AECCafe Year In Review 2018

2018 brought with it the realization and development of various technologies that will serve to move the AEC industry forward and in some cases, serve the concept of digital cities more widely. Digital Twin technology has emerged as a force to be reckoned with in the coming years.

Voluntary Architects Network

The need for temporary housing has emerged with pressing urgency for a number of reasons. For one, there have been more natural disasters in the world, and/or other situations that require finding temporary housing for large numbers of people very quickly. Some architects and technologists have taken this need to heart with some state-of-the-art approaches to housing. Pritzker Prize-winner Japanese architect Shigeru Ban has joined the disaster relief effort in Okayama Prefecture, Japan, and has set up his Paper Partition System for evacuees of one of the most devastating floods that has occurred in the country in over 30 years. ICON is developing 3D printed homes to address homelessness across the globe.

And, as a linked topic and despite discouraging news reports on climate change, there is some progress being made, as reported by Architecture 2030: According to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, energy efficiency and power sector decarbonization have reduced U.S. building sector CO₂ emissions by 20.2% below 2005 levels, despite adding approximately 30 billion square feet to our building stock during the last 12 years.

Bright stars from 2018 in the realm of technology include but are not limited to the following:

The relatively new company OnShape represents a paradigm shift in its perspective on CAD.

Pointfuse is a construction software solution that creates intelligent, manageable 3D mesh models with separable objects based on as-built images and point clouds. Its integration with Autodesk’s BIM 360 will make it accessible to more users.

IMAGINiT Technologies’ new Pulse Platform, available now, is designed to allow engineers and architects to share data between independent software on-premise or cloud products beginning with Autodesk Vault and Autodesk Fusion Lifecycle.

In 2018, Indoor Reality announced the latest update to its 3D mobile mapping solution – multi-acquisition mapping – which can be used to rapidly capture a large area by using multiple devices in parallel, or the same device multiple times.

Addressing Homelessness and Displacement with Low Cost and Temporary Housing

The need for temporary housing has arisen in recent years for various reasons. For one, there have been more natural disasters in the world, and/or other situations that require finding temporary housing for large numbers of people very quickly. There are also creations such as described in the article, How Burning Man is Built, a temporary city that evolves in the desert from scratch for a massive festival, attracting people from all over the globe. Each year, a team of 21 surveyors spend seven days laying the lines and waypoints of a 5.62-mile plan, creating the largest and most iconic art installation at Burning Man – the city itself.

Paper Partition System, Volunteer Architects Network

With another vision entirely, Pritzker Prize-winner Japanese architect Shigeru Ban has joined the disaster relief effort in Okayama Prefecture, Japan, and has set up his Paper Partition System for evacuees of one of the most devastating floods that has occurred in the country in over 30 years. Up to 30 percent of the Mabicho district was underwater, and more than 155 people died across the entire region.

As part of the effort, Ban joined the team from the Voluntary Architects’ Network (VAN) (a non-profit organization he also founded) to construct a set of paper and fabric dividers inside school gymnasiums where survivors of the torrential rain are sheltered.

Housing is one of our foremost needs as human beings. Ban believes that as architects, it is “our mission to make living environments better.”

Madworkshop Foundation’s Homeless Studio offers help to homeless in the city of Los Angeles, where there are about 50,000 homeless in residence. A number that has increased 5.7% since 2015, at least part of the homeless population is now the recipient of the Homeless Studio’s Homes For Hope project prototype for a single-person, portable housing unit that offers a person in need with a safe home. The Hope of the Valley Rescue Mission is the beneficiary, an organization that aims to provide women over the age of 55 with a place to live.

The entire development is expected to cost less than $1 million, and each unit is estimated at $25,000 for labor and materials. Funding for the project is being raised by the Hope of the Valley Rescue Mission.

The Architecture of Temporary Housing

First permitted 3D printed home in Austin, TX

In a day and age where affordable housing is at a premium, along comes the company ICON, a construction technologies company with the primary goal of revolutionizing homebuilding. How do they propose to do that?

