Archive for category New Technologies

Sustainable Retrofits Projected to be $400b US Market by 2030

I had a conversation yesterday with as Program Manager from Autodesk who was looking into implementing workflows utilizing Autodesk Products to produce energy analysis for existing buildings.  He had seen one of our many fantastic videos for PKNail, okay we have two homegrown videos, but our effort in capturing the built environment dovetails nicely with this effort.  And while I have commented many times on the sustainable retrofit market I had not seen a number placed on it but Autodesk posted a number on their web site.    If you are not intending to make the jump you can read some of their conclusions below.

Buildings are key to achieving climate stabilization, representing roughly 40% of global energy consumption and 25% of global carbon emissions. In addition, energy efficiency retrofits represent a massive latent market, projected to reach an estimated worth of $400 billion by 2030 in the U.S. alone. To respond to these twin environmental and market demands at scale and speed, the building industry needs to respond quickly and cost-effectively.

Our research suggests that rapid energy modeling enables building energy assessments with a smaller budget and shorter time frame, and can thereby help increase the number of existing buildings that undergo assessment and energy upgrades. We expect property owners and managers, home buyers, tenants and landlords, designers and architects, auditors, and energy consultants to benefit from such a workflow.

Included in this effort is Revit CEA (Conceptual Energy Analysis) that allows the user, after putting parameters in place, to use a cloud computing enironment, that is send it out for computation, to perform the calculations using Green Building Studio as the back end but making it transparent to the user.  What I like about this effort is that I am not required to fire up or even know Green Building Studio to do the energy analysis, the export and data exchange, done in gbXML is done seemlessly and I get the report.

But back to the original premise which is getting existing buildings into a format that you can perform this and Autodesk has developed a workflow to help, and while this is excellent I would also argue for PKNail’s place in the workflow as measuring and building in the environment you are going to model and analyze  reduces a couple of steps and amount of software you need to know.  I don’t argue it should be the only tool just that it deserves a place on the shelf.

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Disney BIM : 2D, 3D, 4D, 5D, 6D, More. Jack Blitch from Disney presents BIM at NASA Info Tech Summit

Jack Blitch, VP Disney Imagineering, presented at Day 2 of the NASA Information Technology Summit on August 17 and discussed BIM and IPD.  His comments really start at 1:06 mark and move forward from there.  What I find interesting and really reiterates the process of BIM, call it IPD, call it smart, but bringing in the sub-contractors early to reduce rework and make sure the designers are creating anything that can’t be built or is too expensive.  I brought in some of the transcript below.

We bring in subcontractors early to help with design instead of our designers designing something maybe we can’t afford or doesn’t make sense. We have the guys that are building it sitting at the design table with us…we want to reduce rework, use it as a constructability tool…determine clashes early so we don’t (find) them out on sight. Reduce personnel. Reduce shop drawings… So the shop drawings come right out of the model so the vendors/sub contractors don’t have to redesign. – Jack Blitch, NASA Summit

In case the video is not coming up you can go directly to http://tiny.cc/nasabimdisney , as either the CSPAN embed, or WordPress is not dealing well.

Stitch Kingdom also covered the summit and summarized Blitch’s comments and I’ve included some of them here.

Using the Fantasyland Expansion as the primary example, Blitch demonstrates how Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) users computers to generate ‘6-D models’ to engineer a project before the construction beings, a concept pioneered by Disney in an effort to reduce costs and speed construction by avoiding potential problems on-site. Disney began using BIM-IPD on Soarin’ and — as an example — Blitch stated that had Expedition Everest been engineered using traditional methods, it would consist of approximately 20,000 construction documents.

Using The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Undersea Adventure as an example of the BIM-IPD process, Blitch demonstrates how 3D modeling has evolved into 4D modeling in which the computerized model can actually project the construction over time which the Imagineers then use as a guideline for the attraction’s construction. Blitch adds a 5th and 6th dimension to the project development which covers cost as well as the capability of exporting various components of an attraction’s construction to its respective contractor/partner.


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We’re Going Inside : Buildings and BIM

New technologies have developed around the capture capture of existing buildings in a digital environment.  Laser Scanning comes first to mind, and now Photofly from Autodesk, however, these seem to best address the exterior of the buildings and are used in particular circumstances that warrant them.   Now comes the backpack scanner, and thanks to Erik Lewis and his blog Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad BIM for bringing it to my attention and I’ll quote him here:

“Incredible.  Between PKNail and emergent technology like this, I see a real future in gathering existing facilities information into BIM databases…”

Laser Backpack Creates Instant 3D Models

Very cool.

