At Autodesk University 2024 in San Diego, the construction tech world took note as Morpheus Technology Group (Morpheus) showcased their innovative approach to seamlessly integrating construction project management data with financial systems. In an exclusive interview, Randy Nolan, CEO of Morpheus, and Guy Barlow, Vice President of Sales, shared the company’s mission, the evolution of their platform, and their future plans. What started as a modest effort to bridge gaps in data has now grown into a powerful solution for some of the largest players in the construction industry.
A Mission Born from Industry Demand
Founded in 2001, Morpheus’ inception was driven by an industry-wide need for better synchronization between project management and accounting systems. As Nolan recalled, “The industry was demanding integration, and we saw an opportunity to step in and solve the problem.” Initially, Morpheus’ focus was on integrating just two core applications—a necessity at the time due to the industry’s heavy reliance on disparate systems for project management and financial accounting. But as technology and business processes evolved, so did Morpheus’ capabilities.
Now, more than two decades later, Morpheus’ Frameworks platform addresses a growing need for adaptability, as construction companies increasingly use a variety of software applications. The platform is designed to integrate systems seamlessly, reducing manual entry and ensuring that project managers and accounting teams are always working with the same data. “Our core belief is that everybody implements cost management differently,” Nolan said. Frameworks reflects this philosophy, allowing each company to tailor integrations to their specific processes and workflows.
Autodesk University 2024 delivered an inspiring keynote by President and CEO Andrew Anagnost, offering a bold vision for the future of AI, sustainability, and how these transformative forces are set to reshape industries. This year’s keynote featured in-depth conversations with Casey Wasserman, Chairperson of LA28, and Raji Arasu, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Autodesk. Together, they explored Autodesk’s groundbreaking role in the upcoming LA28 Olympic and Paralympic Games, its application of artificial intelligence (AI) across industries, and the lasting impact of technology in a rapidly changing world.
AI for Practical Transformation
Anagnost opened with a candid discussion about the gap between AI’s hype and its current usefulness. He acknowledged that while much of AI’s promise remains unfulfilled, Autodesk is laser-focused on creating AI tools that deliver practical solutions today. “Technologies come with a lot of hype, but our focus at Autodesk is on AI that works for you today, delivering tangible productivity and creativity gains,” Anagnost said. His message was clear: Autodesk is driving AI innovation that empowers users across industries, from architecture to manufacturing to entertainment.
One of the standout initiatives presented was Project Bernini, Autodesk’s groundbreaking AI model. Bernini allows designers to generate fully realized 3D objects in minutes, a process that would have traditionally taken hours or even days. This AI tool is already proving to be a game-changer in streamlining design workflows, with the potential to enhance creativity while eliminating repetitive tasks.
“Bernini exemplifies how AI can augment your creativity and productivity,” said Arasu, emphasizing that Autodesk’s AI is designed to solve real-world problems, not just theoretical challenges. Arasu elaborated on how Bernini allows designers to prompt AI using natural language, sketches, or images, creating a new era of rapid ideation. “We want AI to enhance your skills, not replace them. The creative work that you do is so complex and so special—AI cannot solve for your ingenuity,” Arasu said.
President of AECCafe Sanjay Gangal spoke recently with Montreal-based Nick Fonta, General Manager, XR division at Autodesk about Autodesk’s XR immersive experience and the company’s acquisition of The Wild, an immersive remote collaboration platform for architecture, design, and enterprise teams.
Sanjay: Thank you so much for joining us, Nick. So, tell us about Autodesk XR Solutions.
