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.
“What are digital twins and specifically urban twins?” This was the question is posed at the beginning of the webinar by Michael Jansen, founder and CEO of CityZenith in a recent webinar hosted by CityZenith and ABI Research. They are virtual replicas of buildings, infrastructure and physical assets, fully interconnected with the data in and around them. Digital twins can provide actionable insight for optimization in design, engineering, construction and operations through simulation and prediction of future outcomes.
As we approach the 20th anniversary of 9/11, we can see how much progress has been made on rebuilding the site where the World Trade Center once was, before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. For many who were charged with rebuilding, the past 20 years has been a process that involved not just sorting through what remained but creating new structures that would not only commemorate the site, but add beauty to the New York skyline and be structurally stronger than the original.
Studio Daniel Libeskind World Trade Center Master Plan
Deltek announced recently its acquisition of ArchiSnapper – a SaaS and mobile application designed to help architects and engineers automate field reports, easily create digital site inspection and improve collaboration.
This past week NVIDIA announced the NVIDIA RTX A2000 at SIGGRAPH 2021, a redefinition of the mainstream, professional GPU, which expands access to the power of NVIDIA RTX and represents an expansion of the NVIDIA Omniverse.
At a technical session held at the Virtual Esri User Conference 2021, in July, entitled “GIS + BIM for AEC Project Delivery & Operations,” expert presenters Steven Santovasi, Erika Boccian, Rafael Lucero and Anthony Renteria provided a look at the value of BIM and GIS for project delivery as well as for other aspects of AEC, such as schedule data, asset lifecycle management and the features of the upcoming ArcGIS GeoBIM.
Recently, Bentley Systems presented a webinar entitled, “Using the Power of Digital Twins to Reimagine the Future of Infrastructure” at the EFCG Tech Leadership Conference online.
Presenters Steve Cockerell, Industry Marketing Director, Transportation, and Kat Flesh, Senior Director Transportation, both of Bentley Systems, spoke on their findings from working with some of Bentley’s most visionary users.
Kat Flesh, Bentley Senior Director Transportation
They provided an update on what has been achieved so far, and what is being planned by owners and supply chains of assets that support nearly every aspect of our lives today. For example, roads, rail and transit, bridges, water systems, and smart cities. Cockerell and Flesh also explored the innovative ideas that are shaping the infrastructure business for a better tomorrow.
Steve Cockerell, Bentley Industry Marketing Director, Transportation
“Population growth rates vary across different regions, but we’re still talking about 2 billion additional people on the planet in the next 20 to 30 years,” Cockerell said. “The United Nations predicts that the future of the world’s population is urban. Today, over 55% of the world’s population live in urban areas, but by the middle of the century that number will go up to 68%. In America, the number is already 80%, and I think this will place a huge strain on our infrastructure assets. Most of the impact will be on our roads and railways as these networks are the only way to keep our cities and countries moving.”
This week Hungarian-based Graphisoft held their Graphisoft Global Press Briefing, with CEO Huw Roberts introducing the next generation of solutions and services, basically what’s new in Archicad, BIMcloud, and BIMx.
Bret Tushaus, Vice President, Product Management for Deltek, spoke with AECCafe Voice this week about their recent announcement, together with AIA, to deliver a new solution to the AEC industry this September, called Deltek Specpoint. The solution is an all-in-one specification and design automation tool that will be the new home of AIA MasterSpec®. Specpoint will help architects and engineers reduce risks and improve project outcomes with the combination of its innovative approach to authoring specifications and the industry proven content provided via MasterSpec.
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 inIMAGINiT 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.
