AEC Magazine July / August 2015

IMAGE BY COURTESY OF THE TRUSTEES OF SIR JOHN SOANE’S MUSEUM

Building Information Modelling (BIM) for Architecture, Engineering and Construction

Spatial reconstruction BIM meets British banking heritage

Education for BIM Autodesk 2016 products Heritage BIM: Kings Cross July / August 2015 >> Vol.79 p01_AEC_JULAUG15_Cover.indd 1

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Bentley is Sustaining Infrastructure

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Building Information Modelling (BIM) for Architecture, Engineering and Construction

editorial

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Managing Editor Greg Corke greg@x3dmedia.com

Consulting Editor Martyn Day martyn@x3dmedia.com

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Banking on BIM 10 Bentley Connect Martyn Day reports on an ambitious Edition 27 crowdsourcing project to recreate Sir John Soane’s fabled Bank of England in Autodesk Revit

accounts

Charlotte Taibi charlotte@x3dmedia.com

Financial Controller Samantha Todescato-Rutland sam@chalfen.com AEC Magazine is available FREE to qualifying individuals. To ensure you receive your regular copy please register online at www.aecmag.com about AEC Magazine is published bi-monthly by X3DMedia Ltd Rooms 108 -109, 4th Floor 65 London Wall London, EC2M 5TU T. +44 (0)20 3355 7310 F. +44 (0)20 3355 7319 © 2015 X3DMedia Ltd All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part without prior permission from the publisher is prohibited. All trademarks acknowledged. Opinions expressed in articles are those of the author and not of X3DMedia. X3DMedia cannot accept responsibility for errors in articles or advertisements within the magazine.

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Autodesk 2016 releases 14 Autodesk’s product portfolio of desktop and cloud services continues to grow with a big focus on conceptual design, construction and post operation

bldgs = data 18 A look at how two location services — Foursquare and iBeacon — are being used to improve user experience, interior and exterior building design

BIMobject unleashed 20 BIMobject has developed a suite of tools to open up its content management system and ease intelligent component creation

Bentley Systems recently launched an early access program for its Connect Edition of products, which share the MicroStation common environment

The importance of BIM education 30 Before spending time and money on software and training, companies must understand what their information can do if prepared in the right way.

Data transfusion 36 By sharing structural model data with the detailer early in the design phase Fitzpatrick Engineering was able to compress the construction schedule on Octapharma’s new blood plasma facility

Heritage & BIM 38

Transitioning to BIM: part 3 23

Working on heritage buildings poses major issues – how to bring the existing structure into the 3D BIM process and the requirement to record and retain many architectural features. Plowman Craven explains how it overcame these challenges with the regeneration of Kings Cross in London

More practical advice on how a CAD manager in a medium-sized, multidisciplinary practice can help smooth the path to collaborative Level 2 BIM

Also this month: 4, 6, 9 News, 42 Real 2015 redux: emerging technologies and applications of ‘Reality Computing’ July / August 2015

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News

3D printed steel bridge to span Amsterdam canal

Scan-to-CAD models shared on Sketchfab rithmetica is using the Sketchfab 3D filesharing platform to help users share textured 3D CAD models created from point clouds inside its Pointfuse software.

Once uploaded to Sketchfab, models can be shared and viewed in Sketchfab’s 3D viewer. Models can be embedded in any web page or shared on other platforms, including Tumblr, WordPress, Facebook and LinkedIn.

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■ Full story @ tinyurl.com/sketchfab3D

dditive manufacturing specialist MX3D is to 3D-print a life sized steel bridge over a canal in the centre of Amsterdam. The Dutch startup will use a pair of 6-axis industrial robots kitted out with MX3D’s bespoke 3D printing technology to build the fully functional, intricate metal bridge.

MX3D’s 3D printing technology is essentially a customised welding machine.

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By adding small amounts of molten metal at a time, the company is able to ‘print’ lines in mid air. In house software is used to control the complex build process.

The project is a collaboration between MX3D, Autodesk, construction company Heijmans and many others. The bridge will be designed by Joris Laarman and is set for completion in 2017. PARA. ■ Full story @ tinyurl.com/3DP-bridge

Collaborative BIM with pay-as-you-go Revit utodesk Revit Collaboration Suite is a new pay-as-you-go offering designed to offer a more flexible, lower cost entry point to ‘collaborative BIM’. It includes the latest releases of AutoCAD and Revit as well as Autodesk A360 Team cloud

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collaboration software, which offers a centralised platform for storing, sharing, and exchanging project files.

The suite is available with ‘pay-as-you-go licensing’ so users only pay for software when they need it.

The monthly suggested retail price is $315 (£250)

and is available only in Autodesk’s online store.

The annual price is $2,500 (£1,995).

For true entry-level BIM, without collaborative cloud-based tools, Autodesk also offers the AutoCAD Revit LT Suite, which starts at $65 per month.

■ More @ tinyurl.com/Revit-suite

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assault Systèmes is working with the National Research Foundation (NRF) in Singapore, to develop Virtual Singapore.

The dynamic, 3D digital model will employ data analytics and simulate modelling capabilities for testing concepts and services, planning, researching technologies and generating community collaboration.

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■ Full story @ tinyurl.com/v-singapore

Stabicad boosts MEP design

performance calculations, by providing design decision support, by monitoring design iterations and by supervising goal achievement – all within a Revit model.

The first apps available in the store are Vabi Financial Simulator, Vabi Thermal Comfort Optimizer, Vabi Spatial Requirements Assistant and Vabi Daylight Ratio Evaluator. Others will follow later.

tabicad 10, the latest release of the BIMfocused MEP design tool for Revit and AutoCAD, features a new Electro tag tool and integrated air duct calculations.

The Electro tag tool is designed to help Revit users save time when manually placing tags at electrical symbols, while the air duct feature provides integrated calculations within Revit.

■ Full story @ tinyurl.com/Vabi-store

■ Full story @ tinyurl.com/StabiCAD

Vabi Revit apps available in Autodesk store abi Software has made a number of its low-cost, design analysis Revit add-ons available in the Autodesk Exchange Apps store.

The apps, reviewed in the May/June 2015 edition of AEC Magazine, are designed to make simulation available to everyone — not just to specialists.

Vabi’s add-ons aim to extend the reach of BIM by incorporating building

Building virtual Singapore

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BIMscriptTM & LENA From Mechanical CAD to intelligent BIM objects Explore the open and freely available scripting language, BIMscriptTM, and the BIM object authoring solution, LENA, designed by BIMobject® to streamline and accelerate the process of BIM content creation.

BIMscript™ and LENA open up vast opportunities for content developers and internal mechanical CAD departments to develop their own content for most of the BIM platforms with one single script.

BIMscript™ is a subset of the C programming language and enables smart objects to be created in BIMobject® LENA and then hosted and managed in the BIMobject® Cloud. LENA is an authoring App for the mechanical 3D CAD system Rhino that will generate BIMscript™ and a solution in which mechanical CAD geometry can be imported from most mechanical CAD systems.

For more information: info.bimobject.com/bimscript

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News

ROUND UP SLAM dunk Opti-cal Survey Equipment is reselling GeoSLAM’s ZEB1 hand-held laser scanner and SLAM (simultaneous localisation & mapping) survey solution to UK customers ■ tinyurl.com/ZEB1-AEC

Mobile building ops Autodesk Building Ops is a new asset management solution designed to improve the handover experience from design and construction into operations and maintenance ■ tinyurl.com/AdeskFM

Bentley to float?

Bentley Systems has submitted a draft registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering of its stock ■ tinyurl.com/bentley-float

Scan to BIM Scan to BIM 2016, which can validate a model from a point cloud, is compatible with Revit 2016. Features include automated recognition and placement of architectural and MEP elements ■ tinyurl.com/AEC-scan-BIM

STAAD.Pro boost Bentley Systems releases STAAD.Pro V8i SELECTseries 6 with the 3D structural analysis and design engineering tool getting a boost in user experience and productivity ■ tinyurl.com/staadv8

Intelligent laser scans LFM Software has added intelligence to laser scans and improved access via the cloud by delivering new capabilities in LFM NetView 4.0 and LFM Server 4.3 ■ tinyurl.com/LFM-AEC

UAV expo Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) experts from AECOM, Balfour Beatty, Bechtel, DPR Construction and more are to speak at SPAR Point Group’s UAV Event in Las Vegas this October ■ tinyurl.com/UAV-AEC

Capturing reality Capturing Reality Forum in Salzburg, a new event focused on laser scanning, LiDAR and 3D data capture and modelling, has put out a call for papers.

■ tinyurl.com/capture-reality

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Intel sets sights on 3D BIM with Iris Pro ntel is starting to take professional graphics very seriously with a new embedded graphics technology that it claims almost doubles the performance of the one it replaces.

According to the chip giant, whose CPUs are used in virtually all workstations, the new generation ‘Broadwell’ Intel Xeon E3-1200 v4 processor with Intel Iris Pro Graphics P6300 can deliver up to 1.8 times the 3D graphics performance of the previous generation Intel Xeon E3-1200 v3 with Intel HD graphics P4600.

Intel HD graphics P4600 was first embedded in Xeon chips in 2012 and is widely regarded as being for entry-level 3D CAD. By doubling the performance and essentially giving Iris Pro Graphics P6300 away free with the new Xeon CPU, Intel hopes to grab a bigger slice of the entry-

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level to mid-range graphics sector, which is a sweet spot for CAD and BIM software.

AMD and Nvidia, whose professional AMD FirePro and Nvidia Quadro graphics cards are used extensively in workstations and servers, will be watching closely.

While raw performance is essential for 3D CAD, Intel will know it still has a job to do to match the years of investment both AMD and Nvidia have in driver development.

Even though Intel announced the ‘Broadwell’ Xeon E3-1200 v4 CPU in June, there has been no news since of any workstations with this chip. It is likely Dell, Lenovo, Fujitsu and HP will skip the delayed Broadwell Xeon E3-1200 altogether, in favour of Intel Skylake, which is due out soon and is a major microarchitecture redesign.

■ Full story @ tinyurl.com/iris-pro-bim

Sparks fly with new SketchUp MEP tool or the latest release of its specialist mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) design tool, Trimble MEPdesigner for SketchUp Trimble has focused its development efforts on new tools for electrical contractors.