Nick: For sure. Autodesk has an interesting journey or history when it comes to XR. We started in the 1990s with our first project around XR, and it was a full 3D immersive experience with AutoCAD data that people could navigate into, a little bit like a first-person shooter. You could interact with basic interactions with the AutoCAD scene at the time. That was a project in prototype. And since then, we’ve been doing a lot of things, we have a research group who continued testing the limits of those technologies, but more recently, we’ve had a few things maybe worth noting. The first thing being about seven years ago, we moved into the real-time engine business, if you will, with our own engine, which was called Stingray. And we also built a first product in our trying to understand what that meant phase for Autodesk, and the product was called Revit Live. And both Stingray and Revit Live were our first real experiments to try to understand how real-time technologies, VR, and AR can can add value and solve real problems for our customers in the AEC and manufacturing spaces.
We tried a lot of things there, and then finally, a lot more recently, we have products today that support mostly VR, a little bit of AR as well in a portfolio. We have VRED, which targets mainly the automotive industry. VRED is a very high end, high resolution, high level of fidelity when it comes to imageries and rendering. It comes with the collaborative VR experience, so you can bring multiple designers to review, do the design reviews typically on cars, but it’s also used in other manufacturing industries. So that’s one, as a product, it’s been around for about five years, maybe a bit more, and is still around. It’s very successful, we’re seeing a lot of adoption and growth there, and we also have a capability called Create VR that allows designers to sketch and ideate in VR from scratch in a 3D space for a very creative way of transferring your ideas as a designer into the 3D world. Recently we released a capability out of Fusion products, one of our Hero products in manufacturing that allows any Fusion model to be experienced in AR, experienced on iOS with a publish to a USDZ. This is what we have today. This is where this all journey started, maybe a couple of months ago, and I’m sure we’re going to talk more about that now.
It is an interesting time to be working in the AEC industry, and I feel grateful for having experienced the past 25+ years immersed in it from an editorial perspective.
Predictions for the coming year are shaped by history and the current moment, and where we see the future unfolding. Both Adam Klatzin, vice president, Business Development for the iTwin Platform at Bentley Systems and Allison Scott, director of Construction Thought Leadership, Autodesk Construction Solutions, write about what realities have shaped catalysts for current and future development.
At the heart of content creation are the machines that we run programs on.
On the cutting edge as usual, NVIDIA presented at CES a couple of weeks ago in Las Vegas, bringing with them a plethora of new developments. Jeff Fisher, senior vice president of NVIDIA’s GeForce business, announced more than 160 thin-and-light laptops using RTX 30 Series GPUs in a smorgasbord of mobile designs.
Jeff Fisher, senior vice president of NVIDIA’s GeForce business
Much of 2021’s important news had to do with response to climate change, coupled with the Covid-19 response for businesses. Technologies have been in place for many years to respond, but the time is now, and actually the time is yesterday, to respond to these critical social and environmental issues. Digital twin technology and artificial intelligence are front and center in addressing these challenges. Reducing the world’s carbon footprint is a major priority for most organizations and technologies are being lined up to address this priority.
CEO Jensen Huang presented the keynote at the recent GTC21 NVIDIA Conference, November 8-11, sharing with the audience the importance of accelerated computing and much more. The announcements were so prolific and not all pertinent to the AEC industry, thus I will share those that would be of most interest to our audience. One of the most profound announcements came at the end of the talk, wherein Huang announced that they are building a digital twin of the earth.
Zac Hays, head of product, preconstruction for Autodesk Construction Solutions, spoke this week with AECCafe Voice about Autodesk’s new BuildingConnected, a building platform to which new building project data can be posted and shared.
Zac Hays, head of product, preconstruction for Autodesk Construction Solutions
Andrew Anagnost, President and CEO of Autodesk gave the keynote at the general session of the second Autodesk University 2021 Virtual in October. He spoke of how customers and employees had to experience a decade of change in 18 months that some were not ready for. “Even before social distancing and remote – platforms were connecting consumers and producers, and mobile devices were bringing everyone together,” said Anagnost. “Sometimes it’s felt like technology has kept us apart. We saw human ingenuity at a greater pace and scale. We face uncertainty. You make things that make tomorrow a better place. Everyone here are innovators and solve big and small problems, and technology is a force multiplier of your ingenuity.
