Industry news

Rhino 7 brings Rhino and Grasshopper inside Revit

hino 7 has launched with a

Rtypical whisper campaign from

its developer Robert McNeel and Associates.

The big news for architects is the official release of Rhino.Inside.Revit, which brings Rhino and Grasshopper into the Autodesk Revit environment. According to McNeel, it bridges the gap between Rhino’s freeform modelling and the world of BIM, opening Grasshopper’s rich ecosystem to the Revit environment, enabling completely new design workflows and possibilities.

In practice, it means modelling can be done in Rhino and used to drive live geometry creation in Revit. Grasshopper scripts can also be used to create native models using actual Revit components. Data can be round tripped, with geometry sucked out of Revit into Rhino.

New Sub-D modelling tools is the other big news for Rhino 7, primed for users new and old to create freeform organic shapes with quick editing ability.

McNeel states that, unlike traditional SubD objects, which are mesh-based and lend themselves well to more approximate types of modelling; SubD objects in Rhino 7 are ‘high precision’ spline-based surfaces that bring a new level of accuracy to the process of creating complex freeform shapes.

Additionally, Rhino 7 has improved its presentation tools, streamlining the workflow with a major update to the Rhino Render engine, meaning that the same look you get in your ray-traced viewport can be rendered without any changes. It has also added support for Physically-Based Rendering materials, a LayerBook command, and more.

The display pipeline has also been upgraded to match modern graphics hardware. In Rhino 7, some models will display faster on both Windows and Mac, while several refinements to the Display Modes have been made.

We explore Rhino 7 in more detail on page 18 in an interview with the company’s CEO Bob McNeel and Scott Davidson.

■ rhino3d.com 3D Repo links with Procore

Epic boosts development of new VR tool heia Interactive has been The software is designed to make it easy T awarded an ‘Epic MegaGrant’ to accelerate the development of to create and share online meeting rooms where VR and desktop users can interact, its new collaborative VR tool, review designs, and explore and edit “BigRoom”, currently in closed beta. projects created in Unreal.

Created for use with Epic’s Unreal Features include material Engine, BigRoom is billed as a virtual configurators, presentation boards & live design planning room for distributed video monitors, task lists & Post-It notes, teams, including architects, project and bookmarking and comparison tools. managers, designers, and contractors. ■ theia.io

Zhongnan Center invests in new VR tool

hongnan Center, part

Zof the Zhongnan

Group, one of China’s largest property developers, is to use VR software from Norwegian firm Dimension10 (D10) to aid communication and collaboration on projects.

This includes a 500m tall skyscraper in Suzhou Industrial Park which, when completed, will contain a hotel as well as residential and office space.

■ dimension10.com

Immersive 4D to help boost HS2 site safety

S2 is looking to boost

Hworksite safety through

the use of immersive 4D technology, as the UK’s high speed rail link moves into the full construction phase.

Implemented by works contractor Balfour Beatty Vinci (BBV) and software developer 3D Repo, the SafetiBase 4D system is designed to help teams identify, record and resolve site hazards as part of a virtual construction sequence evaluation and training.

■ 3drepo.com

loud-based BIM

Cplatform, 3D Repo, can

now be integrated with construction platform, Procore, to help streamline AEC project management.

Procore users can access their 3D Repo models and perform model validation, comparison, and metadata analysis from inside Procore.

SMALL FOOTPRINT, BIG IMPACT!

The Epson SureColor SC-T3100M is a competitively priced, entry level, 24-inch multi-function technical printer.

The printer features an integrated 600dpi CIS scanner and copier. The scanner accurately replicates documents into different formats and sends them securly. Scan and print quality on monochrome and coloured prints are highly detailed and prints do not lose quality after repeated scanning and copying.

Easy to operate and reliable, the multi-finction printer is perect for large format CAD/GIS, reprographics, construction, engineering, education sectors and ideal for small businesses looking for their first 24-inch printer.

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ROUND UP

Satellite imagery

AutoCAD users can now get ‘easy and fast’ access to a ‘living library’ of satellite imagery from OneAtlas, the geospatial digital platform from Airbus. By using Plexscape’s Plex-Earth 5 AutoCAD plug-in engineers can access up-to-date imagery to help monitor conditions on site ■ plexearth.com

Glass visualisation

Glas Visualizer from Arcon, one of Europe’s leading glass producers, is a new tool designed to help architects, building designers and clients assess the visual impact of Arcon’s glazing products on building facades. The free software generates a mockup in a few clicks, switching between light conditions (sunny or overcast) ■ arcon-glas.de

Apple silicon support

Open Design Alliance (ODA), which provides interoperability software components for several of the leading CAD and BIM tools, will now support Apple Silicon in its Software Development Kits (SDKs) so applications can run on the new Apple M1 processor ■ opendesign.com

Automate Revit

Ideate Automation for Revit is a new scripting tool for use with Ideate BIMLink designed to let ‘repetitive, time-intensive, low-value BIM tasks’ run silently in the background, freeing up designers and engineers so they can focus on higher-level work ■ ideatesoftware.com/ideatebimlink