New capabilities in version 2.0 include

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improved electrical construction materials catalogue and expanded component patterns which include EMT, IMC, PVC and RMC to help contractors and engineers more accurately model electrical systems.

A bendable electrical conduit feature is designed to eliminate the need to use a collection of components

to represent a bend in the conduit. According to Trimble, this saves time and produces a more accurate 3D model and bill of materials (BOM).

Trimble has also published a range of electrical components to its 3D Warehouse including: panelboards, lighting panels and transformers.

■ More @ tinyurl.com/SketchUpM

DS expands AEC industry solutions assault Systèmes is continuing its push into the AEC sector with the introduction of another industry solution, Civil Design for Fabrication. The CATIA-based software joins the company’s ‘Façade Design for Fabrication’ and ‘Optimised Construction’ industry solutions, which were launched last year.

Civil Design for Fabrication is designed to provide civil engineers with a holistic

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view of civil infrastructure engineering activities within a large-scale scene of up to 200 km.

Features include geolocation and terrain preparation, reusable adaptive 3D templates, automated layout of structural components, data import and weight analysis. The software was developed in partnership with the Chinese public engineering company SMEDI. ■ Full story @ tinyurl.com/DS-civil

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PROJECT S PROJECT SOANE S SOANE A worldwide BIM crowdsourcing effort to virtually reconstruct Sir JohnBIM Soane’s treasured Bank A worldwide crowdsourcing effortoftoEngland. virtually

reconstruct Sir John Soane’s treasured Bank of England.

By courtesy of the Trustees of Sir John Soane’s Museum

By courtesy of the Trustees of Sir John Soane’s Museum

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projectsoane.com #projectsoane projectsoane.com #projectsoane

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VR treadmill allows virtual worlds to be explored on foot he Transport Systems Catapult (TSC) has opened a ‘Visualisation laboratory’ in Milton Keynes which will allow designers and engineers to use Virtual Reality (VR) to test out new transport technology networks and explore proposed buildings and civil engineering projects.

The laboratory includes the UK’s first commercially available omnidirectional treadmill. The 6 metre wide Onmideck6 is mated to an Oculus Rift DK2 VR headset to allow users to walk at freedom in any direction within a VR environment.

One of the first projects to be undertaken in the Visualisation Laboratory is a joint project between the Catapult, Omnifinity and Virtual Viewing, which explores the challenges of sharing public walkways with autonomous vehicles. By collecting information about the physical responses and subjective responses when subjects come into close proximity with autonomous vehicles in VR, it may be

Structural BIM possible to identify how to improve the control algorithms. For example how the vehicle responds when it detects a human on the path, how it indicates this externally and how it changes its direction.

Other planned applications for the Omnideck6 include investigating and signing off the designs of buildings and big civil engineering constructions.

Providing the ability to walk around the outside and inside a new structure will help decision makers to better understand the scale and context of an engineered design, says TSC. ■ Full story @ tinyurl.com/VR-tread

New releases for BIM and steel fabrication

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called Advance Workshop.

The Advance PowerPack 2016 for Revit 2016 toolset is designed to deliver increased functionality, better control and more automation for Revit users.

It is free to Graitec’s subscribed Revit customers Advance Workshop 2016 is described as a versatile, well-rounded fabrication MIS for optimising, controlling and managing

every aspect of the process.

Meanwhile, the new 2016 release of Graitec’s structural analysis solution, Advance Design comes with a new ‘ergonomic’ ribbonbased user interface, new design tools for rigid diaphragms for slabs and reinforced concrete ribs design and an enhanced bi-directional link between Advance Design and Revit.

■ Full story @ tinyurl.com/graitec1

Asta Dev delivers trio of product launches sta Development has released the second version of Asta Powerproject BIM, which combines 3D planning and scheduling in a single 4D application.

The company has also launched the estimation tool Bidcon BIM into the UK and is adding to the capability of Site

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TATA embraces BIM Tata Steel is set to launch a major BIM program where information for its construction products will be able to be tailored to a specific point or requirement in the project process ■ tinyurl.com/TATA-BIM

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raitec has launched four new and enhanced products focused on BIM and fabrication: two productivity extensions for Revit 2016 and Advance Steel 2016, a new release of the structural analysis solution, Advance Design and a new Steel Fabrication Management Information System (MIS)

ROUND UP

Progress Mobile with the addition of a web application to allow browser access.

Bidcon is an estimation tool developed within the Eleco group, of which Asta is a part. Available in Scandinavia for over 20 years it is now integrated as a 5D BIM solution alongside Asta Powerproject.

Videos of the presentations from the IStructE’s London BIM conference, which give an insight into BIM tailored specifically for structural engineers, have gone live on the IStructE website ■ tinyurl.com/IStructE-BIM

BIMx goes cloud Graphisoft adds cloud storage to BIMx and BIMx Pro, letting users of the iOS and Android BIM presentation app sync the latest model revisions via the cloud ■ tinyurl.com/BIMx-cloud

AEC (UK) BIM Platform-independent BIM guide, the AEC (UK) BIM Technology Protocol, has been re-worked to align with current UK standards including PAS1192-2 ■ tinyurl.com/AEC-UK-BIM

Freeform Allplan Parasolid, the 3D modelling kernel usually found in product design tools, is now embedded in Allplan BIM software to boost freeform modelling capabilities ■ tinyurl.com/Allplan-freeform

BIM L2 compliance The latest release of 4Projects, the collaborative project management solution, includes ‘critical BIM Level 2 compliance features’ to help contractors meet UK government requirements ■ tinyurl.com/Level-2-BIM

ReCap laser scan Autodesk ReCap now offers improved workflow with Topcon’s GLS-2000 3D laser scanner and ScanMaster software and native support for Leica Geosystems P16 3D scanning solutions ■ tinyurl.com/recap-scan

BIM 360 Plan Autodesk BIM 360 Plan is a new web service and mobile app designed to provide a visual, collaborative way to manage short-term project schedules ■ tinyurl.com/plan-360

■ Full story @ tinyurl.com/astaBIM

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Banking on BIM Modelling a Neo-classical building in Revit is no mean feat, made all the more challenging by making it a crowdsourced effort. Martyn Day finds out more about this ambitious project to recreate Sir John Soane’s Bank of England 10

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n a first of its kind, technology providers to the BIM community — HP, Nvidia and Autodesk — have teamed up to launch a crowdsourcing project that provides an opportunity to take part in a unique BIM project, which will seek to bring to life the original designs for the Bank of England by the famous Neo classical Victorian architect, Sir John Soane.

The brainchild of Robert Stern of Robert A.M. Stern Architects, the project is conceived of as a Wikipedia-style collaboration. “Essentially, we are working collaborwww.AECmag.com

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All images By courtesy of the Trustees of Sir John Soane’s Museum

An imagined view of the Bank of England in ruins, draw in 1830 by Soane’s skilled draughtsman Joseph Michael Gandy. Little did the artist know that his view would become reality, as the Bank’s interiors were demolished in the 1920s

atively rather than individually. So we are all working on the same set of models rather than separate pieces,” said Daniel Davis, senior researcher at Case consultancy New York, and technical lead on the project.

The project is open to all, and participants will use BIM tools to rebuild two of Soane’s original interior Bank of England spaces, the stock office and the consuls transfer office. Also two facades: the partially conserved street walls and the colonnaded, round vestibule called Tivoli Corner, inspired by Soane’s studies of the Temple of Vesta, in Tivoli, Italy. www.AECmag.com

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The designs will be created in Autodesk Revit from Soane’s original drawings, provided by the Soane Museum, and teams will be linked by Autodesk’s A360 collaboration platform.

A team from Case will check all submitted models for accuracy and collate a master model. The model creation component of the project will run until November 15, 2015.

The process After registration, collaborators can access reference kits created from Soane’s

original drawings, provided courtesy of the Soane museum. Access will be provided to the Revit models of the façade and interiors, which are held on the Autodesk A360 cloud portal.

Autodesk A360 will always have the most up to date models, which can be downloaded, worked on and then uploaded to the portal. All contributions get merged back into master templates which are managed by Case.

Volunteers can model as much of the project as they want to, or have time for, and there is no need to complete a whole July / August 2015

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As this is the first time anything like this section. Working as a crowd-sourced Model management team, other modellers can pick up where Revit was chosen as the modelling system has been attempted, the team at RAMSA one person (or team) left off by download- as it has a large market share and is and Case chose Autodesk’s A360 crowding the latest model off Autodesk A360. already used by architecture teams to sourcing platform because it was easy for With highly detailed BIM models in model complicated buildings, explained participants to join, Revit connects effortlessly to it and it offered all Revit, there is the potential the features required for for the Soane Bank of storing and sharing the files, England models to get Mr Davis said. extremely large and diffiGiven the high artistic quality of Soane’s Teams of experts from cult to manipulate. Case classical work, it would be a challenge to Case and RAMSA are will be monitoring the files model Soane’s Bank of England in any 3D already actively participating uploaded to the A360 syson the A360 site. Case has tem to ensure they stay software, let alone a mainstream BIM tool seeded the models as rough within a manageable size. massing elements. The idea Should the files get too is that over time participants unwieldy, Case will divide up the models to make sure contributors Mr Davis. There is also a free to use 30 can jump in and progressively add more can maintain performance inside Revit. day trial version (autodesk.co.uk/products/ detail to the models with Case and RAMSA At the moment the models are broken into revit-family/free-trial), which can be down- constantly monitoring what is being uploaded to the cloud server and making comments six pieces — one for each room or facade. loaded and used on the project. or alterations should they be required.

“People do not work on individual files, they are contributing to the same set of The consuls transfer models,” Mr Davis explains. “So, if you office. Not your average office space add a wall to the model one day and the next day, someone else can download the model and add a column. Users are always in sync because A360 always has the latest version of the models.

There are range of ways people can participate, even if they do not know Revit very well, Mr Davis says. “One participant is helping by taking photographs of the remaining sections of the Bank’s façade and there is always the opportunity to do more background research into each of the rooms. That said, due to the Victorian detail, there are aspects of the modelling that are going to really push even the best of Revit users.”

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Complexity Given the high artistic quality of Soane’s classical work, it would be a challenge to model Soane’s Bank of England in any 3D software, let alone a mainstream BIM tool.

