AECbytes.com Blog

AEC Collaboration Hub

Lachmi Khemlani — Tue, 15 May 2012 19:51:55 +0000

This article by Chris France, the author of two previous AECbytes articles demystifying the “cloud” in AEC and how it can be useful for BIM, focuses on what firms are doing with this cloud as the technology and business processes have matured to better serve their clients. The AEC industry has been traditionally very fragmented when it comes to designing and constructing buildings. Many firms come together to produce a building, and once that project is complete, this unique team disbands to form another project team for the next building. This industry needs a mechanism enabling us to work together, in real-time, using our information systems with the same ease of a project team that works for the same firm and sitting in the same physical location. Fueled by the technology building blocks of a BIM cloud, it is now possible to build an AEC Collaboration Hub. This article will outline how firms could work in this Hub today, forming a building “supply chain” that could possibly be the future of our industry.

URL: http://www.aecbytes.com/buildingthefuture/2012/AEC_C_Hub.html

Around the World with BIM

Lachmi Khemlani — Thu, 10 May 2012 00:08:03 +0000

There is no doubt that BIM adoption in the AEC industry has come a long way since the term was introduced in 2002—most of the larger firms are using BIM on many of their projects, and it has come part of the standard lexicon of the AEC industry. We would be hard-pressed to find anyone working in the industry who has not heard of BIM. But most of us have a rather myopic view of BIM; we are aware of what’s going on with BIM implementation in our own countries, but not that much about what is happening in other countries. This article attempts to capture the key developments in BIM implementation in different countries around the world, so that we have a better global perspective on BIM.

URL: http://www.aecbytes.com/feature/2012/Global-BIM.html

Getting a BIM Rap: Why Implementations Fail, and What You Can Do About It

Lachmi Khemlani — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 21:50:27 +0000

This Viewpoint article is by Josh Oakley, a BIM consultant, who argues that BIM is not just about software, but rather about organizational change that is wrenching and disruptive, which means that people and processes are far more important than technology. It is sure to resonate with many AEC professionals who are attempting to implement BIM in their firms.

URL: http://www.aecbytes.com/viewpoint/2012/issue_65.html

SmartGeometry 2012 Conference

Lachmi Khemlani — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 18:59:52 +0000

Towards the end of last month, I had the opportunity to attend this year’s SmartGeometry conference, which was held at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, NY. The conference is typically focused on innovative architectural and structural design tools, technologies, and methods, and the theme of the conference this year was “Material Intensities.” This article provides an overview of the conference and compares it with the 2009 SmartGeometry conference that I last attended, to see the direction in which the conference is heading as well as analyze the relationship between academia and the industry.

URL: http://www.aecbytes.com/buildingthefuture/2012/SmartGeometry2012.html

Autodesk’s 2013 Product Launch and AEC Portfolio

Lachmi Khemlani — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 21:27:42 +0000

It is that time of the year that Autodesk typically launches its next release of products, and this year was no exception—Autodesk has just released its 2013 product portfolio. This includes new releases of applications across all the three main industries it serves, including AEC (which includes buildings as well as infrastructure), manufacturing, and M&E (media and entertainment). This AECbytes article provides an overview of the overall 2013 release and then takes a deeper dive into the more AEC industry-specific details that were shared.

URL: http://www.aecbytes.com/newsletter/2012/issue_56.html

Beyond BIM – Building With Perfect Information

Lachmi Khemlani — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 18:50:53 +0000

In this Viewpoint article, Ray Crotty, who is the founder of the UK-based C3 Systems and the author of the recent book “The Impact of Building Information Modelling,” contrasts drawings with models, asserting that with drawings, no matter how detailed you get, you can only say approximately what you mean or intend, whereas there is no such ambiguity in models. He also questions what would happen if the information used in the AEC industry were fully trustworthy – needing no checking – and were readily computable, as the BIM vision promises, and if the operation of the construction industry were based on the use of effectively perfect information.

URL: http://www.aecbytes.com/viewpoint/2012/issue_64.html

Newforma Project Center Professional Ninth Edition

Lachmi Khemlani — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 20:57:43 +0000

Up until now, Newforma Project Center has been Newforma’s flagship application for project information management (PIM) and collaboration. However, the company has slowly but surely been expanding its client base to cover all disciplines in the building industry, including architecture, engineering and construction firms, and the owners they serve. A few weeks ago, Newforma officially re-branded itself as a multi-product company, launching a number of product suites for the different disciplines in AEC. This review looks at these suites in more detail, and then explores the enhancements in the next version of Newforma Project Center Professional, which still remains the core application of the company.

URL: http://www.aecbytes.com/review/2012/NewformaProjectCenterProfessional9.html

AEC Technology Updates, Spring 2012

Lachmi Khemlani — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 18:22:27 +0000

This article looks at some of the recent key technology updates from AEC vendors, including the release of DProfiler 2012 from Beck Technology; the new version of Tekla’s BIM collaboration solution, Tekla BIMsight 1.4; a new project scheduling tool in Axium’s latest Ajera 7 release; and an Education Partner program recently announced by EADOC, which develops a collaborative construction project management application. It also looks at some brand new products including Maxwell for Google SketchUp, a sophisticated rendering technology for SketchUp models; Clarity from IMAGINiT, which works with the Revit Server; the VEO platform for visualization and collaboration of Revit and other BIM models; and other significant technology updates from vendors such as Interspec, CSC, StrucSoft Solutions, and Cadalog, which makes the popular SU Podium plug-in for SketchUp.

URL: http://www.aecbytes.com/buildingthefuture/2012/AEC-TechUpdates.html

Graphisoft’s New White Paper on BIM

Lachmi Khemlani — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:51:15 +0000

A couple of weeks ago, Graphisoft, developer of ArchiCAD, released a new white paper called “Get There Faster with ArchiCAD,” which attempts to identify the most important criteria that architects should be looking at when selecting which BIM tools they should work with, as well as clarify the advantages of ArchiCAD over other BIM tools. While Revit is not specifically mentioned, it is obviously the main target of the white paper, being the leading BIM competitor to ArchiCAD. This AECbytes newsletter summarizes the content of the white paper, and analyzes it in the context of the current BIM adoption in the AEC industry.

URL: http://www.aecbytes.com/newsletter/2012/issue_55.html

HOK’s 2nd Annual BIM Awards

Lachmi Khemlani — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 23:04:58 +0000

This article takes a look at the projects selected as the finalists in HOK’s 2nd Annual BIM Awards competition. This is an internal competition to evaluate and award projects within HOK that have exhibited exemplary use of BIM technology in one of four major categories; Design, Delivery, Collaboration, and Visualization. I was invited to serve on the jury of the competition and therefore had the opportunity to review all the finalist’s presentations and get an understanding of their projects.

URL: http://www.aecbytes.com/feature/2012/HOK_BIM_Awards.html