AECbytes Blog

In the recent wake of Autodesk’s acquisition of Ecotect and Green Building Studio, and events such as the cooperative agreement announced between Autodesk and Bentley Systems, this article takes a look at how interoperability relates to green building design, and how innovation in the way we communicate as building design professionals will help us all design more sustainable buildings.

URL: http://www.aecbytes.com/feature/2008/Interoperability_SustainableDesign.html

This review explores the many impressive capabilities of the new version of Acrobat that are relevant to AEC, including the ability to combine multiple file formats in a single PDF portfolio, enhanced review capabilities with the ability to synchronize document views, ability to embed and play video within PDF, improvements in batch processing of AutoCAD files, and IFC import capabilities that provide support for BIM workflows.

URL: http://www.aecbytes.com/review/2008/Acrobat9ProExtended.html

In this Viewpoint article, Stewart Carroll, Chief Operating Officer of Beck Technology, follows up on John Tobin’s Proto-Building article and suggests that the issue is less about technology and more about acceptance. BIM 2.0 that allows virtual full-team digital participation is already here, but the building industry has shown great reluctance to enter into a true collaborative era — the “ours” zone.

URL: http://www.aecbytes.com/viewpoint/2008/issue_40.html

This review takes a detailed look at the capabilities of DProfiler, a new “macro” BIM software targeted towards the planning and conceptual design phase to get an accurate cost estimate of a proposed design, and explores how it compares with more common BIM applications such as Revit, Bentley, and ArchiCAD.

URL: http://www.aecbytes.com/review/2008/DProfiler.html

This article provides an analysis of the new interoperability agreement just announced between Autodesk and Bentley, including both the overt and possible underlying motivations that may have led to it, in the context of their past relationship characterized by many disagreements and criticisms.

URL: http://www.aecbytes.com/buildingthefuture/2008/
AutodeskBentleyAgreement.html

This article captures the highlights of Bentley’s 2008 user conference from the AEC industry perspective, including some previews of the next release of Bentley solutions, sessions on BIM implementation, integrated design and engineering, BIM in construction, sustainable design, interoperability, and next generation facilities management, and the products on display at the Exhibit Hall.

URL: http://www.aecbytes.com/newsletter/2008/issue_36.html

In this article, Scott Boutwell, a management consultant, talks about cleantech, green technologies, and sustainability and draws parallels between these market trends and the adoption of BIM (building information modeling) in the AEC/O industry.

URL: http://www.aecbytes.com/viewpoint/2008/issue_39.html

This article captures the highlights of the AIA TAP 2008 conference that was held as a pre-convention workshop to the AIA National Convention and Expo last month. It covers sessions related to the new concept of building information networks, BIM and sustainable design, guidelines for energy modeling from an environmental design firm, and a look at how one firm has formalized its use of BIM into a business strategy by drawing up a BIM map.

URL: http://www.aecbytes.com/newsletter/2008/issue_35.html

In this guest feature, Sohail Razvi, an analyst in Computer Aided Facilities Management (CAFM), first describes the “Capability Maturity Model Integration” (CMMI), a process improvement model for the development of products and services developed by the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University over many years. He then proposes developing a “Building Information Capability Maturity Model” based on the CMMI that can benefit the AEC/FM industry as it undergoes its current BIM-driven transformations. This will bring the AEC/FM industry in alignment with the constellation of industries that have already benefited from process improvement approaches.

URL: http://www.aecbytes.com/feature/2008/BIM-CMMI.html

In this article, John Tobin, an architect and Principal at EYP Architecture & Engineering who spearheads the BIM implementation for EYP’s five A/E offices, suggests that even though many designers continue to use BIM to produce drawings, we would be better served by looking beyond using BIM merely as a more powerful representation tool, and instead to treat the models we create as “proto-buildings,” as in the word “prototype.” He also presents the current state and the likely future trajectory of BIM by looking at it as three different generations, which he calls BIM 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0.

URL: http://www.aecbytes.com/buildingthefuture/2008/ProtoBuilding.html