However, to aid that process, the first 500 contributors will get a Kindle copy of Renaissance Revit: Creating Classical Architecture with Modern Software by Paul Aubin, in which he outlines how to use the Revit family editor to model complex forms from classical architecture.

Project Soane would be a useful experience for anyone that works with refurbishment or modelling of historic buildings. For those signing up to take part, it is possible to already see some complex column details in the Tivoli Corner model.

There are some other incentives; a number of HP Z Workstations are to be awarded as prizes for outstanding contributors, including Most Innovative Use of Revit; Historical Accuracy; and Greatest Student Contribution, among others.

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All images By courtesy of the Trustees of Sir John Soane’s Museum

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Tivoli Corner, the colonnaded round vestibule inspired by Soane’s studies of the Temple of Vesta, in Tivoli, Italy, already has some complex column details modelled in Revit

Phase two is rendering and visualisation, which is open till May 2016.

Conclusion The end goal of the project is to create an open-source model of the Bank of England, which anyone can use. Case and RAMSA think the model will be of interest to students and historians studying Soane’s work, as well as architectural enthusiasts

who want to experience a wonderful building that has been lost through time.

Perhaps this could be the start of more heritage-saving BIM reconstructions?

This is a great concept and it is wonderful to see so many in the industry getting behind a historical BIM project to recreate some of the grandeur that Soane, one of England’s greatest architects, embodied in his fabled Bank of England designs.

It will also be interesting to see what the take up will be from the community and how the teams work with Revit in an adhoc collaborative way, using Autodesk’s cloud-server as a central resource.

For those who have not been to the Soane Museum in London, we would highly recommend it, including all of his collected works of art, from Canaletto to Hogarth.

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projectsoane.com

Sir John Soane’s fabled Bank of England Sir John Soane (17531837) was appointed Architect and Surveyor to the Bank of England in 1788, where he worked on the 3 1/4 acre, 3 floor building and its environs for the next 45 years until his retirement in 1833.

Even though it was considered to be an architectural gem, in 1925 it was partially demolished with the interiors gutted as the Bank’s new architect, Herbert Baker, went about creating the 7 storey building we see today.

Given that Soane described his Bank of England as ‘...a situation which has long been the pride and boast of my life’, it’s just as well that he wasn’t around to see it reduced to rubble to make way for something that could cope with the increase in capacity required for the 20th Century.

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Feature

Autodesk 2016 releases Autodesk’s product portfolio of desktop and cloud services continues to grow. Martyn Day visited the company’s forthcoming new headquarters to find out what we can expect

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utodesk recently held an AEC summit in the AEC division’s home town of Boston. The purpose was to launch the new 2016 range of products, go through some of the developments taking place within the division, to take a look at the industry as a whole and identify trends.

Autodesk has long since removed itself from the big yearly release cycle by delivering in-stream improvements. However, a yearly release still provides an opportunity to go through the new features delivered and announce to its customers product news; and there is always lots of new products.

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mention these days.

Infraworks is undoubtedly a very cool application that seems to devour large data sets and allow interactions at game-like frame rates. We saw a demonstration on how in under ten minutes, the application could import and geo-reference huge and disparate data sets to combine and provide city-scale, spatial databases, which could be used for a variety of purposes, in addition to transport, traffic and drainage. This year’s release sees tighter integration with Autodesk’s other products, plus better DGN and IFC support.

Autodesk will soon provide a suite of powerful tools to give architect’s real insight into the performance of their buildings

Revit 2016

At the core of the Autodesk AEC offering sits Revit, which forms the basis of the company’s Architectural, Structural and Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing (MEP) Building Information Modelling (BIM) offerings. As Revit has moved to Suites and subscription, its core development appears to have slowed as Autodesk adjusts to the ‘portion’ sizing of subscription releases.

The team has managed to find a lot more capacity to improve the core performance of the graphics, as well as opening files, viewing, printing and rendering.

By implementing changes to the graphics pipeline, Revit 2016 can now make some use of multi-core processing and, for the first time, can better harness the power of the GPU to provide some dramatic speed increases.

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performance benefit has come from stopping Revit from constantly checking if there have been model updates when only view manipulation has been done. This has lessened the load on the CPU and makes old models that may have previously pushed the limit of your hardware appear to be like the proverbial hot knife through butter.

There is a new physical-realistic rendering engine, which is really quick and replaces the old mental ray app for static images. Revit continues to use the Nvidia

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mental ray engine for functions such as walkthrough export, FBX export, and previews. IFCs can now be lined, and now use a reference geometry for snapping and reference. Structural and Steel detailing has been improved and MEP gets better links to fabrication.

It is possible to use LOD 400 content from Autodesk Fabrication products (CADmep, ESTmep, and CAMduct) in Revit to create a more co-ordinated models.

Infraworks Autodesk’s ‘go to’ product for infrastructure design continues to steal all the limelight from Civil 3D, which rarely gets a

FormIt and Dynamo

Autodesk has been wrestling with the conceptual design part of the equation for a long time. SketchUp is still out there and, despite its basic nature, is one of the industry’s most popular tools. Autodesk’s answer, FormIt, is a slick application for desktop and mobile but was, until now, still embryonic in development.

Autodesk has now linked FormIt with Dynamo, the company’s computational design application to rival McNeel Grasshopper and Bentley System’s GC (formerly called Generative Components).

The company did not stop there, by hooking these up with the cloud, you get FormIt 360 Pro, which can use Revit components and adds in solar analysis and model collaboration. This not only links conceptual with BIM, but driven by generative design and guided by analysis, we can actually have the computer ‘aid’ the design process as opposed to just document it. www.AECmag.com

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Autodesk Revit is becoming an increasingly powerful at concrete and reinforcement detailing

BIM 360 Autodesk is laser focused on bringing cloud services to the AEC design environment.

Every year there are more ‘360’ solutions, which means they are, in some part or wholly, online services. So they are available everywhere — from the drawing office to onsite, on desktops and via mobile devices.

This year’s additions include BIM 360 Plan for scheduling, BIM 360 Docs and BIM 360 Enterprise Insight.

BIM 360 Plan is based on lean construction principles and provides an easy to use front end to collate construction plans across multiple teams and disciplines, displaying commitments, deadlines and hand offs. The software tracks performance metrics by phase, trade or location.

BIM 360 Docs will be available soon and enables project information to be available anywhere in the field.

BIM 360 Enterprise insight is pretty much a company-wide view of projects with dashboards for analysis. There are many serious players in this part of the construction market already and it will be interesting to see how Autodesk fairs.

We also saw a new application called Autodesk Building Ops, which oddly does not have a 360 in the title. This may be because it is a mobile application that feeds data back to operations?

Building Ops is Autodesk’s first foray into the sleepy world of Facilities Management (FM). It is a mobile-first building maintenance app aimed at contractors for snag list management and for building managers operations to manage day to day asset, maintenance and operations tasks. It has a fairly simple interface, and offers a basic job ticketing system, with reminders for upcoming, overdue, awaiting parts and completed.

Autodesk BIM360 Plan brings Autodesk into the world of construction planning and management

The new look Autodesk Formit, combines analysis with Dynamo to provide a fresh look at conceptual modelling

Project Akaba Autodesk gave a brief demo of another up and coming cloud-based technology called ‘Akaba’. Here, instead of using the computer to draw the geometry, the aim is to tell the computer what the end goal should be and let it come up with a number of solutions.

By inputting a range of rules and constraints, like the number of bedrooms, bathrooms, energy usage, amount of light per room, minimum square footage of each room, site boundaries etc, which all compete, Akaba will generate the geometry and arrangements that solve the brief. The designer is able to select the one which is most appealing and then iterate again or detail or massage the design. www.AECmag.com

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Project Akaba allows designers to tell the computer the design goal and it comes up with a number of solutions

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Feature Project Akaba has a very clean interface with an entry point for Goals, and Project criteria, using sliders. The main display shows an array of solutions organised by score of meeting the initial design goal. This really is exciting stuff. Autodesk has similar plans for Urban-level city planning tools.

Harbour views Autodesk’s AEC division showed off its new office space during its 2016 product update.

The as-yet complete design will be housed in a disused buildings, with soaring ceilings and imposing columns, it will undoubtedly be hugely impressive.

Conclusion Looking at the real innovation coming out of Autodesk’s AEC team at the moment, indicates that a lot of the work being done in trying to solve the conceptual conundrum. While CAD has been great for documentation, conceptual products have typically not offered that much improvement over pen and paper and yet it is here at the early stages that most of the bad decisions are made. With Dynamo and FormIt Autodesk is tackling the geometry of conceptual design and while it is taking a while to get there, the addition of analysis means the company will soon provide a suite of powerful tools to give architect’s real insight into the performance of their buildings. Add Project Akaba into the mix and computers will finally amplify a designer’s talent.

Developments would also indicate that Autodesk is keen to drive further into the construction and post operation side of the business, although here Autodesk will be operating in markets that already have many large players offering mature point solutions. It still baffles me how Autodesk does not really have an industrial strength document management system to pull all of this together.

Revit has seen some good software architecture improvements this revision, which is bound to be a big crowd pleaser, although core architectural functionality has only seen minor updates. Steel, Concrete and Fabrication see the best enhancements.

Looking at Autodesk’s Manufacturing division with new products like Fusion, which reside in the cloud and are clearly meant as a replacement for Inventor, I can not clearly see what the AEC team is going to do when it comes to getting Revit on the cloud, or coming up with a new code stream that leverages contemporary computer programming and computer architectures. The AEC sector is notoriously slow moving when it comes to technology change so perhaps the company does not feel the pressure to refresh, and for the majority of the market this is probably fine.

I just can not help thinking what second generation BIM tools will look like and I regularly meet advanced users who are pushing today’s software beyond to their maximum capabilities.

■

Autodesk is moving to downtown Boston in the harbour area and will have an advanced workshop for hands on fabrication

New offices Autodesk’s AEC team is currently centered in Waltham which is on the outskirts of Boston, in a fairly typical office building.

With the changes at Autodesk HQ in San Francisco, which had an entire Pier of fabrication and workshops added for employees and local customers, the AEC division has decided to relocate to downtown Boston and have its own workshops.

Located in the North End area Autodesk’s new building looks out onto the inner harbour, and is due to open next year. The AEC summit was held in one of the as-yet untouched spaces, which, while being just a shell, will be a really impressive space once completed.