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Autodesk taking as builts seriously : Photo Modeling and PointClouds in next release?

With all the stuff flying out of Autodesk Labs recently one maybe blinded by the technology slant rather than the strategy.  Looking specifically at Photofly and their new PointCloud tools with shape  extraction Autodesk is putting together a strong effort in capturing the built environment within their CAD platform.  Looking at the ribbon from an AutoCAD beta you can see that Photo Modeling and PointCloud are options available directly within the menu.

You can see these option on the far right, somewhat obscured by one of my feeds.  Yes, my blog formatting skills still need fine tuning.   Last time we researched this over 80% of construction in Boston was done within existing buildings. This new technology push with our own research dove tails nicely with the sustainable retrofit anecdotes.

I think it becomes more important that applications work within familiar platforms to not not only increase their adoption but also to incorporate into an existing workflow.  Asking anyone to learn a new platform is always a tougher hill to climb and most shops are standardizing their drafting/modeling on to one or two applications.

From a technology stand point, the more tools the more better because this has been a soft spot in the whole CAD/BIM world, that is I am working in an existing building, I use Revit, I used AutoCAD, okay, now where do I start.  Defining this will help everyone.

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BIM CAD Throwdown : Dassault Takes Aim with Catia Live Building and Draftsight

Holy frontal assault Batman.  Dassault, the french producer of CATIA (Computer Aided Three-dimensional Interactive Application) / Solidworks is making a strong move into the world of architecture.  CATIA, generally used in the aerospace and engineering fields, has also been used successfully by Gehry to produce his curvilinear buildings.  They are now introducing 2 products aimed squarely at the Autodesk Bullseye, a CAD application developed through the IntelliCAD Consortium (ITC) and the Open Drawing Alliance (ODA) called Draftsight and its going to be free, yup free. And is available here.

And while it is available for the Windows Family of OS (XP / Vista / Seven) MAC and Linux versions are in the pipeline, take that into account that IBM, you’ve heard of them, markets these solutions worldwide and that complaints about Revit not handling larger products are scattered across user groups and BIM forums one can believe there is an opening.  Additionally, if they are following the SaaS path of putting Draftsight in the cloud for file sharing/integrity it becomes a pretty powerful argument to think about switching, especially if all the ingrained keystroke commands and shortcuts from AutoCAD are copied along with it.  Having seen the Intellicad interface, I think that most likely a yes.

Excellent article at AEC Magazine that covers the introduction in depth, and thanks to @amonle / John Allsopp twitter for bringing this to my attention. I’ve included a portion below.

Based on a future version of Catia and its data management system Enovia, Dassault Systèmes is developing a competitive parametric modelling solution to compete with Autodesk’s Revit BIM (Building Information Modelling) tool. I understand that the next update of Catia will store its data in the cloud and Catia will potentially be downloaded and licensed from the desktop. This will enable Dassault Systèmes to overcome the fact that it does not have a value-added reseller channel to sell Catia Live Building but needs to compete with an established and low-cost player.

The brief demonstration showed an architectural model being rapidly developed and edited using Catia. Bernard Charlès said that the new product could do modelling in seconds, what Revit would take 45 minutes to do. And Dassault Systèmes should know — it was among the many original investors in the start-up company that developed the first version of Revit.

While Revit has captured the mindshare here in the US and Down Under among other places no one can discount the Dassault / IBM alliance and their entrance into the AEC industry in a big way.  The amount of consulting opportunities and hardware sales  should have IBM salivating.  So if Draftsight is free, what is Live Building coming in at?

