writing the part that is specific to your business.
What you get from the start
- Multiple models in one view
- Object tree and properties from the source files
- Saved views for recurring reviews
- Sharing that separates project visibility from source-file access
The parts that take longest to build and matter least to your competitive position.
Where it runs
- As a managed service
- On dedicated infrastructure
- Inside your own environment
- xeokit Data Engine as a standalone binary within your network
Chosen by your obligations, not by a licence tier.
Share without handing over the files
Sharing a project view and handing over the source file are two different decisions. Choose who can view the project, then set separately whether that audience can reach the original IFC or Revit files. A client reviews the model and its properties; the design team also gets the source.
Saved views for recurring reviews
Recurring reviews need a shared starting point. Save the models, selection and viewpoint around the topic you discuss, organize views within the project, and return to them when the conversation continues. A saved view is model context, not an approval record; approvals and issues stay in your own process.
Does this stop people copying the model?
No. It controls who reaches the source files, not what can be captured on screen. Treat it as file-access control, not rights management.
Why keep views instead of rebuilding them each time?
A review that starts from a different state each time spends its first minutes re-establishing context. A saved view lets the discussion begin with the question, not the navigation.
How it scales
- Projects Add projects without new instances; roles stay per project.
- Models Federate disciplines in one view; load what the review needs.
- Participants Invite external parties with time-limited, audience-based access.
- Processing Data Engine runs as more workers or as a binary inside your network.