Teradici on Mac

Teradici, the developer of PCoIP and Cloud Access Software has now added support for the Mac. The technology can be used to provide remote access to desktop and cloud workstations with an emphasis on high resolution and colour fidelity ■ teradici.com

Site visualisation

Hexagon has acquired OxBlue, a specialist in construction visualisation technology that can capture construction site progress using timelapse photography, live video streaming, artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms ■ oxblue.com

Chaos Vantage brings ray tracing to real-time 3D

haos Group, the developer of the

Clegendary photoreal rendering

tool V-Ray, has launched Chaos Vantage, a brand new application that lets users ‘instantly explore’ 3D scenes in a fully ray traced, real-time environment.

Users simply drag-and-drop a V-Ray scene from any recent V-Ray integration, or live link from Autodesk 3ds Max, to bring it into real-time. There’s no geometry to optimise, UVs to unwrap, or lighting to bake. Users then have the ability to see every camera, model and lighting adjustment in Vantage as they create, turning Vantage into a fully raytraced viewport.

Vantage, formerly known as Project Lavina, is designed for massive scenes. According to the developers, it can handle billions of polygons without any loss in detail or significant decrease in speed.

The software automatically reads V-Ray’s physically-based lights and materials to produce photorealistic results with 100% ray tracing. Chaos Group states that Vantage is currently averaging 24-30 frames per second on a consumer-grade Nvidia RTX GPU at HD resolution, with additional speed boosts available using two GPUs.

Vantage also includes an Animation Editor that can create, edit and render animated sequences for presentations or pre-visualisation purposes, using a simple transition-based method. Alternatively, the ‘Record Camera’ feature allows a real-time session to be recorded as an MP4 video.

■ chaosgroup.com/vantage

Dell targets CAD/BIM with Precision 3560 he Dell Precision Dell says the Precision of 1.9 GHz, architects and T 3560 is a new entry-level 3560 is about 6% smaller than the 3550 but boasts engineers shouldn’t expect great multithreaded 15-inch mobile advanced thermal designs performance in workstation that’s a that help keep the system applications such as ray refresh of the Dell running cool. trace rendering. Precision 3550, which There’s a choice of four ■ dell.com/workstations launched last May. Tiger Lake-U CPUs,

The main improvements including the top-end Intel come from new processors, Core i7-1185G7. The 15W including Intel’s Tiger processor’s 4.80 GHz Lake-U 11th Gen CPUs and Turbo makes it well suited the Nvidia Quadro T500 to single-threaded GPU with 2GB GDDR6. applications like CAD The 1.59kg laptop supports and BIM, but with four up to 64 GB of memory. cores and a base clock

Tours in the Wild brings structure to VR presentations

new immersive presentation

Afeature in collaborative AR/VR

software ‘The Wild’ is designed to help architecture, design and enterprise teams frame focused stories through their design spaces.

‘Tours in The Wild’ helps guide clients and collaborators through precise views of a project before it’s built.

“One of our greatest challenges is to cut through the distractions that surround us and create a focused and compelling expression of our ideas,” says Gabe Paez, founder and CEO of The Wild.

“Tours in The Wild empowers you to craft a story that will focus everyone on your desired framing. You can set the terms of the discussion and create your most powerful pitch,” he adds.

■ thewild.com

Hand tracking for collaborative VR

Arkio has added more features to its collaborative VR/AR tool,

prior to its official launch, with the new beta 0.8.5 release including support for Autodesk BIM 360 and hand tracking for the Oculus Quest.

With hand tracking, users can do ‘all modelling operations’ using only their hands – create new shapes, pick them up, stretch them, throw them away and much more. Tools can be accessed easier using a quick menu gesture, and it’s also possible to teleport or take a picture of your work with a simple gesture.

Meanwhile, a new Autodesk BIM 360 integration allows users to import Revit models directly from the cloud.

■ arkio.is

AMD opens up Threadripper Pro

MD is to make its Ryzen

AThreadripper Pro processor

available to consumers starting March 2021.

Currently the only way to get hold of an AMD Threadripper Pro CPU is inside a Lenovo ThinkStation P620 workstation due to an exclusive agreement between the two companies.

By opening up access to the powerful desktop CPU we expect to see specialist system integrators launch their own Threadripper Pro workstations soon after.

We also expect at least one of the major workstation manufacturers — HP, Dell or Fujitsu — will take on the AMD CPU later this year, although there have been no official announcements.

Meanwhile, see page 40 for our in-depth review of the Lenovo ThinkStation P620 with the 64-core Threadripper Pro.

AI predicts carbon output in buildings

UK research group is

Adeveloping an

embodied carbon analytics AI system that predicts the carbon output on building and infrastructure projects, based on BIM data, materials carbon data and lessons learnt on past projects.

The consortium, which comprises Winvic Construction, the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol), Edgetrix and Costain, has secured £800,000 of Innovate UK funding to deliver the ASPEC [AI System for Predicting Embodied Carbon in Construction] project over the next two years.

