Susan Smith Susan Smith has worked as an editor and writer in the technology industry for over 16 years. As an editor she has been responsible for the launch of a number of technology trade publications, both in print and online. Currently, Susan is the Editor of GISCafe and AECCafe, as well as those sites’ newsletters and blogs. She writes on a number of topics, including but not limited to geospatial, architecture, engineering and construction. As many technologies evolve and occasionally merge, Susan finds herself uniquely situated to be able to cover diverse topics with facility. « Less
Susan Smith Susan Smith has worked as an editor and writer in the technology industry for over 16 years. As an editor she has been responsible for the launch of a number of technology trade publications, both in print and online. Currently, Susan is the Editor of GISCafe and AECCafe, as well as those sites’ … More »
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.
Trimble (SketchUp) has integrated V-Ray, a leading rendering application for architectural visualization from Chaos, into SketchUp Studio. SketchUp software is a popularly used 3D modeling software and design platform for architects, engineers and construction (AEC) professionals. The integration makes it possible for users to generate high-quality renderings directly within Trimble’s SketchUp Studio.
While Bentley Systems has had an Academic Program for some time, it has been reawakened, according to Katriona Lord-Levins, chief success officer at Bentley. “It has been brought into the times we’re in, and to meet the needs that we have to create a talent pipelines for our customers and ourselves,” said Lord-Levins. “Not only do we want to help students develop their engineering skills that will help them in the real world, but we also want to get people excited about the possibilities of the future.”
Dr. Biplab Sarkar, CEO of Vectorworks, Inc., in an interview with Sanjay Gangal, CEO and president of AECCafe, spoke about the company as well as latest announcements.
Sanjay Gangal: Tell us about Vectorworks:
Dr. Sarkar: Vectorworks is an award-winning design and BIM software provider, serving architecture, landscape architecture and BIM around the world. We have been creating software since 1985, building software with a design focus, and we have around 700,000 users around the world creating, connecting and influencing the next generation of design with Vectorworks, on Mac and Windows, headquartered in Columbia, MD. We have offices in Newbury, England and Vancouver, Canada. We are a part of the Nemetschek Group. We have sister companies like Allplan, Graphisoft, Maxon and other construction software companies.
Sanjay Gangal: How has Covid-19 affected your business?
Dr. Sarkar: It got affected like other businesses, we learned the importance of adaptability. We found new ways to support and connect with customers. We held our first-ever virtual Vectorworks Design Summit last year. One of the advantages was that people from all around the world were able to connect and talk to us during those events. Otherwise we would have had more localized events. The virtual nature helped us a lot. We are having more virtual firm visits, meeting with more customers. The recent Vectorworks Open House on April 21 allowed customers to talk to product experts as well as developers about Vectorworks feature sets, workflows, and the public Roadmap. We published our Vectorworks Roadmap product roadmap last November and are very excited about that. It is a 5-year roadmap.
Digital twins can play a role providing accurate, reliable data – fit-for-purpose and useful across the water infrastructure lifecycle. Gregg Herrin, vice president, water infrastructure at Bentley Systems discussed in a briefing with AECCafe Voice the Dodge Data Analytics Water Report.
According to company materials from Cityzenith, 70% of the world’s carbon emissions come from cities, and digital twin technology may hold the key to reversing this.
Lamina Tower, Saudi Arabia
A recent Markets & Markets report estimated the Digital Twin market would grow from $3.1 billion in 2020 to $48.2 billion per year by 2026, at an annual CAGR of 58%. Digital Twin software is already revolutionizing industries such as Construction, Energy, Architecture, Aerospace, and Automotive & Transportation.
Dr. Nelson Ogunshakin, CEO of FIDIC, hosted the first of a series of webinars arranged by FIDIC’s committees, entitled FIDIC Covid-19 Webinar Series 2021 – Working in the New Normal. The webinars focus on a wider range of topics of interest to Member Associations and companies within the consultancy.
The Nightingale hospital in Harrogate will revert to its original use as a convention centre
More customers working remotely coupled with increased frequency in cyberthreats over 2020 has spurred the release of IMAGINiT Technologies Clarity 2021.1 suite of products including new security features.
An interesting by-product of the Covid-19 pandemic has been the reworking of technologies to fulfill requirements presented by the need to work remotely, as well as address the way we will work on face-to-face projects that are essential to the AEC industry. The need to visualize large amounts of data will propel the expansion from data acquisition to data analytics and business and operational insights. Office spaces of the future may be repurposed for additive manufacturing as the maker community takes off with more entry-level machines, making it more accessible to more people. Drones are becoming smarter, and more field personnel are able to make use of them.
Industry predictions for 2021 launch from what technologies are in place, and which technologies have been relied upon during the Covid-19 pandemic. Even after the pandemic scare is over, industry professionals believe there will be a heightened need for technologies such as AR/VR/MR/XR to allow staff to collaborate remotely. Digital twins, remote working, off-site manufacturing, hybrid work situations and new ways of handling volumes of data are all predicted for the future, as fortunately they were already tools we could utilize before the pandemic.