Feature
Gräbert targets BIM documentation In the BIM world we hardly ever talk about the evolution of 2D in pursuit of the ultimate model definition. While industry leader Autodesk stagnates the development of AutoCAD, competitors such as Gräbert are sensing an opportunity to improve the way documents are produced from BIM models, writes Martyn Day
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he CAD industry is entering unknown waters, in terms of technology changes. The cloud, for many software firms, is seen as the ultimate destination for everything: applications, data, communication, processing, AI — you name it. However, the design software world is still predominantly about applications which run on local hardware. Sure, the cloud has been used to aid collaboration, share data, manage licences and as a project repository, but we seem a long way off the all-singing cloudutopia which software firms envisage. Companies like Autodesk, which have exceptionally successful, but mature desktop applications, have the strongest visions for how the cloud will be all things to all designers. Autodesk has spent billions on developing its Construction Cloud offering, which is growing every year in scale and capability. The issue is, what does the roadmap of getting everything in the cloud look like and how soon? Regular readers of AEC Magazine will know of the consternation felt within the Revit community on its lack of development. This actually could be expanded to users of other important Autodesk desk34
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top applications, such as Navisworks, as well as Autodesk’s flagship software application, AutoCAD. The reality is that these are mature products. The incentive to completely rewrite a desktop software application has vanished; the next generation will be written in the cloud. This period of stagnation is a danger, even for a company as mighty as Autodesk. While there are very few alternatives for Revit at the moment, AutoCAD users are more fortunate. Both BricsCAD and Gräbert have mature DWG applications that are not only substantially cheaper but are also developing at greater velocity, providing more capabilities. In recent years, these firms have identified that deeper integration with BIM, to provide greater productivity savings in automatic document automation, would be their focus. While the cloud is seen as a useful infrastructure, it’s not necessarily the only destination for all software. Gräbert is based in Berlin, Germany and has a suite of DWG drawing tools which come under the Ares brand. The desktop application — Ares Commander — is available on Windows, MacOS and Linux. Gräbert has also enabled access to, and editing of, DWGs on desktop, tablet /
mobile (Ares Touch) or through a web browser (Ares Kudo). It’s possible to access your designs or create new ones wherever you find yourself, on whatever device is close at hand. This is unique in the industry. Before looking at what is new in the latest releases, it’s worth noting that Gräbert has identified that BIM users need better drawing production tools than are available today. The whole promise of automated 2D output from 3D models was never really delivered, and plans, sections and elevations are regularly edited in products like AutoCAD and LT, breaking the automatic updates should the model change. For the last two years Gräbert has been expanding Ares’ capability to readin and work with BIM models. As this work goes on, new DWG workflows are emerging, aiming to take a lot of the drudgery out of creating detailed drawing sets and healing the disconnect between iterative BIM design changes and any ongoing 2D editing. The ultimate goal being associativity between model and DWG throughout the design and documentation processes, even if they are from two different appliwww.AECmag.com
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