■ winvic.co.uk

Boost for BIM data extraction and sharing

IMcollab has updated

Bits BIM-focused issue

management and model validation tools by improving the way users extract and share information from BIM models.

The new Lists feature in its desktop tool, BIMcollab Zoom, is said to expand on the standard property lists that most BIM tools provide.

It uses Excel-like pivot grids, where data fields can be dragged and dropped across filters, columns, rows and values. The results are then immediately displayed in an interactive overview, where every click visually shows the related components in the 3D view.

For team collaboration, lists can then be shared and viewed via BIMcollab Cloud, to other BIMcollab Zoom users in the project team, or exported to PDF, XLS or CSV.

ROUND UP

Faro WebShare

Faro has launched an enterprise version of its WebShare platform, that offers realtime access to as-built 3D reality data for project management and scan-to-BIM workflows. Data can be stored on a company’s private server or cloud infrastructure, to give firms full control over the security of their 3D reality data ■ constructionbim.faro.com

Property management

A new technology partnership between engineering consultancy Buro Happold and Microsoft is designed to help commercial office owners and operators streamline the management of their global property portfolios through the use of historic, real-time and predictive modelling data ■ burohappold.com

Unity link to BIM 360

A new integration between Unity Reflect and Autodesk BIM 360 will allow construction firms to collaborate on Unity’s real-time platform, as well as visualise variance and design-to-build intent on-site 1:1 using augmented reality (AR) ■ unity.com/products/unity-reflect

HOOPS for BIM

TechSoft 3D has started the roll out of its 2021 HOOPS software development toolkits with several new features focused on BIM workflows, including improvements to the DWG, IFC, and Revit readers, faster loading of models and improved measurement operators ■ techsoft3d.com

Precast concrete

Allplan and Precast Software Engineering have joined forces to combine their engineering and precast manufacturing capabilities. According to Allplan this will create a ‘unique solution’ that supports the growing demand of lean and industrialised construction processes ■ allplan.com ■ precast-software.com

Project Connect

RedSky, a UK construction software company, has launched Project Connect, a cloud-based solution designed to enable project stakeholders to collaborate and share information by relying on a single source of ‘information truth’ ■ redskyit.com

New service for custom 3D printed architectural products

ectual has launched the beta of

Aits ‘design-to-delivery platform’

ramping up production to industrial scale of its bespoke 3D-printed XL architectural and interior products.

The Amsterdam-based company offers modern 3D-printed architecture and interior items, such as terrazzo artwork flooring, fixtures, wall panelling, columns, façades, stairs, room dividers, planters, table screens — even entire buildings — that are all made from 100% circular, sustainable recycled and renewable materials.

According to Aectual, its design-todelivery process is said to reduce the cost of custom-made architectural products by 50%, is up to ten times faster, eliminates waste, and reduces materials usage and CO2 emissions.

The Aectual platform utilises customisable engineered parametric products, an easy-to-use (customised) design dashboard and proprietary robotic XL 3D-print technology.

AEC-industry professionals can upload and create their own product versions or simply go to the Aectual website, pick a terrazzo floor pattern, wall panel, room divider, or sun canopy, for example, and then customise it to their taste. Once ordered, Aectual 3D-prints and installs the product.

Prices start at $24 per square foot (€200 euros per square metre). According to Aectual, items are typically more affordable than their conventional, custom-made counterparts.

Commercial projects already deployed globally by Aectual include flooring in Amsterdam Schiphol International Airport, flooring in BMW World in Munich, printed display walls in Nike Town London, a tiny bauhaus (aka studio shed), and the temporary EU building in Amsterdam.

■ aectual.com

LiDAR scanning on the iPhone / iPad iteScape, the iOS in the AEC sector by captured back to back and S app that offers free 3D scanning making LiDAR more accessible for workflows then registered into one continuous model. to anyone with a LiDAR- including progress Rob Nabney at Nabney equipped iPhone or iPad, monitoring, Plans, an architectural has come out of beta and documentation, and remote firm based in is now available in the site access/collaboration. Christchurch, England, App Store. The free software allows has been using SiteScape

This is just the start for users to capture 9 million to scan existing site the mobile mapping points in space with a conditions to bring into startup, that aims to lower single scan, or roughly ArchiCAD to share as a the point of entry for reality 2,000sqft, for free. visual reference for clients. capture with point clouds Multiple scans can be ■ sitescape.ai

Excitech has become Symetri Operating as one since January 2021

Last year Excitech was acquired by Addnode Group, the owner of Symetri, Europe’s leading provider of software and services for design and engineering activities. As of January 2021, Excitech Ltd has merged with Symetri Ltd. There will be no change to the support we provide our customers, however, our name has changed to Symetri and our website has been redirected to symetri.co.uk.

Customers will benefit from an increase in the breadth of skills we can offer, and access to a wider range of technologies, including Symetri’s own products such as Naviate and CQ.