Autodesk University 2003: BIM and DWF

In This Issue:

• A Clearer Articulation of Autodesk's BIM Strategy
• The DWFit Campaign

December is Autodesk University month, and while this event may be an annual ritual for many CAD professionals using Autodesk products, 2003 marked my first visit to Autodesk University. Held in Las Vegas from Dec 2-5, this year's event drew a crowd of 3,300. Autodesk used the show to make several product announcements related to AutoCAD as well as its discipline-specific solutions in the building, manufacturing, and infrastructure industries. The specifics of the next release of AutoCAD were only revealed to the press and are currently under non-disclosure; I will devote a newsletter to discussing them once the embargo is lifted in mid-February. In general, though, the AutoCAD team seemed to be all vigor and fervor, reveling in the success of AutoCAD 2004, which they described as a "home run" for Autodesk. (See my review of AutoCAD 2004 in the June 2003 issue of Cadence magazine.)

In this first part of my write-up on Autodesk University 2003, I will discuss Autodesk's announcements that are relevant to the AEC industry. Autodesk used the show to elaborate on its building information modeling (BIM) strategy and reaffirm its commitment to developing and supporting all three of its products used in building design: AutoCAD, Autodesk Architectural Desktop (ADT), and Autodesk Revit. Autodesk University also marks the launch of Autodesk's DWFit campaign, which positions DWF as a strong competitor to Adobe's PDF for electronic distribution and viewing of drawing files.

In the next issue, I will describe some of the products on display in the Exhibit Hall at Autodesk University.

A Clearer Articulation of Autodesk's BIM Strategy

Recall that in Issue #107 of my Cadence AEC Tech News on Autodesk Architectural Desktop, I described how Autodesk had backtracked from its initial "Revit is the future" stance and was positioning ADT as an evolutionary solution for "building information modeling on the AutoCAD platform." This is in line with Autodesk's most recent presentation of its BIM strategy, which it shared at Autodesk University 2003, and which is also captured in a recently released white paper. Autodesk is defining building information modeling as a specific approach to building design, delivery (construction), and management rather than a technology per se, and thereby proposing that BIM can be implemented to varying degrees and with different levels of effort using various technologies. The parametric building modeling technology of Revit, which uses a parametric change engine to integrate views, annotations, and components, offers the highest level of BIM benefits with the least effort. One step lower is the object-based CAD technology of ADT, which can also deliver BIM process benefits, but with more effort. And finally, there is the CAD technology of AutoCAD, which, with enough discipline and some programming effort, can also be used to deliver some of the benefits of BIM.

In terms of usage, there is no effective way to use Revit in a way other than as a building information modeler, and Autodesk is targeting it for those building industry professionals who are ready for a new way of working and the correspondingly high level of BIM benefits that go with it. ADT is being targeted for those who want a discipline-specific productivity tool for AutoCAD supporting a CAD-based workflow, with the potential of using it in advanced ways for BIM. As for AutoCAD, it continues to support the development of third-party scheduling, facility management, cost estimating, structural design, and similar applications that Autodesk sees as examples of BIM applied to specific slices of the building industry.

In short, Autodesk is continuing to develop and support all three products. Version 6.0 of Revit has just been released online (watch out for an upcoming review of it on AECbytes), and new releases of AutoCAD and ADT are also being rolled out soon. At the same time, Autodesk's push of the use of Revit just got stronger with the announcement of the AutoCAD Revit Series, a single product combining Autodesk Revit 5.1 and AutoCAD 2004 that is intended to make the transition to BIM easier and less expensive.

For those still debating between ADT and Revit, do these announcements help, or is the confusion only being aggravated? What is the long-term future of ADT? Will the AutoCAD Revit Series be more than just two different applications bundled together? Can AutoCAD and Revit communicate more intelligently and translate data more seamlessly with each other? Many such questions still remain. Perhaps Autodesk University 2004 will provide some answers.

The DWFit Campaign

Autodesk University also marked the launch of an aggressive DWFit campaign by Autodesk to push DWF as the industry standard for electronic distribution, viewing, and markup of drawing files. Although DWF has been around for several years now, it is only now that Autodesk is repackaging it to position it as a serious competitor to Adobe's PDF. Last year at Autodesk University, Autodesk launched a multi-sheet DWF format (DWF 6) accompanied by the free Autodesk Express Viewer application for viewing and printing drawing files. Now it is set to soon release a complementary application for recomposing, marking up, and querying DWF files. A preview of this application, called DWF Composer, was shown at Autodesk University.

With the recent announcement of the partnership between Bentley and Adobe to promote PDF, a new race between PDF and DWF in the AEC industry is opening up. PDF has the advantage of being literally omnipresent in the computing world today, and has become the industry standard for distributing and viewing any kind of electronic documentation. In contrast, DWF has been specifically developed for design information, and can encapsulate data about the drawing or design that can be extracted when needed, an ability that PDF doesn't yet have. But to view DWF, a separate application or a plug-in to a Web browser has to be installed, which may put it beyond the reach of many of the parties who need to view the drawing files, even though it is free. From an authoring standpoint, creating DWF comes free with Autodesk products, being either built in or requiring the free DWF Writer. Since PDF is an open format, several free programs are available to create PDF files from any application. To specifically create Adobe PDF, however, Adobe Acrobat Professional has to be purchased.

Currently, DWF is still a 2D file format. What will be interesting to see is how DWF eventually captures 3D information when exported from applications such as Revit and ADT. Autodesk sees DWF is an integral part of its Building Lifecycle Management (BLM) strategy, of which BIM is the front (design) end. If DWF can effectively encapsulate 3D BIM information, BLM applications for building occupancy, maintenance, and facilities management can be built around the DWF file format rather than integrating them with individual building modeling applications like Revit and ADT.

I will devote a future article to a more detailed discussion of PDF versus DWF.

The next issue of the AECbytes newsletter, scheduled for the first week of January, will feature some of the products I saw in the Exhibit Hall at Autodesk University. Look out also for the inaugural Viewpoint article by Dominic Gallello, CEO of Graphisoft. Till then, wishing you a festive holiday season and a Happy New Year!

About the Author

Lachmi Khemlani is founder and editor of AECbytes. She has a Ph.D. in Architecture from UC Berkeley, specializing in intelligent building modeling, and consults and writes on AEC technology. She can be reached at lachmi@aecbytes.com.

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