The main problem for Autodesk here is, as it is the AEC division moving in, there are many ex-architects turned employees that will want to have their say on the refit and layout!

Janet Echelman Autodesk took us to see an art installation at Boston’s Rose Kennedy Greenway. The work by Janet Echelman, called ‘As if it were Already Here’ is handmade from over 100 miles of tensioned, coloured rope, tied together with over half a million knots, suspended between three downtown skyscrapers. The net forms three voids, which represent the three hills that were raised to create Boston Harbour.

Echelman first came in contact with Autodesk while giving a lecture on her work. Autodesk CEO Carl Bass and CTO Jeff Kowalski were in the audience and, when she mentioned how hard it was to model the elastic motion of her work, they offered to help develop a tool to model her designs. Using Maya, Autodesk wrote a plug-in which enables her to more easily explore net densities, shape, and scale, and simulate the effects of gravity and wind.

autodesk.com

www.AECmag.com

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Feature

bldgs = data New York-based building information consultants, Case, held a one day conference to examine how data can impact positive change in the building industry. AEC magazine looks at how two location services — Foursquare and iBeacon — are being used to improve user experience, interior and exterior building design

by Martyn Day

I

n our Internet-enabled, mobilephone owning world, data is geolocated, has relevance, is social, and can indicate how buildings and cities are used or see how people live their lives. Buildings can also produce a lot of data. Embed them with sensors and you can get data from motion, temperature, video, etc. Not only are buildings defined by design data, they can now create data when being used and are even starting to react in real-time to the information they gather.

Geolocation Mobile app search and discovery service Foursquare has been at the forefront of geolocation services since 2009 and is now experimenting with in-store location services as well.

The app uses geolocation and members’ reviews to make recommendations of the places to go to around a given location.

Users can get recommendations from others and, with spin-off app, Swarm, can see friends’ locations in real time and arrange to meet up.

The company now boasts a database with over 60,000,000 places of interest and as of January 2014 had 45 million registered users.

Foursquare’s Head of Data Science, Blake Shaw gave a fascinating insight into the company’s ‘Project Gotham’ research, which looks at how, by tracking their New 18

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York-based customers they can identify trends and monitor reactions to big events, such as the recent flooding caused by Hurricane Sandy in Manhattan.

Foursquare analysis revealed that, despite well-organised evacuation procedures ahead of Hurricane Sandy, tens of thousands of people were still in lower Manhattan, trapped by the failed power grid. Over the next few days the company’s maps exposed a network of informal social interactions — crashing on couches, uptown oases of hot showers and where to find live power outlets.

In the future this kind of data collection could be used by emergency services to better plan disaster response or be fed into a live feed of people in need.

Real time Foursquare gathers all its data in real time and has incredible insight into human behaviour within a city. This has huge potential for urban planners and retailers interested in learning which areas are popular, overcrowded or underutilised.

Shop owners could use it to explore where they should set up the next store or restaurant, or to research what happens when a certain brand, or competitor, moves into an area. Its data can inform businesses of the likelihood of success in an area.

Mapping real world places to social media data, it is also possible for Foursquare to see how word spreads

throughout social networks and identify key influencers or ‘experts’ in various categories.

Building profiling Foursquare can determine a unique radio frequency profile for every building that its customers use. It does this by mapping variations in signal strength from floor to floor, due to factors such as building materials and proximity to a signal tower. Mr Shaw showcased the 3D signal of various buildings in New York.

Using this information, mobile networks could better plan their urban coverage, which would impact mast placement.

Building owners could also be made aware of how their building negatively impacts coverage and may want to improve this for their customers.

Foursquare is also using the data to create markers, which it calls, ‘venue polygons’, for each business or place, and can be used to create markers for ‘geofences’ that will be used to identify when its customers have entered a specific location, without draining the batteries of smartphones, as Foursquare can use its own signal strength map.

From macro to micro Foursquare is experimenting with tracking shopper’s interactions down to product level. This will enable stores to ‘push’ location-based (down to the aisle) messaging to www.AECmag.com

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shoppers with offers. By moving products around the store and monitoring browsing trends, Foursquare can advise retailers on optimum layout and product placement.

Digging deeper into this geolocation monitoring, Case’s Andy Payne and Steve Sanderson talked about their collaborative project with Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology looking at post occupancy usage.

Case deployed Apple iBeacon tracking within their own office to understand how workers move and interact. Many buildings are designed with an assumption of usage, yet fail to live up to their utilitarian ideals.

Using Case’s single floor office as a test bed, Mr Payne and Mr Sanderson placed a number of iBeacons around the office and, with their permission, monitored employees’ movements over a six-week period, generating over seven million data entries.

The results were surprising. Employees were multi-tasking, moving, meeting a lot more than they actually thought they were during the day. It turned out that Case only used one third of the office space effectively and areas that the team thought would be popular, such as the kitchen area, were little used. What is more, the majority of meetings did not necessarily happen in designated meeting rooms. Case is now revaluating the layout of its office.

Post-occupancy usage data could be transformational for businesses that need to maximise the number of people using a space, such as coffee shops and restaurants. Retailers could use it to see if parts of a site are underutilised in order to create a design that improves usage figures and, ultimately, sales.

Standard deviation Bldgs=data was held at the impressively cool Standard Hotel, which sits astride the wonderful High Line, a 1.45 mile park that is built on an elevated section of disused railroad in New York.

Attendees were organised by table and half-way would swap to another pre-designated table, which helped everyone get to know each other for coffee breaks, lunch and end of day drinks.

There were 12 speakers in total, who talked across a range of data-centric projects using data capture and processing to benefit the design and construction businesses.

While we don’t have enough room to cover all the speakers here, some of the videos are available online at vimeo.com/casebim

Conclusion The sheer amount of data gathering that is already going on in the world really is mind-boggling, much of which could be relevant and useful to office and retail developers. While the link between social media and buildings may appear skin deep, the collected data can be put to great use.

But the world of big data requires new skills. ‘Data wrangling’ is an art form and the industry needs to upskill to get the benefits of accessing, overlaying and correlating these different data types to assist core design and operation decisions.

The talks were videoed, and are being added to Case’s Vimeo website. We will try and convince Case to bring the event to London and will look forward to tracking everyone’s movements and interactions!

■ case-inc.com

www.AECmag.com

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Review

BIMobject unleashed BIMobject has developed a new suite of tools to open up its content management system and ease intelligent component creation.

by Martyn Day

B

IMobject has developed a CMS content, as opposed to those that are cli- LENA (Content Management System) ents of BIMobject.

BIMobject recognised that McNeel The net result of this broad market Associates’ popular Rhino modeller is low that offers manufacturers the service of modelling their com- thinking from BIMobject is a combination cost, popular and can open the majority of ponents, including all the relevant prod- of new authoring products and services to industry 3D CAD formats (CATIA, uct information for the BIM process. democratise component model creation, SolidWorks, Solid Edge, IGES, NX, JT, While the objects are provided free to add intelligence, rules, and provide a man- Inventor and Pro/E). Using the Windows architects and designers, manufacturers aged distribution infrastructure. version as a platform, BIMobject has are charged. developed a plug-in tool called LENA to In return manufacturers get notification BIMscript assist in the creation of BIM components. of who downloads an object and when, BIMscript is a subset of the C programming LENA creates BIMscript from Rhino and have a bi-directional communication language. It is an open and free scripting geometry. The interface is easy to use, system with the users. When objects are and authoring language that can describe from selecting the required geometry, addcontained in a BIM model, architects get products and components with intelligence, ing materials etc. It includes all syntax notification of any model updates or, if a creating configurable objects, calculations, controls, testing, creation of the generated product is retired, notification of the product logic, level of detail (with several BIMscript. The result is parametric and replacement component. levels of complexity of geometry and geom- intelligent BIM objects from Mechanical Users of the BIMobject library report etry combinations), and includes a huge CAD data, which automatically connect to two main benefits: reliable and consistent range of properties and attributes. the BIMobject Cloud providing a seamless model quality; and being able to quiz The script can output components in workflow to publish objects and also manufacturers directly for techniincludes connection to the correcal information. sponding product information For the manufacturer the benefit stored in property sets in the BIMscript and LENA are the really BIMobject Cloud. is pretty clear, an idea of what up and coming projects their compoingenious elements, opening up Mosquito nents are being used in; and indicamanufacturers’ 3D CAD files to speed Both these products were launched tion of future potential orders.

Manufacturers can also see when last year, prior to LENA and BIM component creation their products are removed/ BIMscript, but now both contribreplaced from design at final speciute to this attempt to democratise fication, providing at least some BIM component creation. opportunity to try and cut a deal.

Autodesk, Graphisoft, and Trimble forMosquito, now in its second generation, BIMobject has one obvious drawback, mats, with more promised in the future. enables BIM components to be created which is the same for all BIM component It also generates objects in commonly directly in the BIMobject cloud platform, library services: the capacity to digitise the used formats such as IFC, 3DS, DWG and and then published. In its first iteration it vast catalogues of manufacturer’s compo- WebGL. This is a powerful open definition could only create rectilinear geometry but nents would require an exponential for the BIM community, that transcends this has been improved. Textures can be increase in manpower of talented BIM the proprietary lock on BIM data. added and it supports bulk uploads from modellers. In a market with a distinct The majority of manufactured AEC database or Excel-driven parameters. skills shortage, that is a problem. elements are designed in 3D CAD sys- Mosquito is another potential way to speed The logic follows that if you could open tems, which are integrated into fabrica- up the mass population of a BIM cloud up the BIM component creation to more tion systems. Typically manufacturers with product variants. commonly used design tools, the potential have 3D models for this purpose and number of authors could increase. these formats do not lend themselves for BOPC In addition, the BIMobject CMS could use in BIM modellers; they are too BOPC (BIMobject Open Property Cloud be packaged up for firms to manage and detailed and lack the relevant ‘BIM’ technology), pronounced ‘bops’, are a way distribute their own created and managed product information. to add extended properties to objects, such

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as parameters, metadata or attributes, via the cloud and enable the addition of properties post-creation. Manufacturers or BIM firms can add additional visible properties to their objects, or add hidden properties to objects to drive logistics and purchasing at a later stage in the process.