In such a way that you might not first imagine: using proprietary 3D printing technologies and cutting-edge materials. The end result provides sustainable solutions to address one of the world’s most dire issues – that of homelessness across the globe and the rising cost of home ownership in the U.S. and abroad. It also addresses issues of sustainability, resiliency and building performance of existing construction methods. Looking further into the future, ICON takes on the challenge of building off-planet space habitats.

ICON 3D printer

And then, of course, how much does it cost to 3D print a house? Created in partnership with the non-profit New Story, the first permitted 3D printed house was built for $10,000 (the printed portion only) in Austin, TX, which has some of the toughest building codes. The home is 350 square feet and serves as a proof-of-concept home created in -48 hours of actual printing time.

New Story’s goal is to print a community of homes in El Salvador in the coming 18 months with each home being around 600-800 square feet, printed in less than 24 hours and cost $4,000 per home.

Known as the “Vulcan”, the printer is the first of ICON’s construction technologies to be unveiled in partnership with New Story, and was designed specifically for the developing world. The mobile printer fully prints on-site and does not require printing in an off-site location nor does it need to stitch together different portions. The Vulcan I is a gantry-style printer on rails.

According to New Story, 133 Million people live in slums in Latin America. Globally, 1.3 billion people live in slums. That’s 14% of the world population, and growing. New Story is focused on impacting those 1.3 billion in slums by providing safe housing.

ICON’s goal is that you will be able to download and print your own home in 24 hours. Beginning in 2019, ICON plans to begin printing homes in the U.S.

New View on Sustainability: 3D Printed Housing for Underserved Populations

U.S Building Sector CO₂ Emissions

In a recent announcement from Architecture 2030,  good news is on the horizon for U.S. building sector CO2 emissions. I’m including here their most recent newsletter:

Today, U.S. building sector CO₂ emissions are 20.2% below 2005 levels.  

According to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, energy efficiency and power sector decarbonization have reduced U.S. building sector CO₂ emissions by 20.2% below 2005 levels, despite adding approximately 30 billion square feet to our building stock during the last 12 years.

And, global building sector CO₂ emissions appear to have leveled off in the past few years. 

That’s the good news. Of course, that’s only the beginning. There is still much, much more to do.

Consider that by 2060, total world population is expected to increase by about 2.7 billion people. At the same time, world urban population is expected to increase by 2.8 billion people, or the equivalent of adding 1.5 million people to our cities worldwide every week.

In order to support this urban migration and population growth, by 2060 global building floor area is projected to increase by 230 billion m², or double the current worldwide building stock. 

These numbers are staggering, and if buildings and infrastructure are designed and built to current standards, we will lock-in emissions that will be with us for the foreseeable future.

At the beginning of December, scientists announced that 2018 will mark the highest level of global carbon dioxide emissions ever recorded, and at the 24th U.N. Climate Change Conference in Poland, United Nations Secretary General António Guterres said,

“We are in deep trouble with climate change… It is hard to overstate the urgency of our situation. Even as we witness devastating climate impacts causing havoc across the world, we are still not doing enough, nor moving fast enough, to prevent irreversible and catastrophic climate disruption.” 
–“We are in trouble.” Global carbon emissions reach a record high in 2018,
Brady Dennis and Chris Mooney, Washington Post

In October, a landmark report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that we have barely a decade to take “unprecedented” actions to cut emissions in half by 2030 to prevent the worst consequences of climate change.

In order to limit the rise in global average temperature to well below the 2 degree Celsius threshold set by the scientific community, we must phase out fossil fuel CO₂ emissions by 2050. This requires that all new construction be designed to high energy efficiency standards, using no CO₂-emitting fossil fuel energy to operate, and be constructed with less embodied carbon emissions by 2020; and the entire built environment be carbon neutral by 2050.

To meet these targets, we must take the following actions for building sector reductions in both building operations and embodied carbon emissions:

1. New Buildings Operations – Design all new buildings to Zero-Net-Carbon (ZNC) standards by 2020.
2. New Buildings Embodied Carbon – Construct all new buildings using low-to-no embodied carbon materials, achieving zero embodied carbon emissions by 2050.
3. Existing Buildings Operations – Implement phased government policies for deep retrofits and renovations of the existing building stock, coupled with renewable energy, to reach zero carbon by 2050 (no fossil fuel CO₂ emitting energy to operate).

