Archive for the ‘Civil 3D’ Category
Thursday, August 30th, 2018
Responsibilities of the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority are vast, as they manage stewardship of federal port lands in and around Vancouver, British Columbia.
The port authority oversees and manages over 16,000 hectares of water, more than 1,000 hectares of land, and approximately 350 kilometers of shoreline, bordering 16 municipalities and intersecting the asserted and established territories and treaty lands of several Coast Salish First Nations.
The port authority’s mandate includes handling permits for all projects for proposed federal port lands use and is responsible for real estate management. It also manages infrastructure development designed to support growth and efficient operations.
In order to manage all this, the port authority maintains a repository of AutoCAD drawings. They have been AutoCAD Map 3D and Civil 3D users for a long time.
Maintaining source drawings from many systems such as water, communication, electrical, storm, sewer, and more is what the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority’s Spatial Data Group does on a daily basis. Team members create plans based in these systems and want to query features from each of them. One of the primary problems was that those features could be unintentionally removed from the source drawing if the user didn’t detach it before saving the working file. It could then be gone forever. The team really wanted a solution that could automatically create an audit trail displaying everyone who had modified a file.
Joe Hedrick, manager, Infrastructure Solutions for IMAGINiT, answered some questions for AECCafe Voice on how the port authority found a solution for tracking and safeguarding its CAD drawings in the form of Autodesk Vault.
(more…)
Tags: AEC, architects, AutoCAD, Autodesk, BIM, building design, CAD, Cloud, collaboration, construction, design, engineering, engineers, infrastructure
Comments Off on Vancouver Fraser Port Authority Implements Autodesk Vault
Friday, August 10th, 2018
The built environment is increasingly more digitized, relying heavily on large building models to hold all aspects of a building project. Thus, the need for BIM Interoperability is greater as the necessity grows for stakeholders to be able to access the information inside these complex models.
 Bay Bridge East Span Seismic Safety Project
To prove the project was viable, the California Department of Transportation shared detailed 3D designs with potential contracting firms. (more…)
Tags: 3D, AEC, architects, architecture, Autodesk, Autodesk Revit, Autodesk University, Bentley Systems, BIM, building design, building information modeling, Cloud, CloudCities, collaboration, construction, design, engineering, engineers, IMSI/Design, laser scanning, Nemetschek, Nemetschek Vectorworks, Open BIM, point clouds, reality capture, Revit, Sefaira, SketchUp, Trimble, visualization, Year in Infrastructure 2017
Comments Off on AECCafe BIM Interoperability Questionnaire
Thursday, May 3rd, 2018
Autodesk holds some informative webcasts for the civil community entitled “Civil Community Webcasts.” One recent one was entitled “What’s New in Civil 3D and InfraWorks.”
Bay Bridge East Span Seismic Safety Project
To prove the project was viable, the California Department of Transportation shared detailed 3D designs with potential contracting firms. Eric Chappell, Civil Community Evangelist for Autodesk, hosted this webinar with Dan Philbrick, director of Civil Infrastructure Products, Dave Simeone, Civil 3D project manager, and Sarah Cunningham, InfraWorks product manager.
Chappell recommends the InfraWorks tool for doing preliminary design and decisions. “This year we’re focusing on continuing to drive detailed design in both InfraWorks and the platform for BIM.”
The use of Civil 3D with or without InfraWorks is valuable and both are in the same civil collection.
What’s new in InfraWorks 2018.0
Sarah Cunningham noted that they changed the name of the product and took “360” out of the name.
An InfraWorks Customer Council meets with Autodesk once a month. “They tell us about challenges,” said Cunningham. “They bounce ideas off one another. Many people aren’t sure how to implement InfraWorks yet. This group has been able to talk about how they’re using it. We’re starting to hear some interesting things: 1. Continues to be used for road and highway design 2. CAD managers are hearing from designers that they want more engineering data from the InfraWorks model, increasing in frequency. They want it to be more than a pretty picture in visualization, more toward engineering design. The Corridor project in Norway, winner of the Infrastructure in Excellence Awards 2016, was about planning a corridor and using InfraWorks for large scale planning projects. They want to use InfraWorks for more preliminary design now that planning phase is done.”
(more…)
Tags: 3D, 3D cities, AEC, architects, architecture, AutoCAD, Autodesk, Autodesk Revit, BIM, building, building design, building information modeling, CAD, Cloud, collaboration, construction, engineering, engineers, infrastructure, laser scanning, mobile, point clouds, Revit, visualization
Comments Off on New Features of Autodesk’s Civil 3D and InfraWorks
Wednesday, April 18th, 2018
In recent years we have seen an explosion of the use of reality capture by traditional CAD and building information modeling companies. Its ability to capture existing conditions and create 3D models out of photographs or laser scans, without seams makes it a great fit for the AEC industry. Technologies used include 3D laser scanning, mobile and aerial LiDAR, and photogrammetry. This resulting point data is reconstructed into a 3D model. While accurate, LiDAR only captures 3D data leaving color out. Photogrammetry uses photographs to reconstruct a 3D image.