ALENA provides a way to capture key elements of manufacturing CAD data with BIMscript

Hercules BIMobject Hercules is its cloud Content Management System (CMS) packaged up for larger contracting, construction, consultant and architectural companies. Hercules cloud is offered as a yearly subscription.

Hercules enables firms to self-manage, develop, publish and control their own BIM content in a cloud-based environment; Revit, ArchiCAD, SketchUp, Bentley AECOSIM (through RVT format) and AutoCAD. It enables a single source of content, with version handling, structured data, support for languages and various classification systems.

Hercules comes with the complete suite of BIMobject Cloud Apps: Mosquito, BOPC and BIManalytics (Cloud traffic). It provides multiple Project Clouds (private or public cloud) together with Product Administration.

Existing manufactured components on BIMobject’s site can be integrated and made available into any Hercules set up.

BOPC are a way to add extended properties to objects, such as parameters, metadata or attributes, via the cloud, and enable the addition of properties post-creation

Conclusion Hercules is squarely aimed at very large organisations with thousands of families of parts to manage, but I hope BIMobject comes up with similar platform as a service (PaaS) that smaller architects could afford or use.

BIMscript and LENA are the really ingenious elements, opening up manufacturers’ 3D CAD files to speed BIM component creation. These two innovations admittedly help solve BIMobjects’ own bandwidth issues for content creation but they also provide simple tools for turning high quality, intelligent product geometry and data into the right BIM formats at a lower cost.

There is an added benefit, in that it helps Hercules customers generate their own content in conjunction with Mosquito and BOPC. Even with these tools, manufacturers still do not know what the AEC industry wants from BIM models; and they are still likely to over-detail models and make them too large, or include too much product information.

At least in the BIM component delivery services industry there is someone to advise manufacturers to have restraint. Now BIMobject customers can make their own BIM components straight from CAD systems, I have some concerns we will get a lot of content that is just too big to use, but I guess it is better than not having the models at all — after all, geometry can always be optimised.

Hercules enables firms to self-manage, develop, publish and control their own BIM content in a cloudbased environment

Mosquito enables BIM components to be created directly in the BIMobject cloud platform

■ bimobject.com

www.AECmag.com

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Comment

Transitioning to BIM pt3 About the author Shaun Bryant is an Autodesk Certified Professional with twenty-six years total industry experience using AutoCAD and Revit.

Introduction This is the final article in a series of three about making the move to BIM (the first two part appeared in the March / April 2015 and May / June 2015 editions of AEC Magazine).

Using the scenario from part one of the series A medium sized, multi-disciplinary CAD practice, involved in architecture, structure and services, which often works with external contractors. Based in London, UK, it has fifteen core users, with anywhere up to twenty-five users when contract CAD personnel are brought in to make up capacity. A CAD manager is in place who acts as liaison between management at director level and the users in the CAD team. The team is currently using Autodesk AutoCAD for all of its work and is up to date with the latest version, due to an active Autodesk subscription agreement.

The practice has decided to use Autodesk Revit as its BIM tool of choice. There is a need to manage both the implementation and training required to make the practice both effective and efficient.

The article is written from the CAD manager’s perspective.

www.AECmag.com

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Sean Bryant gives more practical advice on how a CAD manager in a medium-sized, multi-disciplinary practice can help smooth the path to collaborative Level 2 BIM. This month he tackles data transfer

Addressing data transfer CAD manager to director level “We need to transfer large amounts of data to a database related product so that large-scale repetitive changes can be exported, edited and imported back to Revit. I can look for free apps on the Autodesk App Store, but we will need to look at paying for a suitable proprietary app to work with, so will need budget”

CAD manager to the CAD team “As we move forward with Revit we will need to work with large data exports. We don’t have the skills in-house to automate these imports and exports, so we will be using an app we can all use to work in this way.”

The CAD manager needs a budget to ensure s/he has a proprietary app that works. As the practice grows, so will the projects. Free apps have limitations and are aimed at the VSB/SME sector. This does not work for large scale commercial/ residential projects that require large data transfer. A professional app is required to transfer Revit data to products such as MS Excel and MS Access. This will enable quick and easy data transfer which can be edited by a non-Revit trained user. Once edited, data can be imported back in to Revit.

Deciding on commercial Revit data transfer software CAD manager to director level “There are a number of products out there in the marketplace and we need to make sure we get the best we can for what we can afford. I don’t want to spend thousands of pounds on an app we only use once”

CAD manager to the CAD team “I need you to evaluate these Revit data transfer products. They will need to be tested against our existing projects and some past projects. This will allow us to set a benchmark of whether we would have saved time on completed projects and whether we can save time and beat deadlines on ongoing projects.”

The CAD manager is approaching the team to test and evaluate the products.

This will give the practice a good idea of what app it needs, and allow the entire team to make a group decision on what is best. Delegating tasks is a good managerial skill, empowering the team and allowing the CAD manager to utilise the skills the team already have. It will build familiarity with the products before purchase, saving learning time when using the chosen app in a live environment.

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Comment

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Third party data apps such as Ideate BIMLink allow practices to handle large amounts of BIM data that they might not be able to handle otherwise

’’

Using the app

Conclusion

CAD manager to director level “We will make a decision on the app to be used based on what results the CAD team present us with. They will be testing the apps on past and existing projects to assess time savings and ease of use.”

CAD manager to director level “We now have a working Revit data transfer app in the practice. We should now see time-savings on our existing and future projects. It has been fully assessed by the team and will be used as and where necessary.”

In this final installment about transitioning to BIM, we have looked how to bring in third party data transfer apps that work with Revit.

CAD manager to the CAD team “We will decide on an app that YOU want to use. It will need all of you to thoroughly test and assess all of the products we are looking at, not only on an individual user basis, but on how they will enhance the performance of the practice as a whole.”

CAD manager to the CAD team “The Revit data transfer app is now in place for all of our projects. An investment has been made in the team to assist us with the use of data in and out of Revit on our projects. We will make sure that we use the app to our best advantage.”

A CAD manager has to delegate tasks to his or her team. That is the art of good management. Delegate tasks and empower the team, and then manage the results the team provides. A good CAD team will give the CAD manager the information needed to make the right purchasing decision. The CAD team are on the ground at the coal face every day.

They will quickly assess which app will make their lives easier.

Another role of the CAD manager is to lead. The above quote to the team is encouraging them to take advantage of the investment made in them, and to use to app to increase team performance on their Revit projects. This, in turn, will make their Revit projects more profitable and benefit the whole practice.

Choosing the app

www.AECmag.com

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Revit, and other BIM-related applications, create large amounts of data, especially when scheduling. Sometimes, updates to this data via Revit, can be timeconsuming, so the ability to export out that data to a proprietary application, such as Microsoft Excel, can save large amounts of time, with editing work being able to be done by a non-Revit trained member of staff. Then, when the editing is done, the data app will allow for the edited data to be imported back in to the Revit project, thus saving time.

Third party data apps such as Ideate BIMLink fulfil this need, allowing practices to handle large amounts of BIM data that they might not be able to handle otherwise.

These types of third party apps allow you to build up your BIM app inventory, making your BIM toolkit bigger and better, enhancing BIM performance and empowering your CAD team.

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Feature

Bentley Connect Edition Bentley Systems hosted a two day event in Manchester to focus on its early access program for the Connect Edition of products, which share the MicroStation common environment.

by Martyn Day

B

entley has two great strengths.

The first is its ecosystem — no other design developer has the breadth of applications across AEC, Plant, and Infrastructure (Civil), with all the management and ‘glue’ in place to bring project teams together. The second is the MicroStation platform, which is a consistent platform throughout the product range and rarely changes its DGN file format. In fact only twice in the company’s history, which started in 1984.

This has not impacted development and the latest release remains true to form.

The Bentley Systems pitch is a holistic one and suits large firms that are seeking a one stop shop for design tools and project backbone.

Beyond MicroStation, ProjectWise is probably the company’s biggest brand in the industry, having been used on many high-profile projects, such as London’s CrossRail and Olympic Park.

However, there are many other products and technologies that do not get as much press. The company pretty much has a solution for every major and minor infrastructure design vertical, from mapping, to modeling buildings, roads, mines, plant and rail.

With so many products, the firm offers enterprise licensing so customers can use whatever solutions they need and through

online training can provide expertise to apply it. Because most of the applications are based on MicroStation, the core interface is the same and all the data can be managed through ProjectWise, again a consistent interface for project documentation.

Connect Edition The latest generation of MicroStationbased platform products are called the Connect Edition, taking over from the previous generation V8i. Bentley has dabbled with Microsoft naming conventions (95) to straight versioning over the years, this represents a break from all previous branding.

The Connect Edition has already been made available to early access participants, and the rest of the Connect offerings will be released throughout 2015 and 2016. The good news is that the current generation of solutions (V8i) will work happily with the new Bentley tools, so transitioning to the latest generation should be fairly seamless. ProjectWise Connect Edition services, along with the Bentley Navigator Connect Edition application, will be available for Early Access by year’s end.

The core premise of the Connect Edition is to enable a project-centric hybrid environment across desktop, cloud, projectserver and mobile. To enable this, Bentley

has utilised Microsoft’s Azure cloud-service to connect all users across projects.

Azure also provides a computational backbone to provide lightning fast analysis and ‘optioneering’, for computationally refined designs and ultimately improved performance of designed assets. Azure also is the platform for Connect Select Services and Select Open Access, through quarterly term licensing.

Each user of the Connect Edition gets what has been called a Bentley Playlist of applications and apps, which are specific to their project role within projects, including access to structured learning tools and ‘just-in-time’ recommendations.

Projects also have project-specific ‘Bentley Playbook’ with appropriate applications and apps to fully address the project’s requirements and to support each participant’s role.

These project-specific workspaces can include cloud-provisioned software or content, such as catalogs of what Bentley calls ‘functional components’ and specifications.

Functional Components are a new capability unleashed with MicroStation Connect and comes with a suite of constraint tools that allow users to capture design intent and create parametric ‘functional components’ for use in designs. The new ProjectWise Catalog Service provides a way to manage and distribute these in house components to all project participants via the cloud.

A Bentley Connections Passport provides authenticated access to ProjectWise and AssetWise services and software spanning a user’s hybrid computing environment. For example, the Bentley Navigator Connect Edition provides a user

The core premise of the Connect Edition is to enable a projectcentric hybrid environment

www.AECmag.com

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Feature with the same immersive “hands-on” interface across Windows, Android, and iOS, wherever they are.