The good news is that we have all the resources we need to meet these targets, including these exciting new tools and initiatives recently developed by Architecture 2030 and our colleagues:

1. To address new building operations, Architecture 2030 and Senior Fellow Charles Eley developed the ZERO Code – a national and international ZNC building code standard for new commercial, institutional, and mid-to-high rise residential buildings – the predominant building types being constructed worldwide today. The ZERO Code, which can be immediately adopted by any jurisdiction, integrates cost-effective energy efficiency standards with on-site and/or off-site renewable energy, resulting in ZNC buildings. The ZERO Code also creates a predictable and reliable market for renewable energy generation.The ZERO Code, or other ZNC code standards such as the China Nearly Zero Energy + On-site/Off-site Standard, must be adopted by governments and local jurisdictions as quickly as possible.Also, see the recent Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance’s Game Changers Series post on Zero-Emissions Standards for New Buildings, curated by Architecture 2030’s Vincent Martinez.

1. To address embodied carbon, Architecture 2030 launched the Carbon Smart Materials Palette at the Global Climate Action Summit in September. The Palette identifies high-impact building materials, the attributes that contribute to their carbon footprint, and provides strategies for reducing their emissions. The high-impact materials are those predominantly being used in building construction today, such as concrete, steel, wood, and insulation. The Palette also introduces materials that naturally sequester carbon, and provides whole-building embodied carbon reduction strategies. It is being continually expanded to support the latest research, technology, standards and specifications, and new materials as they become available.Additionally, the Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator (EC3), a free and open source whole-building and product-specific building embodied carbon calculator, has been developed by Skanska, the University of Washington’s Carbon Leadership Forum, and C-Change Labs, with support from the Charles Pankow Foundation, the MKA Foundation, AISC, Interface, Autodesk, and Microsoft, and will be available in early 2019.
2. To address existing buildings, Architecture 2030 is updating the Achieving Zero Framework early in the New Year with insights from the first phase of our Zero Cities initiative, and will include policy strategies and initiatives for cities and local governments to reach zero emissions by 2050.

Digital Twins

The addition of Digital Twins, with iTwin Services, to Bentley Systems technology, are an outgrowth also of the company’s iModel technology. Digital Twins are offered by many other companies as well.

• A digital twin is a computer model which mirrors and simulates an asset of a system of assets and their surrounding environment.
• Digital twin models can help organize data and pull it into interoperable formats so that it can be used to optimize infrastructure use.
• Digital twins can also share the data with defined levels of access, to inform better decisions about which future infrastructure to build and how to manage current and future infrastructure.
• A digital twin is a virtual representation of a physical object or system across the lifecycle, using real-time data to enable understanding, learning and reasoning, according to Gartner.

What it can be used for is the application of analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning in simulations and decision support throughout the lifecycle of design, construction and operations.

Acquisitions include:

Siemens and Bentley announced PlantSight digital twin cloud services, a solution to enable up-to-date, as operated digital twins, synchronizing the real plant and its engineering representations, for greater efficiency in process plant operations. Additionally, disparate data sources can be integrated to create holistic digital context for aligned digital components.

The two companies have also announced a joint technology and service solution, to speed up the digitalization of power plants and provide intelligent analytics with a range of innovative offerings and managed services solutions, called Asset Performance Management (APM) for Power Plants. This new service, hosted on Siemens’ cloud-based open IoT operating system, Mindsphere, will combine Bentley’s advanced asset performance software solutions with Siemens’ complementary technology and service knowledge to empower power plant owners to access fully digitalization, which ultimately will improve maintenance operations and planning.

Atos, a global digital transformation leader, and Bentley announced a strategic partnership by which they plan to offer a complete solution to create and operate digital twins on behalf of industry and infrastructure asset owners.

Going Open and Digital Twin Cloud ServicesShape Bentley Year In Infrastructure 2018 

Former SolidWorks Execs Launch OnShape

In an interview with former CEO of SolidWorks, John McEleny, co-founder of the new company OnShape, we discussed the new paradigm shift in the CAD industry that OnShape represents.