 ReCap Enhancements (more…)
Tags: 3D, 3D cities, AEC, architects, architecture, AutoCAD, Autodesk, Autodesk Revit, Bentley Systems, BIM, building, building design, building information modeling, CAD, climate change, Cloud, collaboration, engineering, engineers, GIS, iPad, laser scanning, mobile, Nemetschek Vectorworks, reality capture, Revit, Vectorworks, visualization
Comments Off on AECCafe Special Coverage: Reality Capture Fast-Tracks Infrastructure Design
Wednesday, February 28th, 2018
Reality Capture has taken the AEC world by storm in recent years with its ability to capture existing conditions and create 3D models out of photographs or laser scans, without seams. Technologies used include 3D laser scanning, mobile and aerial LiDAR, and photogrammetry. This resulting point data is reconstructed into a 3D model. While accurate, LiDAR only captures 3D data leaving color out. Photogrammetry is another method by which Reality Capture is achieved. This type of Reality Capture uses photographs to reconstruct a 3D image.
 An image in Bentley’s ContextCapture photo planning that shows operation (gray),
target (yellow), and forbidden (red) zones. (more…)
Tags: 3D, 3D cities, 3D printing, AEC, architects, architecture, AutoCAD, Autodesk Revit, BIM, CAD, collaboration, construction, design, engineering, infrastructure, reality capture
Comments Off on AECCafe Voice’s Reality Capture Questionnaire
Friday, February 16th, 2018
There have been some changes to Autodesk recently. Perhaps most importantly for the users and owners, changes to the subscription program, that has been promoted by Autodesk as an “my way or the highway” approach to selling software, or cloud services as it were. As some people were not happy with being expected to purchase a subscription and give up their perpetual licenses, a new promotion has been initiated. This new promotion offers a “switch-back” option, meaning that if you own a perpetual license and you switch to a subscription, “If you’re not satisfied, you can switch back to your perpetual license.” This is the promise.
You can find out more about what this might mean for those who would like to continue with their perpetual licenses or revert to a perpetual license after finding the subscription program doesn’t work for them here.
How do I get this offer? (The first of the FAQs)
Simply trade in your qualifying old perpetual license(s) and purchase a new 1- or 3-year subscription to any eligible collection or individual product of your choice via one of the methods outlined.
Once you submit your perpetual license(s), you agree to discontinue use of the traded-in license(s). This offer ends April 20, 2018.
Which products qualify for the offer?
Most Autodesk perpetual licenses of releases R14 (release year 1998) through 2018 version product not on an active maintenance plan (as of December 31, 2017) qualify to get the offer discount.
When you trade in your qualifying perpetual license(s), you can get the offer discount on most Autodesk product subscriptions, including industry collections, AutoCAD, Revit, Inventor, 3ds Max, Civil 3D, Maya, and much more.
View list of all eligible products and full offer details here.
Can I get a different product than I have now?
You do not need to purchase the same product as the perpetual trade-in license. For example, you can trade in an old, eligible perpetual license of AutoCAD and subscribe to a collection at the promotional price.
(Eds note: This might work if you wanted to buy a subscription to a collection that contains AutoCAD, thereby seeming to get more for your money.)
What does “switch-back” option mean?
We’re confident that you will be satisfied with your subscription, but if for any reason that is not the case, you are eligible to switch back to your perpetual license at the end of either the 3-year term, or the end of the second year of an annual term (1 year plus 1 year renewal). See full details here.
In those full details, note this information:
Note that customers are only able to switch back to the versions set out below.
| Version submitted |
Switch back: within “eligible term”* |
Customer obligations |
| 2017, 2018 |
• 2016 version
• same product
• same deployment (e.g. SLM or NLM) |
Contact Autodesk for details of how to switch-back |
| 1998 – 2016 |
• Same version as submitted
• same product
• same deployment (e.g. SLM or NLM) |
Retain media kits, download and/or activation details, and any other item necessary for operation of legacy license |
Do I have to be connected to the internet to use my software?
No. After initial activation, your software will work offline for 30 days. At that point, you will need to reconnect. Don’t worry, we’ll remind you 7 days prior.
Will all of my work automatically go into the cloud?
Desktop applications and all associated user data are stored on your local machine. When you use cloud service applications, you can choose to either store data in the cloud or on your local machine. You retain all of your local data even if you decide to end your subscription.
Will I have updates whether I want to or not?
As a subscriber, you can access the latest updates anytime, but you decide if and when to install them.