Documentation Center is a new capability that allows team members to aggregate, publish and share, consistent and combined deliverables across multiple disciplines.

ProjectWise Deliverables Management provides an “instant-on” cloud service for the management of transmittals, submittals, and RFIs. Backing this up, ProjectWise Transformation Service manages automated publishing and workflowdriven delivery of i-models and standardised content to project and field workers.

With the boom of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) usage, site surveying is set to undergo a radical revolution, before, during and after construction. Greg Bentley said recently: “You can fast forward to when every engineering project will have a UAV operator on site. Up to now Acute3D has mainly worked on cityscale mapping using images from aircraft.

Bentley Navigator Connect Edition is an entry point into the Bentley world

Navigator One of the products that Bentley was very keen for early adopters to use was the new Bentley Navigator Connect Edition, as it is an entry point into the Bentley world and for a relatively small amount per year provides some very useful capabilities, such as i-model viewing, clash detection and punch lists, features that many other firms charge thousands for.

Acute3D Back in February, Bentley acquired Acute3D and its software Smart3DCapture, which automates the generation of 3D models from high resolution photographs.

These can be taken by mobile phones to DSLRs being flown around sites by drones. Acute3D makes it possible to fly over a city in a morning and have very accurate 3D geo-referenced mesh in MicroStation in the afternoon, with minimal intervention from the user. It is also possible to augment initial datasets with more close-ups and therefore get millimetre accuracy on buildings of interest.

But all of us can see how UAVs are going to make this applicable to site-scale.”

Bentley has not taken long to integrate the technology into the MicroStation Connect platform and the company is already using it to map at the city scale for several high profile uses.

ProjectWise on demand One of the most interesting solutions launched recently has been ProjectWise Essentials, which is Bentley’s popular design management tool, cloud-based and leased by the quarter and designed for

smaller firms (up to 40 seats).

Access is immediate and users get to choose from a number of best practice templates, following standards, to streamline workflows and connect team members. ProjectWise Essentials provides version control, change management, document relationship creation, search and distribution. It comes with free Bentley Connections Passport access to the Bentley range of mobile solutions.

Access is secure and data can be accessed on or offline. This opens up the tool for those not in the Bentley ecosystem but looking for industry proven management and remote access solutions.

Conclusion Bentley’s Connect Edition builds on all the work that the company has been doing since its inception in 1984.

Despite the front end and the file format not changing all that much everything in the background has been rewritten, re-worked, re-wired and turbo charged, against project road-maps that are longer than anyone else’s in the business.

To go for over 30 years and change the file format only twice, while delivering on-going subscriptionbased upgrades and several new generations of code is astounding.

The naming conventions can get confusing but it is best to think of Bentley’s portfolio as a platform-based modular system that can be configured and enhanced on demand. Connect Edition is not just about integrating the cloud but regimenting projects as collaboration spaces and ensuring that the right information is available everywhere at the same time.

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bentley.com

Bentley looking to float on stock exchange Just as AEC Magazine was going to press, news started to circulate that Bentley was filing at the New York Stock Exchange to issue and trade stocks.

Bentley has over $625 million in annual revenues and is currently the largest privately-owned software com-

www.AECmag.com

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pany in the US. This accolade looks likely to change as the company goes though the Initial Public Offering (IPO) process.

Back in 2002 Bentley attempted to float company shares and having gone through most of the process to make that initial offering,

decided to withdraw the offer due to perceived weaknesses in the stock market.

Prior to taking over the family business as CEO, Greg Bentley founded a financial trading firm, which became part of SunGard Data Systems, an S&P 500 company, so Bentley has

someone in charge who really understands the process.

The timing of the Bentley IPO could be a reflection on how subscription-based businesses are now highly valued. Subscription is something that Bentley has been doing long before it came into vogue and with

‘Select’ already has the infrastructure to deliver.

It will be interesting to see how this deal progresses and the amount of money the company can raise from investors; and to see what Bentley Systems chooses to invest it in.

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Comment

Education is our passport to the future Before spending time and money on software and associated training, companies must understand as an organisation what it is that their information can do if prepared in the right way.

by Paul Woddy

T

he volume of Building Information Modelling (BIM)related rhetoric has turned many people off the subject before they have effectively begun. It will be the true mark of maturity in the industry when BIM ceases to be a subject at all, but simply a factor in everyday life. So at the risk of offering yet another opinion on BIM adoption, I would like to raise a few points for consideration.

Question: What is the shape of education in the AEC industry today?

What do we even mean by this question?

Different people will interpret this in different ways, depending on their expectation of an outcome.

I spend my working life in the education arena, from 12-year-old school children working towards a GCSE in design and construction; through colleges and universities blending new technology and methodology into their existing courses; professional training centres offering software training; design practices upskilling their staff; SMEs scrabbling to understand the changing requirements; contractors maintaining their mandatory staff training. I see different challenges emerging in each of these sectors, but I also see common problems that need to be overcome.

I have recently heard several debates on 30

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About the author Paul Woddy is technical director of White Frog Publishing Ltd. White Frog specialises in the strategic planning and delivery of BIM education.

whether we are ready for the UK 2016 BIM adoption deadline, and read surveys seeking to understand how widespread is the adoption of BIM methodology, but I find myself wondering if these questions are being correctly phrased to get to the hub of the issues we face?

So what are these issues? Well in my opinion, we have to settle a number of problems before we can really progress towards the utopian advantages that we have been promised.

•

• • •

We have a developing set of standards and protocols, which are struggling to keep pace with changes in technology and best practice Technology without theory is only half the story The education focus needs to shift onto clients and asset managers Mainstream education needs to provide graduates with the skills sought by employers.

CDE? What about FGH? There are currently eight core competencies which form the foundation of Level 2 BIM adoption. Those documents outline the various processes that must be followed if we are to comply. The development of new standards and guidance on applying the existing set are emerging in a fairly regular flow, and it is fair to say that some of the existing set will need to be adapted before we are finished.

What seems like a solid cornerstone one day is undermined by new developments the next. BS1192 Common Data Environment for instance has stood design teams in good stead for nearly a decade, but as we look to accommodate a longer data life by providing appropriate electronic information to clients and facility managers, then we will need to adapt the current model where the ultimate aim is to archive information.

On a number of occasions, I have been asked to look at exemplar models provided by a client or contractor that show how they want their BIM data to be delivered, only to find that the models are simply that: 3D models with no information what-so-ever.

This problem is endemic and is something that most surveys and industry reports fail to pick-up, not because anyone is lying, but because they do not realise that what they are delivering is not BIM. If you ask a hundred leading architectural practices in the UK if they ‘use www.AECmag.com

29/7/15 12:45:48

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Comment

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BIM adoption has thus far been led by designers and this has somewhat tainted the subsequent roll-out as other stakeholders have looked to feed into or out from this core of activity

BIM’, you will probably get eighty-five positive responses, but for many, this means that they can use BIM-ready software (such as Revit or ArchiCAD) to produce 3D models of designs, to be used for clashdetection and drawing production.

This problem partly stems from people being taught how to use a piece of software, rather than how to adopt BIM methodology using the available software tools.

The blind leading the blind Another factor tht exacerbates this issue is that the client looks to these practices to guide them through BIM, giving them a false impression of the purpose, in turn leading to lacklustre benefits and ambivalence towards progressing faster.

If we focus on getting the clients and the asset managers asking the right questions, and demanding deliverables which are truly fit-for-purpose in the long-term, then the designers will need to sharpen their skills and realise what they are missing.

I firmly believe that BIM will only deliver on its potential once facility managers start to embrace it, and this can only happen once they see what they can do with rich, embedded data in a federated model.

Colleges and universities have their part to play as well, by keeping pace with developments in practice and providing students, not only with the timeless princi-

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ples of the core subjects, but also the practical skills which make them useful in a modern workplace. The notion that a recent graduate of architecture requires training before they can be employable is a difficult position to defend, and yet it is an all-too-common scenario.

Here at White Frog we are privileged to work with Class Of Your Own, a revolutionary not-for-profit organisation that provides secondary schools and colleges with the equivalent of GCSE and A-Level qualifications in Design, Engineering and Construction (DEC). Most importantly for the future of our industry, it opens children’s eyes to realise that there are more career options in this field than architect and brick layer.

What is most interesting about the work we do as official training partner is to see that when we describe the process of BIM, children understand immediately and do not comprehend why you would do things any differently. Their exposure to the virtual worlds of graphical computer games, and their 24-hour digital interaction through social media mean that they assume a far greater technological sophistication in the design, construction and

maintenance of buildings than is the current reality.

There is a dauntingly steep learning curve if you are just starting out on this road to BIM-readiness, especially as the goalposts are still moving, but the key to being prepared in any organisation is to have a robust, long-term strategy for knowledge development.

A software training course might provide a short-term fix to an individual requirement, but if you are going to change the way in which you process information and prepare your deliverables for sustainable long-term use, then you need to fully understand the context within which the software would be used.

BIM adoption has thus far been led by designers and this has somewhat tainted the subsequent roll-out as other stakeholders have looked to feed into or out from this core of activity. The reality is that for many within the wider construction and asset management supply chain, BIM will in future, have a very different look and feel.

Before spending time and money on software and associated training, companies must understand as an organisation what it is that their information can do if prepared in the right way, and also what advances could be made if they received data from others in an ideal format.

■ whitefrog.com

Re-register now FREE Building Information Modelling (BIM) for Architecture, Engineering and Construction

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Comment

Clients: the hidden partner in BIM We cannot allow inequalities in the understanding of BIM to hamper progress, or impede the industry and its clients alike from enjoying the benefits of BIM, writes Michael McCullen, Chairman, Sitedesk

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hose working within the design and construction space are becoming increasingly comfortable with Building Information Modelling (BIM). Having worked for some years towards the inevitability of mandated BIM on their public projects they are in quite good shape now that we are on the final approach to 2016.

It is easy to forget that within the client base there are many for whom BIM is less clear. They face challenges: not only in initiating BIM-based projects, but in managing them throughout the process.

For the local government officer, for example, the prospect of organising tenders for a BIM-enabled project can seem daunting.

BIM is only mandatory for centrallyfunded public building projects and local government adoption has been less universal and slower than in some other areas. When initiating a school, council homes or landscaping development the use of BIM requires a concrete decision — but to move it forward effectively can be challenging.

