IMAGINiT’s Clarity 2022 Release Adds AutoCAD Automated Task Support Plus Revit Security and Data Integration Enhancements

IMAGINiT Technologies has recently released Clarity 2022, an enterprise level suite of products that improves building information model (BIM) integrity and collaboration via access to business insights, metrics and time saving automation. New functionality in  IMAGINiT Clarity’s 2022 release has added Autodesk AutoCAD task processing, extending to Autodesk Revit teams as well as AutoCAD and Autodesk Civil 3D users in AEC Firms.

Matt Mason, director of Software Solutions for IMAGINiT, spoke with AECCafe Voice about the new release.

Q: What is AutoCAD task processing comprised of and how does it enhance the workflow of AutoCAD, Revit and Civil 3D users?

MM: Multidisciplinary firms in particular often have workflows that involve both Revit and Civil3D on a project. Clarity has added automated task support (the ability to schedule and batch execute) manual repetitive tasks now within any of the AutoCAD-based products. This includes tasks such as PDF Printing and collating, eTransmitting, as well as production of Navisworks files for clash detection and beyond. We have long supported the automated task processing on the Revit side – we’re now investing in task processing for other departments and types of firms.

Alongside new data-integration and security enhancements that further collaboration across teams and projects, Clarity’s latest iteration now also supports Revit 2022 and all versions dating back to Revit 2018.

Q: What previous generations did Clarity’s previous iteration support? Does that create a lapse problem for those who have continued with the older versions of Revit?

MM: There is always some tension in this – we’d like not to have to support every version of Revit – but building projects last a long time, and firms are rightfully reluctant to upgrade them. Previous versions of Clarity supported the previous 4 versions of Revit. In order to better support customers going forward, we have increased this to 5 versions of Revit (with limited support for a 6^th version). We hope that this gives firms the ability to “upgrade now”, rather than wait until their 2017/2018 projects have wrapped up.

Q: What other data integration and security enhancements have you added?

MM: In the 2022 release, we’ve tried to strike a balance between making data available more easily to the firm – while still providing security around that data. There are several features around our OData-integration format (which makes it easy to connect data extracted by Clarity with Excel, PowerBI, Tableau and other business intelligence tools). The new features make it just a couple of clicks to get the data connected, however, you now have to specify your Clarity credentials to confirm that you have access to the projects in question.

Q: Bill Zavadil, president, IMAGINiT Technologies states: “The innovations contained in our latest release unlock new value for AutoCAD users by mining millions of data points and bringing this information to the forefront via intuitive dashboards allowing managers to quickly make more informed decisions.”  

Can you describe the intuitive dashboards in greater detail and the ability to mine mililons of data points now?

MM: Clarity can extract two kinds of data – first, model health data provides over 70 key metrics for how the CAD tools are being used. What features are being used, as well as whether best practices (or anti-best practices) are being followed. These KPIs are tracked over time and can be used by BIM Coordinators to stay on top of the health of CAD Models in a project.

Secondly, Clarity is able to extract detailed data about the content of the design – out of proprietary CAD formats and into an SQL database, where the data can be analyzed more effectively. For example, planners can ask questions like “what was the average square footage of an operating room in the last 4 hospital projects we did”? Clarity extracts the data to make an answer possible (an answer visible either in Clarity or the Business Intelligence Tools).

Q: “Data is vital to making more informed decisions. That is why Clarity is now designed to work in conjunction with business intelligence tools such as Power BI and Tableau to deliver visibility into model health, Autodesk Revit performance, and a variety of Revit project data.” – company materials 

What kinds of improvements in Clarity have been made to be able to work with BI tools, what do they deliver?

MM: In previous releases of Clarity, the data was fully available to Business Intelligence Tools – but it often required special IT privileges to be able to access the data in the server. We found that at medium-to-large firms, this was an obstacle that prevented “power users” who would be interested in data from getting access to it.

The new version offers an OData link – a special link that can be copied-and-pasted into a Business Intelligence tool, and immediately give access to project data – without having to involve the IT department to facilitate it.

Q: “For remote collaboration environments, Clarity 2022 offers additional security options to enable team members to securely connect with data and view reports across projects. Visibility into model data can now be based on user access within Clarity, giving different team members unique access to data as the project requires.” – company materials.

What kinds of security options does Clarity 2022 offer? How is this different from past abilities to have unique access to data among team members?

MM:  We have made the Business Intelligence linking both simpler while still secure.

We have also rearranged our security roles somewhat, to reflect how larger firms structure their organization. We have given more access to BIM Coordinators about information, including the actual time designers spent working on each individual model, the various Revit addins used, as well as highlighting projects being worked on that have not yet been set up in Clarity.

Tags: 3D, AEC, architects, architecture, Autodesk, Autodesk Revit, BIM, building, building design, building information modeling, collaboration, design, digital twin, engineering, facilities management, infrastructure, visualization

Categories: 2D, 3D, AEC, AECCafe, AutoCAD, Autodesk, BIM, building information modeling, Civil 3D, civil information modeling, Cloud, collaboration, construction, construction project management, IMAGINiT, sustainable design, visualization

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