Brian Robins, director of business development for managed services at Bentley Systems, talked recently with AECCafe Voice about Bentley MANAGEservices, their solution to provision, manage, monitor, and support Bentley software solutions for architecture, engineering, and construction. “Managed services were quite popular in the 80s and 90s and then got overlooked,” said Robins. “Now they are coming to the forefront again, for several reasons.”
Users are briefed on how to get the most out of their software investment.
Last year’s predictions for the year, Top AEC Predictions for 2013 – AECCafe Voice, were somewhat different from this year’s. Although those predictions are still useful to note this year, I am focusing on some product directions and initiatives since there is a continuing, pressing need to address critical infrastructure, fueled largely by climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, and failing infrastructure and economy. Products developed and industries becoming more collaborative all shape the predictions of the year 2014.
In an interview with president of Trelligence, Larry Ciscon, Ph. D., he talked about Affinity 8.1, their Autodesk partnership and Revit integration, the available modules, and more.
Affinity Program and Room Dragged and Dropped into Revit Architecture Room (with furnishings) dragged/dropped from Affinity Program Toolbar into Revit floorplan view.
Robots for the future jobsite, flying drones for delivering packages and reality capture were all part of the show at Tuesday morning’s Mainstage presentation at Autodesk University 2013. The event kicked off with a short little skit by Penn & Teller, who will apparently provide an entire show for AU attendees on Thursday.
Dan Philbrick, senior product line manager in the infrastructure division at Autodesk, spoke with AECWeekly regarding the company’s new Autodesk Vehicle Tracking 2014 software for vehicle simulation, based on field-proven technology assets recently acquired from Savoy Computing Services in the UK.
In a Q&A with Sefaira’s CEO Mads Jensen, he talked about the firm’s cloud solution for sustainability analysis, designed for early building design stages.
AECCafe Voice: Why would anyone use Sefaira when most major CAD software companies have their own cloud setups for their own software products?
Sefaira is the only firm to offer a seamless and intuitive solution for sustainability analysis, specifically created for the early stages of building design. Because of this, more than 200 leading design firms have adopted Sefaira as their main solution for high performance building design today.
Sefaira does not compete with CAD / BIM solutions from existing vendors, but rather integrates directly into existing design processes and tools. In this way, Sefaira complements existing design tools, and provides our users with a best of class experience for high performance building design, and – for this reason – we are the fastest growing solution for high performance building design, growing by more than 33% in the last quarter alone.
AECCafe Voice: What does Sefaira provide for early stage analysis that is not provided by current early stage analysis software?
The key features that differentiate Sefaira and make it particularly suitable for early stage analysis are:
Easy and intuitive use – user interfaces are specifically designed for architectural design at the very early stages, allowing users easy exploration and comparison of design options
Speed –Sefaira runs analysis in seconds, comparing strategies and combinations of strategies to fully understand all options and make the right decisions in a time-scale that is compatible with the needs of early stage design where decisions often need to be taken rapidly
Clear, print-quality outputs – Sefaira facilitates discussion among project stakeholders and makes the decision making process faster and more seamless
Parametric analysis – Sefaira response curves enable the designer to optimize key design parameters such as shading, glazing ratio and building orientation in seconds where this historically could take weeks
Support – Sefaira’s engineering team provides outstanding client support as well as training, webinars and documentation to make performance analysis easy for non-engineers
AECCafe Voice: What is the cost of using Sefaira, and what is the pricing model?
Sefaira is Software-as-a-Service with an annual enterprise-licensing model for an unlimited number of users within a firm. The cost depends on the number of projects that are analyzed with Sefaira. The starter price is $5,000 and covers 3 projects per month.
AECCafe Voice: How does the cost and efficiency compare to existing offerings?
Sefaira requires less training than other tools and is much easier to implement within architecture firms. By implementing a practical tool for performance analysis our customers are able to meet requirements that would otherwise be hard or impossible to meet.