Many council designers, architects and project managers will be somewhat familiar with the concept of BIM, but it is not always the case across the organisation — and sometimes the familiarity may be more in theory than in practice.

For a department head whose main role is in the day-to-day administration of a local service, the deeper processes, nuances and lexicon of BIM can seem complex.

It may not be until they have to push forward procurement for a BIM project, co-ordinate it, wrangle collaboration from unwilling parties, or assure someone that using BIM will generate useful asset

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About the author Michael McCullen, Chairman, Sitedesk An accomplished CEO and software entrepreneur with over 30 years’ industry experience, 24 of these involved in international business. Previously a director and divisional CEO of AIM-listed Eleco plc with strategic, operational and P&L responsibility for its international group of software businesses.

information that this problem arises.

Assessing and making decisions between tenders may be difficult if the tendering suppliers take a level of BIM knowledge for granted — or, worse, take advantage of a client’s lack of knowledge.

The onus is on the construction industry as to how it interfaces with clients who are either unfamiliar with BIM or have unrealistic expectations about what it can deliver.

Unfortunately it is inevitable that some will rely on, or even seek to leverage, the poor knowledge of a client to dictate what BIM is or how it will be used for the project. Both a sense of responsibility and some smart thinking about how to work effectively together are required; this starts by establishing a shared understanding for each project about the practical benefits that BIM will deliver.

Contractors should be mindful that BIM experience may vary, especially when responding to tender notices for projects that are not centrally-funded. As projects move forward it is critical to embrace the client fully into the collaborative process. They will, after all, be the

only constant through the full building lifecycle: not just during the design and build stages but post-handover when all other parties have moved on. Clients should take a more active interest in ensuring best BIM outcomes by being involved in decisions about technology and process, rather than simply delegating these decisions to suppliers.

Construction partners can encourage and support this process. One way is to ensure that platforms are in place to deliver transparency and visibility to the client throughout the process — and that is more than simply assuring a client that a 3D viewer is available for their project.

Today the choice of collaboration platforms is wider than simply offering viewers and mark-up tools. Ideally the client will find it easy and intuitive to communicate across the team and respond to design changes which can then, just as easily, be shared with contractors and site-workers.

The BIM information flow must be multi-way and visible to all in order to reap the benefits of collaboration.

Suppliers can help make clients more aware of available tools, while clients can arm themselves with more information about the types of systems available and what these can do in practical terms to help assure success.

The rich asset information that starts with 3D design and builds throughout the construction process is one of the key outputs of BIM — but the ease of managing that information growth depends on the choice of an appropriate system for capturing and storing data.

BIM was conceived for greater industry cost-efficiency and sustainability in the longer term, not only for the construction www.AECmag.com

29/7/15 15:31:38

phase of projects. BIM aims to generate evant asset data is captured and auditable information, in as neat and organised a not just an integrated 3D-enabled design with full accountability for all parties format as possible — not hurriedly gathand build process but a long-term data- involved. This is vital in a public sector ered up at the last minute.

BIM is ultimately about delivering benbase of information to support the full that is under intense scrutiny; it is also a desire shared by an industry that is noto- efits to the client, to ensure the best building lifecycle.

It provides access to a huge volume of riously prone to dispute. Construction design and construction outcomes, at the data about installed equipment, engi- suppliers can help the client, and them- right cost and quality, in the desired timeframe. A good BIM project neered systems for every will do much more. It will aspect of the building’s provide an asset information operation, records about model to ensure cost-effective asset location and mainteA good BIM project will provide an asset maintenance regimes can be nance requirements and information model to ensure cost-effective developed, securing far greatmuch, much more. It must maintenance regimes can be developed, er cost efficiencies during the be organised and accessilifetime operation of an asset ble from day one of operasecuring far greater cost efficiencies during than those achieved during tions. the lifetime operation of an asset than those its construction.

When handing a comDoing so will require pleted project over to its achieved during its construction increasing transparency and future owner this data smarter information managemust be transferred elecment from the very start of tronically — either by a direct exchange between systems or using selves, by capturing deep information as every project until it is in the hands of its an industry standard schema like COBie they go along — including design chang- eventual owner and user. We cannot — thus emphasising the importance of es, clash resolution activities and records allow inequalities in the understanding of BIM to hamper progress, or impede the ensuring that a system is place to capture of compliance.

Clients need the as-built asset informa- industry and its clients alike from enjoythe right information from the start.

Clients are concerned not only about tion model to hand over to the FM team ing the benefits of BIM. BIM compliance but ensuring that all rel- and future occupants, as well as O&M ■ sitedeskconstruct.com

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The ideal candidate will have a minimum of 2 years’ experience working with Revit Architecture, and a passion for BIM. Knowledge of BIM software such as AECOSim and Navisworks and experience of working with point cloud data would be a bonus. An architectural related degree/qualification is advantageous but not essential to the role.

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Case study

Data transfusion By sharing structural model data with the detailer early and often in the design phase Fitzpatrick Engineering was able to compress the construction schedule on Octapharma’s new blood plasma facility by eight weeks

W

hen Octapharma deter- struction documents. The construction manually from 2D drawings.” This meant mined that centralising its team, and ultimately the fabricator’s that the earlier the detailing started the storage and lab processing detailer, must then recreate its own 3D less design information there was to would save the company data from our 2D documents and do so in transfer electronically, and the more data $1 million per month, accelerating the con- a fraction of the time that we had to create the detailer had to recreate by hand. struction schedule of its new North the 3D models in the first place. It is an Carolina blood plasma facility was para- outdated linear process still overly reliant Sharing 3D data mount. Fitzpatrick Engineering Group on 2D drawings and a costly waste of Fitzpatrick Engineering Group used was able to compress the construction effort on every project.”

RAM Structural System for structural New construction delivery processes analysis and design, AECOsim Building schedule by eight weeks, by sharing accurate structural model data early and often (such as design-build, integrated project Designer for modelling, and MicroStation with the detailer in the design phase. With delivery, and fast tracking) seek to speed PowerDraft for drafting. the help of tightly integrated Bentley software’s interoperdesign and analysis software ability made it easy for Fitzpatrick Engineering impleFitzpatrick Engineering Group mented a better, more efficient to collaborate. For this particuWith accurate data in an accessible way to deliver structural steel, lar project the architect, format, the detailer eliminated errors reduce RFIs and change orders, mechanical, electrical, and re-entering and recreating data and help Octapharma save $2 plumbing firms all worked in million.

Revit; the contractor worked in Navisworks; and the freezer Shortening the schedule specialist worked in AutoCAD. With $1 million per month on the line, the process, but haven’t necessarily “We shared our AECOsim model as a meeting the tight schedule was crucial on addressed the efficiency problem. “The Revit model for the design and constructhis project. Technology and BIM have traditional detailing process has simply tion teams via the Integrated Structural helped facilitate faster projects, but faster been pushed earlier into the structural Modeler (ISM),” explains Fitzpatrick.

“The ISM allowed us to easily update doesn’t always mean more efficient. Doug design phase,” explains Fitzpatrick.

“Sometimes there is a one-time elec- models for the team members on a weekFitzpatrick, president of Fitzpatrick Engineering Group explains, “Even tronic hand-off of structural information; ly basis yet still leverage all the AECOsim though we work in BIM now, in 3D, most a noticeable improvement, however, any features and functionalities that make of our projects require delivery of 2D con- information after that has to be recreated our new process more efficient.”

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(Above) Octapharma’s state-of-the-art blood plasma facility in Westlake Business Park, Charlotte, North Carolina (Right) AECOsim Building Designer creates a complete detailer model, ready for delivery of fabrication data to the steel supplier

Fitzpatrick Engineering Group realised that keeping the steel detailer’s data in 3D as long as possible was essential. With AECOsim Building Designer’s enhanced CIS/2 export, Fitzpatrick Engineering Group could share accurate model data repeatedly with the detailer during the design phase. This ensured the detailer had the most accurate and up-to-date information and virtually eliminated the need for the detailer to recreate data from 2D documents. Fitzpatrick Engineering Group and the detailer also worked to ensure the steel fabricator’s preferences were incorporated into the model.

A faster, more efficient process “The ability to share model data multiple times during the design phases of the www.AECmag.com

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project was the key component to meeting the demanding schedule,” noted Fitzpatrick. “The process allowed us to reduce the traditional 12- to 14-week delivery time of the fabrication package down to just six weeks. Best of all, this new process enabled by AECOsim is sustainable. It can be applied to all of our projects going forward allowing us to provide real value to our clients.”

With accurate data in an accessible format, the detailer eliminated errors re-entering and recreating data. As a result, Fitzpatrick Engineering Group needed about one-third less time to review the fabrication package. “Because we can now reliably send accurate data, the menial task of checking lengths, section sizes, cambers, steel grades, and so on has vir-

tually been eliminated. We can now focus our attention on the more unique aspects of our design,” explained Fitzpatrick.

“The ISM and IFC export have been key enablers in sharing our model data,” noted Fitzpatrick. “They allow us to work in a robust Bentley analysis and design environment yet still provide useful information for other members of the design and construction team.” The link between RAM Structural System and AECOsim Building Designer also helped shorten the time needed to prepare construction documents. “With AECOsim we are able to produce accurate drawings quickly at any phase of the project. This speed and accuracy would not have been possible without AECOsim,” said Fitzpatrick.

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Point cloud of Kings Cross site

Heritage and BIM Working on heritage buildings poses major issues – how to bring the existing structure into the 3D BIM process and the requirement to record and retain many architectural features. Plowman Craven explains how it overcame these challenges with the regeneration of Kings Cross in London

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any in the AEC arena will see new buildings as the main application for Building Information Modelling (BIM) but a considerable percentage of projects are refurbishments or part developments of existing buildings, many are listed.

Heritage buildings pose two major issues — how do you bring the existing structure into the 3D BIM process and the requirement to record and retain many architectural features.

A project that Plowman Craven has been involved with for over a decade is the urban regeneration of Kings Cross, a large mix of new build and listed buildings. A project in which the King’s Cross Central Limited Partnership (KCCLP) wanted to

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About the author Peter Folwell is a director at Plowman Craven with responsibility for survey deliverables within the BIM environment. He is involved in Survey4BIM and a founder of BIMnet.

embrace 3D delivery and more importantly have a BIM approach on a site that had over 20 historic buildings.