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Photofly : Real 3D from Photos : Cloud Computing Magic : #bim #cloud

While I have not taken this for a test drive yet the videos and technology behind this are impressive and could provide a very valuable tool set.  First, a word about technology.  Too many times software presupposes too much knowledge or interest on the user, that is this software can do some amazing stuff you just have to sit down with it, go through the manual, try and use it, sit in a classroom, hit the user groups, etc. to master it and make it a useful and successfully incorporate into your workflow.  If you are like me you might be open minded to that but the benefits of learning a brand new software package have to be pretty amazing to entertain that process.  Enter Photofly.  From what I have pulled up and I included two videos here you upload standard digital photographs, which could range from your iphone to your 18 Megapixel Digital SLR, and Photofly does its magic in the cloud utilizing its own servers to render a photographic 3D image, that can be scaled using a known dimension to a dimensionally correct model that can also be exported to AutoCAD as a pointcloud.  What?!$%  From my perspective this is invaluable, and brings to the forefront technology that was only available from laser scanners.  I am not saying this takes their place but any time you can put another arrow in your quiver for building surveying and documentation, the better.  And if this is as intuitive as these 2 videos make it out to be, this is a home run.

Photofly Intro Video

Wrigley Field Gets Modeled From Tourist Photos

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Project Butterfly : Autodesk continues with SaaS : #BIM #CAD #saas

Autodesk continues to  move forward with their Saas (software as a service) offerings.  While Project Twitch allowed users to test drive a variety of software without saving or uploading anything Project Butterfly give you space in the cloud to upload your files and drive through them, collaborate, save all within a web base AutoCAD environment.  I have just started playing around with it, although it has been out for awhile and although there is a bit of lag but  it still delivers.  I believe getting files, models, etc. in the cloud is the beginning.  The start of real collaboration, the start of value added services, the start of a more efficient work place and the market leader is starting to figure it out.

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Revit As Built : Field BIM Technology : Build Digitally As You Measure : #BIM #Revit

It’s been a haul and it starts with a quote from Irwin Jungreis one of the founders of Revit who I spoke to early in the process, ‘we never intended Revit to have an API,’ he said with a smile. ” It was supposed to be so good it would never need 3rd Party applications.”  “WHAT?!” you say.  I believe Irwin at the point understood the original hubris of that statement but then again I spoke to him after they sold out to Autodesk.  “So what” we thought and we continued to forge ahead with an  API that had as much horsepower as my old Puch moped.  Thank you Autodesk for your continued efforts in beefing up the API but it has been a bear.

PointKnown is getting closer to releasing the commercial version of PKNail;  it’s building surveying software.  PKNail was programmed behind 7 years of building surveying experience.   Our intention was to:

  • Automate many of the rote tasks when creating existing conditions surveys of a building
  • Create repeatable work flows
  • Increase speed and accuracy by linking measurements directly into Revit

We understand surveying can be the bane of some people’s existence and it is a necessary evil to almost all projects, that is having accurate information to start the project.  While we never considered it a bane or evil but when we would put on  lunch and learns and dog and pony shows we usually got one of two reactions.  One, where have you been my whole life I hate surveying or two, will you sell us the software because we do all our own measuring.  We get it.  And building in real time, in the field makes thing easier and building inside a familiar platform, and one that you will be designing or working in anyway makes you more productive right out of the box.  I look forward to your feedback, comments we’re here to work with you.  And to summarize my last statement in the video, ‘We’re much better at designing surveying  software than making videos,’ but even comments on our production and lack of directing talents are welcome.  Thanks for reading.  – jim

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Revit As Built : Field BIM : Existing Conditions

While I don’t usually take the time to pump my own gas with this blog I wanted to share the complete reversal in our deliverables over the last year.  It used to be, way back at the end of 2008 that we delivered most of our building surveys in 2D AutoCAD format, now we would build in 3D, normally in ADT but our clients wanted 2D AutoCAD.  From a surveying perspective a 3D object oriented universe worked better for us because essentially all the views were coordinated, that is build it in the floorplan directly, it is represented in elevation correctly.  Anyone who has keyed up a plan in 2D knows where I am coming from, which if you are here reading this, means you know what I am talking about.  Now, however, the bulk of what we do is deliver as-builts in Revit.  The GSA requiring BIM has a lot to do with it, I believe, and Autodesk being the biggest player in the US means Revit becomes the default.  Whether you like that or not does not matter, that’s the reality.

Recently we have performed as built surveys at Phillips Exeter and Emmanuel College and we were field testing our laser to BIM technology, PKNail.  It was created to capture typical conditions quickly and accurately.  If you wanted to capture the Capitol Dome, I would suggest laser scanning, for capturing most situations Point to Point Laser Scanning (PPLT) should work just fine.  PKNail converts measurements directly into a Revit workstation-wirelessly, measure a wall that wall is entered into Revit, encounter a door, window, Fire Extinguisher Cabinet, sink, if you can measure it, it can be placed quickly and easily into the model.

