“Disruptive technology changes the face of industries, but we are also in an age of disruptive data.” – Anne Kemp
AECCafe Voice
Archive for the ‘civil information modeling’ Category
Knowing What’s Underground with BIM and GIS
Tuesday, February 21st, 2017Ease-of-Use, Owner Involvement are Big Themes at Rand IMAGINiT
Thursday, February 16th, 2017Carl Storms, Senior Applications Expert, for Rand IMAGINiT and Matt Mason, director of Software Development, for Rand IMAGINiT spoke with AECCafe at Autodesk University in November 2016 about the direction of the AEC industry. Rand IMAGINiT is a consulting and software development firm and Autodesk Partner. Carl Storms is “out in the trenches,” working with real world problems in AEC while Matt Mason is behind the scenes in the software development department, realizing the solutions to those challenges.
When asked about popular products and trends in AEC, Storm said, “Dynamo and visual programming are still a big thing. It’s been around a couple of years and now people more comfortable with it. Autodesk’s latest release of Dynamo Player is for people who are maybe not well versed in technology. They can just hit a button and play something. It’s like a playlist, you can pick a track you want to play. It accesses the information inside of your Revit model. It will, for example, have your text go from lower case to upper case with just the click of a button. It really gives people the benefit of using the technology without spending a lot of time learning the programming.”
According to Matt Mason, “Dynamo is still used by the power users, but to make it available to the rest of the people in the firm it needs to be more approachable. It’s been a challenge historically because you had to open the power users’ big complicated graph and understand it. From a usability standpoint, for the other 95% who aren’t at the level of doing Dynamo, it really helps democratize and leverage the Dynamo concept. The players can take advantage of the power users’ skills and have pretty much on-demand access.”
“Another big thing is augmented and virtual realities,” said Storms. “It’s now in more client and consumer based products. You have things as simple as Google Cardboard where you spend $12 to get the little lens and use your own smartphone, to high end devices, but they all allow you to immerse yourself in the data. Whether it’s a virtual reality type of device where you get immersed in the world of your model, you can walk around in your model and see what’s going on. Or you bring the reality into your reality so you can still see people and have conversations. You can see your interaction. People have been talking about it and have lots of thoughts and ideas for using it, and it will become more mainstream.”
AEC Predictions for 2017
Thursday, February 2nd, 2017AEC technology company spokespeople weigh in on what their predictions are for 2017, with their thoughts on “going digital,” virtual and augmented reality, smart cities, “assembled architecture,” drones, self-driving cars, big data and much more.
Stay tuned for some very insightful comments on the state of industry going forward this year.
Self driving electronic computer car on road, 3D illustration (courtesy Bentley Systems)
Smart Cities
City of Helsinki – Helsinki 3D+
Helsinki, Finland. Image Courtesy of City of Helsinki
“A smart city is a visionary statement for urban development that aims to converge information technology, operational technology, and engineering technology to better manage a city’s assets, and ultimately improve the quality of life for all. Technology is the enabler for smart cities around the globe, spanning mega projects to smaller scale initiatives that focus on streamlining processes, realizing efficiency gains, and improving services to its citizens. To realize the potential of a smart city, a concerted focus is being placed on a digital strategy that will enable comprehensive project delivery and enhanced asset performance for the supply chain and asset owners that build, construct, and operate and maintain infrastructure.” — Aidan Mercer, Industry Marketing Director, Government, Bentley Systems
Reality Modeling Goes Viral at Bentley’s Year in Infrastructure 2016 Conference
Wednesday, November 23rd, 2016One of the exciting developments that came out of The Year in Infrastructure 2016 Conference was the growth of Bentley’s ContextCapture reality modeling offering over the past year. Introduced at the 2015 conference, and derived from the acquisition of Acute3D, ContextCapture is used to process digital photos from a variety of cameras including smartphone cameras, and aerial photography, including UAVs, to provide engineering-ready reality meshes.
Winner Innovation in Reality Modeling: City of Helsinki – Helsinki 3D+
Helsinki, Finland. Image Courtesy of Bentley Systems
The Human Experience and Technology: AECCafe’s Autodesk University 2016 Report
Thursday, November 17th, 2016The Autodesk University 2016 keynote kicked off this Tuesday morning at the Venetian Congress Center, Las Vegas, with some rousing state-of-the-art rock and roll, followed by an introduction by Autodesk CTO Jeff Kowalski.
BEinspiring in London – AECCafe’s Bentley Year In Infrastructure 2016 Report
Thursday, November 3rd, 2016It’s difficult not to be inspired when attending the Bentley Year In Infrastructure Conference, with so many talented professionals gathered to show off their infrastructure projects.
Innovation in Building Winner: Morphosis – Hanking Center Tower. Image Courtesy of Bentley Systems
Bentley Year In Infrastructure 2016 Coming to London Next Week
Thursday, October 27th, 2016This year’s Bentley Year in Infrastructure Conference will be held at the Hilton Metropole in London, Monday, October 31st – November 4th.
Phillip Island Penguin Viewing Platform, Phillip Island, Victoria, Australia, Tract Consultants, Pty, Ltd.
The Autodesk Subscription Program Meets Bentley’s Autodesk License Upgrade Program
Thursday, September 29th, 2016An ongoing topic in the AEC industry for over a year now has been the issue of Autodesk’s moving its customer base to a subscription only program. While Autodesk has given customers a lot of time to make this transition, nevertheless, the Autodesk Subscription Program means the end of the perpetual license program. The Autodesk Subscription Program is heralded by the company as the best thing for customers of Autodesk products and they have the recent earnings to prove it. In Q1 of this year, they were up 132,000 to 2.71 million.
Apple building in Cupertino
Focus on the “I” in BIM with Invicara’s BIM Assure
Wednesday, July 27th, 2016Lately, more products have come on the market whose goal it is to make building information modeling (BIM) better. The cloud has really opened up the possibilities for this, allowing for easier and more seamless use of a large, often unwieldy building model.
BIM Assure’s web-based model viewer makes it easy to find and fix data issues in building models.
New Interoperability Agreement between Trimble and Autodesk Improves Data Exchanges and Workflows
Friday, July 15th, 2016Trimble and Autodesk, Inc. entered into an interoperability agreement to improve current data exchanges, aimed at saving customers’ time and reducing project costs typically associated with workflow inefficiency across different suppliers’ technologies. This will benefit architects, engineers and contractors, and importantly, project owners by enabling more freedom to optimize technology workflows needed to meet the complex requirements of today’s construction projects.