People travelling into London from around the world will be fully aware of the regeneration that has happened around King’s Cross and St Pancras. It has become a destination rather than a

place to pass through, whether you are interested in iconic structures such as the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel or the spectacular western concourse ceiling, designed by John McAslan and partners, or a Harry potter fan wanting your photo taken on platform 9 ¾.

What is really impressive though is the exemplar 67 acre site owned by the KCCLP adjacent to the two main transport hubs. It is the largest mixed use development in single ownership to be developed in central London for over 150 years.

An inaccessible area of London that consisted of disused buildings, railway sidings, warehouses and contaminated land that has now been transformed into a vibrant new quarter of offices, homes, community facilities, schools, a world-rewww.AECmag.com

29/7/15 16:10:57

Case study nowned university plus shops, restaurants and cultural venues. One of the real unique features of this development, and as mentioned above, it has a large number of historic buildings set alongside new build and public spaces.

KCCLP, as the major developer and asset manager, from the beginning were very progressive in their approach to requiring complete data sets, improved collaboration between people involved in developing and managing their assets and the application of BIM. One of the key elements was to have an up to date master set of 3D geo-spatial information, including management of the primary survey control, which could be utilised and supplied to relevant parties thus reducing the need for repeat or unnecessary additional surveys.

The complexity of the site meant it was critical that all aspects were tied to a recognised grid and datum including correlation with underground utility information and below ground infrastructure such as rail and underground tunnels.

The historic buildings on the site posed a specific conundrum — how do you get

these complex and varied buildings into the 3D design world? We would be dealing with large structures such as the transit sheds through to the irregular shaped Gas Holders.

3D laser scanning technology has been used as a surveying tool for a considerable number of years and in the early days of this project, the data, although collected in 3D, was delivered to the architects and engineers as 2D drawings.

There were a number of factors which drove this at the time: •

Stakeholder ability or familiarity working with ‘as built’ parametric models. .

•

Software capabilities to deal with ‘point cloud’ (laser scanning data output) and models simultaneously.

•

Limited understanding of ‘point cloud’ data and the ability to handle large data sets.

ment increased, there became a greater understanding of the tools available and their application.

The first building to be delivered as a ‘BIM ready’ 3D Revit model was the Midlands Good Shed, built in 1850 by the Great Northern Railway, and now sensitively being restored to house a new Waitrose store and cookery school, plus an events and cultural space for the Guardian Media Group.

This survey model provided the basis of a fully federated model, hosted by BIMXtra, and included new steelwork elements added by Arup, 3D models from the architect Bennetts Associates, steelwork fabricator Bourne Steel, main contractor Kier, and M&E consultant Hoare Lea. With the number of stakeholders involved in the project, each with different requirements, it was important from the outset to fully understand and make sure that the survey model met expectations. Key considerations included: •

As the awareness of the benefits of BIM grew, software and hardware develop-

Collaboration with each team to understand specific requirements — As there was no recognised profes-

SCOTLAND BUILD 2015

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Digital Construction Week will showcase and explore the digital technologies and processes changing the face of the architecture, engineering, and construction industry from design all the way through to operation.

Whether you’ve been exploring BIM adoption, experimenting with emerging smart technologies or investigating advances in manufacturing and materials, you’ll have witnessed the impact of digital technologies and the changes taking place in the AECO world.

Join over 5,000 industry professionals at the Digital Construction Show on the 21st & 22nd for our free seminar series and features, network with peers, and meet some of the most innovative suppliers in the AECO industry.

Meet with leading industry figures and government at our Westminster Reception. Showcase your work and expertise at The Digital Construction Awards. Take part in our DCW Fringe Event Series.

Digital Construction Week is the event series for the entire built environment throughout design, construction, engineering, management, and operation.

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Case study Revit model of the Fish and Coal Building on Regent’s Canal at King’s Cross. The building will be used by the Jamie Oliver Group

modelled in other more appropriate softwares and brought into the Revit model as families, non-modifiable, as to not make the model overly heavy.

sional body specification we developed our own 3D BIM Survey Specification which was used to establish the level of detail required, family structure and delivery method.

•

•

•

Model sizes and understanding capabilities of stakeholders in handling ‘point cloud’ data — With buildings of this nature structural features are not always orthogonal and will have deformities such as warping, bowing or leaning. To model every one of these deformities made the models too large and also works at the limits of Revit capabilities as it is primarily a design tool. Lateral and vertical deviation parameters were incorporated to record the maximum deviation of the model element from the point cloud.

View filters could then be used to indicate components which are outside of tolerance. This then enabled the user to bring in the point cloud data for this feature and understand in greater detail the surface variations.

The Midlands Good Shed project is near completion and many of the lessons learnt have been incorporated into the other schemes such as the Fish and Coals Building, to be used by the Jamie Oliver Group, and Coal Drops Yard, a new retail destination. These have been fully 3D laser scanned and ‘BIM Ready’ models produced for the design and engineering teams.

Bam Construction, which won the project to refurbish the Fish & Coals, has fully adopted a BIM approach and utilised the models to co-ordinate designs, service clash detection and onsite verification. In relation to data collection and model delivery key considerations such as: •

IFC file size challenges.

•

Level of detail requirements.

• Structure of the model could be phased and additional information added as the project progressed.

Capabilities of dealing with point cloud sizes. .

•

In specific circumstances there may be consideration of complex architectural features to be recorded — Intricate modelling of these features may be required. These would be

Technology compatibility were continually reviewed and addressed with all stakeholders.

Pure restoration has been a major consideration for KCCLP, the developers, and in 2011 Gasholders No. 8, together with 10,

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11 and 12, built in the 1850s, were dismantled by a team comprising Arup, Bell Phillips Architects, Shepley Engineers and BAM Nuttal.

Before the dismantling every structural element was recorded utilising 3D laser scanning technology and modelled.

Due to the shape and intricacies of the gas holders this was the only technique that really could meet the tolerance and timeframe requirements.

It took two years to complete the restoration of Gas holder No 8, rebuilt and placed on the new site next to Regents Canal.

In other locations the combination of digital photography and scanning technology has enhanced the capability to depict reality in 3D — a technique used to meet English Heritage’s requirements to show the existing true condition of the Coal Drops. This was achieved by wrapping high quality digital photography over a 3D model.

Utilising 3D digital data capture technology such as laser scanning and photogrammetry has provided the capability not only to accurately record intricate heritage features but has enabled, on a large urban regeneration project, to bring the existing environment into the BIM process. It has provided a geo-spatial platform to assist in KCCLP’s proactive application of the BIM process which is continuing right through to asset management and the ability to provide a better service to their occupiers and investors.

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Event

REAL 2015 redux Earlier this year Autodesk held an exclusive event at Fort Mason in San Francisco’s marina area, to examine the emerging technologies and applications of what it calls ‘Reality Computing’. Now everyone can watch the talks online for free.

by Martyn Day

N

early all design systems have moved beyond lines, circles and arcs and now provide 3D modelling, ‘intelligence’ and the capability to import geometry or point clouds from data capture devices. This merging of digital modelling and reality, combined with manufacturing advances in 3D printing is being touted as the next big leap in all design environments.

In many respects, this is the intersection of two mature market segments, the CAD world and the data capturing market. The former looks to model the real world, the latter aims to capture the real world.

The data capture market has mainly served the plant, surveying, mapping and terrestrial markets, through terrestrial or airborne laser scanning and photogrammetry and events around that technology have tended to focus on those application areas. However, new technologies, such as the rise of the UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) market is also offering new opportunities to scan building sites to monitor progress, locate materials and compare actual vs modelled, which again works well with the industry’s migration to BIM. Autodesk’s interest in the area of reality computing can now be seen in many of its products. AutoCAD and Revit can both work with point clouds, 123D Catch enables meshed models to be created from multiple models, Recap is a newish survey alignment tool and then there is Memento, a brand new product that can take video, pictures or point clouds, create meshes, enable editing and then 3D print the result.

At the Real 2015 event in San Francisco, it is just that idea that Autodesk wants to promote — harnessing reality capture means there are not only new ways to design but unlimited possibilities for 42

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Reality capture in review In participation with REAL 2015, AEC Magazine (aecmag.com) and its sister publication for product development, DEVELOP 3D (develop3d.com), produced a special report which examined the technologies and emerging uses of reality capture. It is available for free download at tinyurl.com/D3D-reports

working with real-world objects, either man-made or naturally occurring.

Autodesk has been active in applying the reality capture technology in many areas: museum curating, monitoring coral growth, capturing buildings of historical significance, surveying and city modelling.

Real 2015 Possibly the first exhibition organised by a team of programmers, Real was the brainchild of Autodesk’s Reality Computing group, which wanted to pull together technology developers, researchers, artists, fabricators, product designers, educators, biologists and architects for a total cross-industry event to share and cross-pollinate ideas to build a community and start a discussion on how reality computing can solve problems that were just too hard for previous generation design tools.

The concept of the show was succinctly

explained in the marketing: “From drones to autonomous cars, industrial robots to major engineering works, and game consoles to tomorrow’s mobile phones, 3D sensors are suddenly everywhere. And several decades after first grabbing headlines, VR and 3D printing are hot again, attracting billions in investment, and moving beyond early adopters to professionals. But it is the sum total, where sensing meets making, where big change is brewing.”

With over 40 industry speakers, 1,000 attendees and 30,000 sq ft of exhibition space, the ticket-only Real 2015 provided two days of great presentations from across a phenomenal range of specialisms. The great news is that all of these have just been made available for free online, on demand here: real2015.com/on-demand/ Flicking through the videos there is a veritable host of fantastic talks, from rebuilding old cars, 3D printing planes, quality, makers, digital fabrication, BIM, archeology, capturing coral reefs, environmental design to designing DNA-based cancer killing robots.

This collection of over 50 videos is like the TED of the reality capture market and well worth a browse.

Real 2016 The good news is that the event is happening again, in Fort Mason, San Francisco, March 8-10, 2016. Based on the first outing, and the quality of the talks, we highly recommend this event if you want to meet the movers and shakers of the data capture world and get inspired by cutting edge applications in this quickly developing market.

For notification on next year’s show, sign up at real2015.com www.AECmag.com

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