Lastly, if the deliverable is 2D CAD, exporting views from Revit to AutoCAD sheets is a snap. Here’s a long winded Autodesk treatise on the subject or well, it looks like I will need to update with a screen capture video the quick process but the resulting CAD contains some of the meta information collected in 3D, such as 30″ Door, rather than creating anonymous objects.   Next post will follow in short order with a sneak peak of some of the features and the connectivity between Revit and a Leica Disto enabled by PointKnown surveying software.

Thanks for tolerating some self promotion.

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iPAD : BIM : Game Changer?

ipadThe launch of the iPad has brought a lot of focus back to the tablet or I guess we need to call it a slate.  Nevermind that tablets have been commercially available for over a decade; however commercial success has always seemed to elude it.  Lack of killer apps, increased expense compared to regular laptops certainly contributed  but perhaps it was the change in the UI (User Interface) zeitgeist that provided a bigger hurdle.  Apple introduced the world, in a largely commercially way, to the multi-touch interface with the iphone making many comfortable with the concept and its app store was a huge success with many programs priced around a $1 made it the equivalent of an impulse purchase at the Walgreen’s check out line. With the release of the ipad Apple has upped the ante, not just because of the user interface but with a mobile platform that is relying mostly on the web to deliver applications/data/multi-media/snacks/beverages much like the  ‘thin-client’ devices promised to us in the nascent days of the interweb.  So the question is does the iPad have the power/features/connectivity to matter in the A/E/C Industry, and if so who needs it as an always on, apple form factor in the field?

Processing power and GB of RAM, BIM tools are hogs so any true BIM authoring software would have to run remotely and accessed through the iPad or similar slate, and then the bottleneck becomes the latency in the broadband connection, in this case, most likely the 3G  connection unless you have public wifi on your job site.  And that would bring us back to something like Project Twitch from Autodesk which allows you remote control their products through an internet connection, since I don’t have an ipad I can’t vouch yet for how that would work but having your project stored remotely and using the ipad to drive through it that starts to get interesting.

Screen Shot goBIM on iPad

goBIM which was released for the iphone, yes you read that right is running on the ipad.  It is a BIM viewer that has an exporter API that will let you translate Revit and Rhino models into its own format.  Why’s it’s own format?  Visit the site for the FAQ and explanation but it seems as it matures the developer wants it to be an xml format.

One company focused on bringing BIM to field, an aptly calling it FieldBIM, Vela Systems blogged about the ipad, and beyond reiterating iPad specs and blogosphere pronouncements ends with a ‘we’ll have to wait and see.’  One of their prerequisites though was a field case which  is already available at HardCandy. Additionally, they have partnered with Motion Computing to provide ruggedized tablets for the FieldBIM.  However, what we  all just really want is to unlock data that is stuck in file rooms or servers and be able to interact with it in a meaningful way which seems to be Apple’s sweet spot.

Counterbalancing Apple’s offering is the new HP Slate, which is essentially a slate wearing Windows 7 clothing and I am not sure how compelling an argument that is going to be as we’ve had a tablet edition of XP for a long time, is a multi-touch version going to sway a lot of people?  Comes down to the applications and how they are served?  If they are running remotely, who does the best job with the interface because the slate/pad whathaveyou is just the conduit.  Which brings us to what might be the real game changer and that is the Google Chrome OS, open source/operating system, which doesn’t care what device you use and will just deliver it, this web centric open model seems more in line with our egalitarian nature and should increase adoption.  But what keeps nagging at me is Apple’s tremendous execution and if their closed ecosystem produces field tools for the laymen then they got something going on, maybe break the functionality into bits, collision bits, scheduling bits, so the app provides not just the CM with a tool but workers who can use an app designed for their function,  punch list, update, done.  And that has been the beauty off the app store, essentially singularly focused bits that are easy to understand and implement.  So if we have the true BIM up in a cloud and all these specific apps interfacing with it, that would be the equivalent of the web with user generated content (UGC) driving the system, and not the bloatware cloud we’ve been living under.  It will be in the execution, otherwise you might be seeing people treating them more like Daniel Tosh did.

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