Archive for August, 2014
Thursday, August 28th, 2014
The Chaos Group is responsible for developing V-Ray, a staple rendering engine for architectural visualization that has its roots in the film industry. Rendering is also a vital part of the design process, so the company works with architects and visualization artists to build the exact tools they need to communicate their designs from concept to final presentation.
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Tags: AEC, architects, architecture, BIM, building information modeling, CAD, Chaos Group, Cloud, engineering, reality capture, V-Ray Comments Off on V-Ray 3.0 for Maya Beta is now available from Chaos Group
Wednesday, August 27th, 2014
Last evening I was shopping online through the Babies r us registry to get my anticipated grandson a gift for his baby shower which is coming up in September. The whole idea of a registry where you can select gifts from a preselected list by future mom is a fabulous idea, so I knew I was going to have fun.
What was quite perplexing however, was the way the site was set up. First, I saw that the stroller model that the new parents wanted was not available by delivery to their home, but only store pickup. When I looked at the stores around their area, the message that came back was that the item was not in stock and not available for reorder. I looked in my own area and the same was true there. It led me to believe that the item wasn’t available at Babies r us anywhere!
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Tags: AEC, collaboration Comments Off on Collaboration = communication
Thursday, August 21st, 2014
Trimble announced this week at a media briefing that it has acquired privately-held Manhattan Software, a real estate and facility management software leader, headquartered in London. The acquisition is not replacing any technology but it does extends Trimble Buildings’ portfolio of design-build-operate (DBO) solutions by providing building owners, facilities and real estate managers with integrated, end-to-end property, asset and facilities management systems.
Manhattan Integrated Workplace Management System (IWMS) provides an enterprise solution for planning and managing any organization’s real estate portfolio of buildings and assets. The deep functionality of the Manhattan IWMS is designed for the entire facility lifecycle to maximize resource utilization while reducing the total cost of occupancy (TCO).
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Tags: architects, architecture, Bentley Systems, BIM, building, building design, building information modeling, CAD, Cloud, construction, engineering, Trimble Comments Off on Trimble acquires Manhattan Software
Tuesday, August 19th, 2014
I’m amazed at just how far interactive display technology has come in the past five years.
MultiTaction, from MultiTouch Ltd., is an interactive display system that is used as a digital collaboration tool for architects. Mulitple users can use the MultiTaction interactive display now that MultiTouch has partnered with Bluescape, a platform that supports an unlimited number of people and teams. They can create, interact with and share content which will in turn accelerate business projects and decision making in real-time.
MultiTaction Display Wall
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Tags: AEC, architects, architecture, Autodesk Revit, building information modeling, CAD, collaboration, display wall, Multitaction, reality capture Comments Off on Multiaction makes collaboration possible – visually
Friday, August 15th, 2014
Katrina Schoen, product manager for Sefaira for Revit, spoke about the new daylighting visualizations now available for Revit users, accessed inside Revit BIM software.
What is Sefaira for Revit?
Sefaira for Revit delivers real-time building performance feedback inside Revit. Its daylighting visualizations allow designers to create spaces that take advantage of natural daylight while minimizing unwanted glare.
Sefaira for Revit Daylighting
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Tags: AEC, architects, architecture, AutoCAD, Autodesk, Autodesk Revit, Autodesk University 2013, BIM, building design, building information modeling, CAD, Cloud, construction, engineers, SketchUp Comments Off on Sefaira for Revit offers daylighting visualizations inside Revit
Monday, August 11th, 2014
Marcel Broekmaat, market manager, Project Controls at Trimble Buildings, talked about Trimble’s Vico Office R5 that offers integrated BIM workflow for construction management.
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Tags: AEC, architects, architecture, Autodesk Revit, BIM, building, building design, building information modeling, CAD, Cloud, construction, engineering, engineers, Tekla, Trimble, Vico Office Comments Off on Vico Office R5 brings integrated BIM workflow to construction management
Wednesday, August 6th, 2014
Barry Phillips, the CMO of Panzura talked with AECCafe Voice about Panzura’s Global File System and subsequent involvement in the AEC industry, providing cross-site collaboration with their global locking file systems. Moving from CAD to BIM in a single office is not a problem, according to Phillips, but when you try to have project teams spread across distributed offices it doesn’t work. “There have been lots of attempts to solve this problem,” said Phillips. Collaboration is what drives the need for cloud storage.
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Tags: AEC, architects, architecture, Autodesk, Autodesk Revit, Autodesk University, BIM, building design, building information modeling, CAD, Cloud, construction, engineering, global locking file systems Comments Off on Panzura offers cross-site collaboration with global locking file systems
Friday, August 1st, 2014
At AIA, Autodesk’s Phil Bernstein spoke about “Next Era BIM” and how technology is evolving in the building industry. In an example, he said a Chinese developer built a 30-story building in seven days. The same developer wants to build a 202-story building in a week. The delivery implications of this are quite mind-boggling.
“Design became separated from construction in the Renaissance era,” said Bernstein, with Alberti. Now digital technology has drive ideas of construction/architecture with the following concepts:
1) It took analog and translated it to CAD.
2) The transition from electronic drawing to digital – making files into models
3) Context – the advent of the cloud, social networking, design and construction in a systems context.
The evolvement of this went from diagrams to prototypes to integrated simulations. Now we can build new spaces with new types of data, according to Bernstein.
The concept of “archetypal relationships” was touched upon, but I’m not sure what was being referred to here, an Oedipal complex or the relationship between documentation and the way things are connected?
“The way I see it, the computer puts architects back in the driver’s seat, because we can control all that information,” said Frank Gehry.
Anthony Houch of Autodesk introduced Project Skyscraper, a new cloud-based collaboration software for Revit that allows architects, engineers and contractors to collaborate on the Autodesk 360 cloud platform. This allows extended teams to search, view, and provide feedback on project models on any device. The tool is in beta now with full commercial release of the software expected by the end of the year.
In addition Autodesk spotlighted Dynamo at the conference, exploring computational BIM with Dynamo and Revit, as well as generating different design options for varying elements including façade systems.
In discussion about the Case Building, the discussion turned to how architects put data to work. And how do they leverage building data in order to set the bar for future content? Autodesk’s interest in reality capture continues on, while they work on figuring out how to turn that information into something meaningful for architects as well as the movie industry.
Houch said that Autodesk is “agnostic about how people access information.” This appears to extend to the new way that Autodesk is delivering information to the media as well. One PR person said they don’t send out as many press releases; everything is available on their site and on their blogs, and Autodesk Labs. This presumes that we are all going to go looking for press materials rather than them arriving conveniently in the newsfeed.
Perhaps the “new spaces with new types of data” that Bernstein envisions will be places that we will all readily visit, just as we open our email each morning.
Tags: 3D cities, 3D printing, AEC, architects, architecture, AutoCAD, Autodesk Revit, Autodesk University, Bentley Systems, building information modeling, CAD, Cloud, construction, design, engineering, engineers, infrastructure, Revit Comments Off on Next Era BIM from Autodesk
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