While OnShape is relatively new, those who founded the company have been in the industry for a long time. McEleny was a very early employee along with SolidWorks founder Jon Hirschtick, who is founder of OnShape. McEleny held several different positions including CEO before he left to start OnShape with Hirschtick.

One of the advantages of being in the industry for awhile is that the former SolidWorks founders have seen many platform shifts, “from client servers to Windows to now cloud web mobile,” said McEleny. ‘When that happens, you have new entrants because people rethink the problem, the offering and the business model.”

Up until the present, every CAD system that has been out there, the atomic unit has been a file-based system. The CAD system installed system is where you have worked with the file, and when finished, you share the file around. There was no other way to do it until the Cloud. The cloud allows you to do CAD but it created a lot of problems.

“With a digital CAD file, you never really know if it’s your most recent version,” said McEleny.

By interacting with a model and having a CAD system in the cloud and data in the cloud then you provide access. With that access you never shift the files, you don’t have to worry about which versions people are working on. You get out of the whole installations and upgrades of the data problems, you simply provide access. When you provide that access, you can provide a much more granular level security access control. By saying this person can edit, this person can comment and review, and it allows you to access data just like other data in the infrastructure system such as HR, finance, ERP. You’d never build your HR or ERP system based on files. And yet, the product infrastructure system has been a file-based system, and we feel like that needed to be changed.”

OnShape Revolutionizes CAD

New Integration Between Pointfuse and Autodesk BIM 360

Theatrework UK, a Glasgow based production company, is using laser scanners and 3D computer modeling technology to help visualize stage productions. Using Pointfuse software, laser scanned data – point clouds – are processed in minutes to create highly accurate 3D models. These models allow production designers to conceptualize ideas within the venue scans and technical staff to visualize touring productions at different venues.

The process of creating useful 3D mesh models from point clouds and as-built images is one that can be challenging for software but is in high demand in the AEC industry. Pointfuse is a construction software solution that creates intelligent, manageable 3D mesh models with separable objects based on as-built images and point clouds. Customers around the world use it to help in clash detection, scheduling, verification, and other construction processes that benefit from reality capture.

With the new integration between Pointfuse and Autodesk BIM 360, customers will be able to use the product to its full potential.

By integrating Pointfuse into BIM 360, Autodesk bridges the gap between reality capture and digital construction. When exported to BIM 360, a Pointfuse model allows easy comparison between the original design at each stage and the reality as captured in up-to-date images and point clouds. With this information, teams can more accurately update construction schedules, issue RFIs, detect clashes, and assign responsibilities by trade, owner, contractor, and profession.

Benefits of the Pointfuse Integration

The Pointfuse integration with BIM 360 brings as-built data into the construction management software that is effective, manageable, and useful.

• Pointfuse converts “dumb” point clouds into intelligent mesh models that can be manipulated and investigated from any location with access to BIM 360 project documents.
• Pointfuse reduces file size so that they are easily uploaded, downloaded, manipulated, and managed from within BIM 360.
• Pointfuse models allow easy comparison to the original design at every stage and part of the building process, arming team members with information that improves construction scheduling, RFI management, clash detection, and responsibility assignment.

Bridging the Gap Between Reality Capture and Digital Construction

Pre-Built Connectors in IMAGINiT’s New Pulse Platform

IMAGINiT Technologies’ new Pulse Platform,  is designed to allow engineers and architects to share data between independent software on-premise or cloud products beginning with Autodesk Vault and Autodesk Fusion Lifecycle. Other integrations with other products are forthcoming, according to Matt Mason, software development team manager for IMAGINiT.

“It’s an initial release and a big new area for us,” said Mason. “We’ve always done system integration work, and the work tends to be custom and one-off. This is our attempt to build a platform to make the process of system integration easier, more packaged and less custom.”

Mason adds that previously system integration was primarily 90% custom and required high level software developer or consultant. “We want to see 85% -95% of system integration work as a part of the package. The rest would be what a midlevel consultant could do, set up relationships between systems, map one to the other, etc.”

