Carl 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 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
The 2017 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas attracted over 165,000 people this month, with 3800 companies doing product launches.
Erek Dyskant, co-founder of BlueLabs, an analytics and technology company dedicated to harnessing the power of data to produce meaningful two-way engagement between people and organizations, spoke at CES. Dyskant aims to empower individuals to take steps that “make their political voice heard, improve their health, and strengthen their financial security.” (more…)
Projected U.S. building sector energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to the year 2030 have declined for eleven straight years since the 2030 Challenge was issued in 2005.
This statement was issued by the Architecture 2030 Challenge, to highlight the progress of just one organization that has tirelessly worked toward the reduction of GHG emissions for the past 11 years. The report itself demonstrates a commitment among the architecture and planning communities plus building sector professionals to the decline of GHG emissions in the U.S. building sector.
“According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Annual Energy Outlook 2016, projections to the year 2030 for building sector energy consumption (building operations) have declined by 18.5 Quadrillion BTUs since 2005 (or the equivalent of 1,209 coal-fired 250 MW power plants),” recent press materials said.
One 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 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.
AECCafe will be in attendance at Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE FORUM held in Santa Clara, California on Thursday, November 10th. This venue is focused on how to address industrial challenges and quickly realize the benefits of this business model.
According to company materials, by attending this year’s event, you will get the opportunity to:
Learn from thought leaders on key issues impacting all businesses today – manufacturing in the future, the sharing economy, digital transformation, big data and the internet of everything
Meet with senior executives from a range of industries to gain insight into how today’s leaders are driving their business to create captivating experiences for their end customers
Discover Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform and learn how the power of connecting people, ideas, solutions and data create a new framework for thinking that can help you innovate, develop new revenue streams and realize the future of the experience economy
Look forward to seeing many of you there! Editor, Susan Smith susan.smith@ibsystems.com and President, Sanjay Gangal sanjay.gangal@ibsystems.com
It’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