Our customers are telling us that because of Sefaira they have been able to win more business, reduce their design costs and avoid costly rework to meet sustainability targets during later project phases, and that no other solution for sustainable design offers such a compelling return on investment witnessed by the rapid growth of our client base.
Paul McRoberts, vice president of Autodesk’s Infrastructure Business, talked this week about the company’s announcement today of Autodesk InfraWorks 360 Pro, that offers the latest 3D modeling, visualization and cloud-based collaboration technologies to address the estimated $30 trillion gap worldwide between desperately needed infrastructure and the funding required to deliver it.
To expand access to the critical BIM solutions that design professionals need to address this challenge, the new solution is available via a quarterly plan, making it ideal for firms to test-drive Autodesk 360 Pro, or use it for short-term project needs.
Those users who have been aware of the Autodesk InfraWorks environment will note that the product goes to the next level with cloud capability and the ability to integrate lots of disparate Big Data. “We are still struggling with how to manage this Big Data world,” said Paul McRoberts. “Things have been focused around the single user, GIS analyst, GIS technician, drafter, a very expert oriented environment. As were building out the InfraWorks 360 environment, we ask how does that environment get us to change?”
Nemetschek Vectorworks has released a new version of the Vectorworks Cloud Services mobile application, Vectorworks Nomad 2.0.
Much anticipated by customers, the 2.0 version of Vectorworks Nomad lets users view, share, measure and annotate files. New redline drawing shapes, a sheet layer sidebar palette, angle and path measurement modes, improved download and upload performance and improved annotation text objects are among the product’s enhancements.
The app is now available for both iOS and Android devices and can be downloaded from the Apple App Store (http://tinyurl.com/d6g9sdz) and the Google Play Store (http://tinyurl.com/cy3vxnh).
Dr. Biplab Sarkar, chief technology officer of Nemetschek Vectorworks, said that, “The ability to view, measure and annotate files in an offline mode provides even greater freedom, as users can make design decisions in the field without a network connection. And now, even more designers can take advantage of our mobile app, as it supports Google’s Android platform.”
Bluebeam Software announced the release of Revu 11 in Swedish, German, Finnish and Norwegian. The Danish and Dutch versions are scheduled for later this month. This new version of Bluebeam’s flagship solution furthers the company’s efforts to provide collaboration on project documents and technical reviews for the AEC industry.
According to Richard Lee, Bluebeam Software president and CEO, Revu 11 allows you to keep working on files from the cloud and annotate them with enhanced PDF markup and editing options. It doesn’t matter where you are, you can work if you lose your Internet connection suddenly.
New features in Revu 11 make it easier than ever for users to:
Collaborate Anywhere, Anytime Revu 11’s Studio Projects Offline mode enables project teams to centrally maintain a digital master set. The enhancement to Revu’s integrated cloud feature, Bluebeam Studio, allows users to access and edit files stored in a Studio Project from a desktop, tablet PC or an iPad, even with the loss of an Internet connection. Changes can be synced as soon as connectivity is restored.
Get Organized – Revu 11’s AutoMark feature gives users the ability to organize PDFs by automatically creating bookmarks and page labels from PDF content. Sets, enables team members to view, navigate and edit multiple files as if they were one. This functionality is key for users in the field, who often divide multi-page documents into one file per page to allow for faster loading on iPads and tablets, but still need to quickly see related content when back in the office.
Standardize Annotations on the Fly – The new Format Painter quickly applies property settings across multiple annotations such as color, line styles and fonts.
Search for Anything – VisualSearch now performs more robust searches regardless of an object’s size, color or rotation or even another intersecting object.
Do more with 3D PDFs – With Revu 11, users can now create 3D PDFs from any IFC file, and do more with 3D content. Use the Section Box tool to demonstrate the exact issue at hand by exposing interior details.
Richard Humphrey, senior director, Industry Strategy at Autodesk, spoke about the company’s newly announced 2014 software portfolio in a press conference held Tuesday, March 26th.