IMAGINiT Pulse benefits include (according to company materials):

• Connectors for Autodesk Vault, Autodesk Fusion Lifecycle, Autodesk BIM 360 Operations and BuildingLink and other systems, allow users to automatically flow information from one software program to another. For example, individuals involved in enterprise resource planning and PLM may need to seamlessly transfer certain data in a specific format from Fusion Lifecycle to Vault.
• Real-time visibility of data, through an easy to read dashboard, allows users to understand exactly what information is being transferred, monitor each step in the transfer process and ensure the security and consistency of the data between the two systems.
• Configurability gives users control over information being transferred, the systems it is being transferred between and the format in which it is being transferred – all without needing a dedicated development resource on staff. IMAGINiT technical professionals can assist Pulse users to define what data must move, in what direction, the format, and the reaction it triggers upon arrival at the destination software system.

Mason said that the connectors were built to do the heavy lifting of system integration, for working with specific products and getting data in or out of those products and doing updates.

“What’s left in the middle are workflow, rules and data mapping, and that’s modest, but doesn’t require the same level of development expertise that the actual deep integration to each system takes,” said Mason. “We’re trying to build something where we can have these pre-built connectors that do the hardest part of the work and separate the business logic and business rules into a separate part of the product.”

Have a Finger on the Pulse: New System Integration Platform from IMAGINiT

Multi-Acquisition Mapping Added to Indoor Reality 3D Mobile Mapping

Indoor Reality, a company created by founder and CEO Avideh Zakhor, University of California at Berkeley, announced the latest update to its 3D mobile mapping solution – multi-acquisition mapping – which can be used to rapidly capture a large area by using multiple devices in parallel, or the same device multiple times. Recently Zakhor was awarded the El Scientist of the Year award for significant contributions to signal processing, including 3D image processing & computer vision; 3D reality capture systems; 3D modeling, mapping and positioning; and image and video compression and communication.

Not surprisingly, the Iranian-born Zakhor is no stranger to the tech industry, in fact, she is behind the technology that gave us Google Earth and StreetView.

As Zakhor explains, “Reality capture of large areas has always been a challenge for indoor mapping systems. Now AEC professionals can use the Indoor Reality handheld mapping device IR-500 to capture and process arbitrarily large areas in chunks, by allowing Indoor Reality’s proprietary software to stitch the acquisitions together seamlessly. All the auto-generated data products such as interactive web visualization, point clouds, 3D mesh and floor plan, are generated as if there was one gigantic acquisition, rather than many smaller ones. Even the tagging and annotations made on smaller acquisitions will be seamlessly merged into the combined larger capture.”

What makes this particularly useful to BIM professionals is that the above capability coupled with Indoor Reality’s Revit Plug-in makes it possible to do rapid generation of BIM models for large areas at high speed.

Indoor Reality Captures and Processes Large Indoor Spaces

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ATTENTION ALL VENDORS AND TECHNOLOGISTS!

Please send your industry predictions for 2019 to me, Susan Smith, susan.smith@ibsystems.com by January 3rd for inclusion in a blog published in the first couple of weeks of January. Please keep your submission to 100-500 words, with author’s name, email address, photo and short bio. Do have a safe and wonderful holiday season and look forward to hearing from you in or before the New Year!

Susan

Tags: 3D, 3D cities, 3D printing, AEC, architects, architecture, AutoCAD, Autodesk, Bentley Systems, BIM, building design, building information modeling, CAD, climate change, collaboration, construction, design, engineering, engineers, infrastructure, mobile, Open BIM, point clouds, printers, reality capture, Revit, SolidWorks

Categories: 2D, 3D, 3D PDF, 3D printing, AEC, AEC training, AECCafe, apps, architecture, Architecture 2030, AutoCAD, Autodesk, BIM, building information modeling, Civil 3D, Cloud, collaboration, construction, construction project management, convergence, engineering, field, field solutions, greenhouse gas emissions, IMAGINiT, infrastructure, integrated project delivery, Internet of Things, IoT, lidar, managed services, mobile, OnShape, openBIM, plant design, point clouds, project management, reality capture, rendering, simulation, site planning

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