What else can I do with subscription that I don’t have with my old software?
The subscription offerings provide you greater value and enable you to:
- Always access the latest software, updates and previous versions
- Use your software anywhere you need to be – at home, at work or on the road
- Share 2D or 3D views of your work online and see comments directly in your product
- Try out new tools without making a big up-front investment
- Easily scale up or down to fit your organization’s changing needs
- Instantly grant users access to products you have purchased by deploying them directly on devices or allowing users to install them on their own from the Autodesk desktop app
- Get technical support – Choose phone, online chat, email or remote desktop assistance to resolve your issues more quickly
Learn more
Eds. note: Nowhere is there any mention of continued support, upgrades or maintenance if you do choose to “switch-back” to your old version of Autodesk software after dipping your toes into the subscription pool. What this offer offers: 1) the owner or user, gains the opportunity to try out the subscription-based arrangement with an option of turning back if he/she wants to. 2) Additionally, the subscription price is 25% less than it would be without this offer, so it might be a worthwhile incentive to move forward. 3) You may really save money on signing up for the Industry Collections.
You must make your decision within 30 days, if you want to “switch-back.” If you do switch back, you don’t get to pick up your perpetual license maintenance plan. You will also be sent back (kind of like in a game of Monopoly) to your perpetual license version you had before.
Extraordinary as it may seem, if you had purchased a 2017 or 2018 perpetual license, it appears (see above chart) that if you were not happy with your subscription plan, you would be switched back to a 2016 perpetual license. I’m hoping this is a typo, but so far that is what is stated on the website. Stay tuned; I have contacted Autodesk to find out further information.
Tags: 3D, AEC, architects, architecture, AutoCAD, Autodesk, Autodesk Revit, Autodesk University, building design, building information modeling, CAD, collaboration, construction, design, engineering, Revit, subscription
Comments Off on Autodesk Subscription “Switch-Back” Promotion Shows Some Heart, Sort Of
Thursday, January 4th, 2018
Happy New Year!
Approaching a new year, the technologies that we saw growing during 2017 may unfold into 2018 to become realized with deeper understanding.
(more…)
Tags: 2030 Districts, 3D, 3D cities, 3D printing, AEC, architects, architecture, Autodesk, Autodesk Revit, Bentley Systems, BIM, building design, building information modeling, CAD, Cloud, collaboration, construction, design, engineering, infrastructure, point clouds, SketchUp, visualization, Year in Infrastructure 2017, YII2017
Comments Off on AECCafe Predictions for 2018
Thursday, December 21st, 2017
Looking back over 2017, AEC milestones and ongoing challenges preside over the year. It was exciting this year to visit Singapore, a nation/state/city that is truly a “smart nation,” as well as a “smart city,” employing more technologies that are linked and integrated than generally used in design projects.
In terms of adoption of products, the year has seen many ways software companies help customers adopt new workflow processes, product releases and maintain upgrades.
 Multi-discipline design with BIM Models (more…)
Tags: 3D, 3D cities, AEC, architects, architecture, AutoCAD, Autodesk, Autodesk Revit, Bentley Systems, BIM, building, building design, building information modeling, construction, engineering, infrastructure, laser scanning, mobile, point clouds, reality capture, visualization, Year in Infrastructure 2017, YII2017
Comments Off on AECCafe 2017 Year in Review
Thursday, November 2nd, 2017
When everyone on a team uses a different BIM software, it can be painful to maintain accurate model versions, control user access, compare versions and analyze different models. On big projects, there are many teams coming together, all using whatever BIM technologies they have been tasked with and making all those interoperate, multiplying the challenge several fold.
Multi-discipline design with BIM Models (more…)
Tags: 3D cities, AEC, Archicad, architects, architecture, AutoCAD, Autodesk, Autodesk Revit, Autodesk University, Bentley Systems, BIM, building, collaboration, construction, design, engineering, infrastructure, integration, interoperability, Konstru, Open Design alliance, Trimble, visualization, Year in Infrastructure 2017
Comments Off on Special AECCafe Report: BIM Interoperability: Emphasis on Data Not Tools
Thursday, September 28th, 2017
When everyone on a team uses a different BIM software, it can be painful to maintain accurate model versions, control user access, compare versions and analyze different models. On big projects, there are many teams coming together, all using whatever BIM technologies they have been tasked with and making all those interoperate, multiplying the challenge severalfold.
(more…)
Tags: 3D, AEC, architects, architecture, Autodesk, Autodesk Revit, Bentley Systems, BIM, building, building design, building information modeling, CAD, Cloud, collaboration, construction, design, engineering, IMSI/Design, reality capture
Comments Off on Coming Soon: AECCafe Special Report on Interoperabiiity for BIM
|
