Forget fashion week. Been there, done that. Artist and designer Kate Reed has bigger aspirations. The 24-year-old Bostonian wants to empower communities and heal the planet through her 3D-printed designs inspired by and integrated with nature.

Reed, who grew up in Dover, Mass., has been turning heads with her high-fashion wearable technology and outlandish designs featured on the runways of New York Fashion Week, in WIRED Magazine and at The White House. Reed made her first wearable at age 13 and has been immersed in design technology since high school, attending the fully studio-based NuVu school, in Cambridge, Mass. that focuses on hands-on learning and problem solving. Reed went on to earn two undergraduate degrees, one in Social Innovation & Entrepreneurship from Brown University and the other in Industrial Design & Computational Technology from The Rhode Island School of Design.

Today she is an Artist in Residence at Dassault Systèmes’ Waltham, Mass. Lab, where she is using cutting-edge solutions in the 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS for Makers offer.

We caught up with the multi-talented Reed to learn more about her designs and her go-to tools that enable her to not only dream up, but also to deliver her creations.

Growing up, Reed said she always knew she would end up in the arts. Cleary, she is much more than an artist.

“I think of myself as an artist and designer, but I think of myself much more as a scientist. I think that was kind of the surprise to how it all ended up shaking down,” said Reed.

“Ever since that early exposure of working with technology and coding and robots and all that stuff, as soon as I made a robot, the first thing I wanted to do was to make a robot on my body and bring technology closer and closer to our bodies.”

“So, the question I’m striving to answer is, how do we interface man and machine in a way that feels natural to our bodies?”

Reed has made hundreds of wearables, many of which have led to unexpected turns and Aha! moments.

This past year while in the Fab Academy program at the Dassault Systèmes lab, she had one of those moments. Reed explained, “A shift happened in that program, where for a while I was thinking about how do we merge man and machine in a way that feels natural? Why not copy nature? If we want it to feel natural, why don’t we copy it? So, I focused on biomimicry. Once I got exposed to the lab and all the amazing tools at Dassault Systèmes, I shifted. If we want technology that feels natural, why don’t we grow the technology ourselves? And why don’t we let nature grow that technology? Why are we trying to copy nature when nature can just do it herself? That kind of started me down this whole other path of interspecies collaborations.”

Wrapping Your Head Around Kate Reed

To help wrap our heads around Reed’s work, it helps to look at her projects.

One of her design explorations can be seen in her Beyond Biomimicry project based on the idea that nature takes over the role of the designer.

Sea Sprouts is one of the designs in this collection and features a living system that grows off the human body. “Sea Sprouts is basically grown using a barnacle growth algorithm. The algorithms grow in a computational space, are printed out and then paired with living collaborators,” explained Reed.

She used xShape for half of the form and plugged it into xGenerative* to perform the computational part. “It was printed, but that was only half the job. It still had to be adorned with mycelium which started sprouting living mushrooms. Instead of fast fashion, we had incredibly slow fashion.”

Kate Reed modeling her Sea Sprouts design. “Beyond Biomimicry is a call to decenter the human in the design process by allowing nature to act as a designer herself in hopes of creating a more sustainable, equitable future in our increasingly technology driven world,” says Reed. “This collection creates wearables using parametric design to emulate natural growth patterns that are then simulated, captured and 3D printed in physical space.”

Another example of Reed’s work are her biomimetic wearable computers that use biomimicry to create wearables that mimic natural surroundings physically and functionally. Watch her trippy video of Pollution Cloud to get a feel for what she’s doing.

Wearable pollution cloud augments the human experience by visualizing toxic pollution levels around the wearer in real time. Wearable pollution cloud is made from bronze and fiber optic cable. LED lights are embedded within the fiber optics attached to a pollution sensor run by a microcontroller. (Image and caption courtesy of Kate Reed.)

Shaping Up Her Designs and the Software

Reed is all about the “x” apps from Dassault Systèmes, including xShape, xGenerative Design* and xStudio*. In short, she said she was amazed by their ease of use, capabilities and ability to move fluidly between the software.

“I really fell in love with xShape,” said Reed. “It really allows you to sculpt exactly how you would sculpt in real life. It’s super intuitive and super easy to use.”

“I found myself kind of purposely sculpting and creating these habitats to 3D print and have living things adorn and grow into. And I guess my process that happened is that often I would sculpt the base form and a lot of times I would then bring that into xGenerative to apply algorithms to it and apply some textures to it and it was really exciting,” she adds.

“The most amazing thing about the x apps is that it’s so easy to move between the software. It’s really difficult to have these complex models happening loosely, but what was so amazing about the x apps is that you can go between the [different] apps with the same model and the same system and everything is compatible, which is pretty unheard of.”

Creating an Experience

Reed’s designs are anything but static, as she aims to create an experience. It is fitting that she uses Dassault Systèmes apps, as they share a similar vision of equipping their customers with solutions to do just that.

Reed’s Bugeyed wearable headset below was designed in xShape and made in the 3DEXPERIENCE lab. It features six LCD displays showing surveillance information about the wearer.

This wearable is not for the wearer, but for the viewer, as they can only look at the surveillance data of the person they are facing and cannot look them in the eyes. “This wearable references the cells of fly eyes. It plays off the stereotypical kaleidoscope effect in movies from bugs’ perspectives, overwhelming the wearer and viewer with all the surveillance information,” says Reed. (Image and caption courtesy of Kate Reed.)

Creating Aha! Moments and Empowering Communities

Part of Reed’s mission is empowering communities through her work.

“I’ve always been really interested in empowering communities through design, and my goal is to heal communities and replenish the sense of community—when technology has driven us apart, Reed says.

“If you put technology in a place where people don’t expect it, it feels like magic. What I do with the community work is create these magical moments where it’s like, ‘Oh, my goodness, what’s going on? What’s happening? How is this thing moving? How are these lights changing?’ That happens in these moments of magic and moments where adults experience wonder and kind of Aha! moments. We revert to that little kid inside of us and we turn to the person next to us and are like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is so cool.’”

“We create magic for communities. Then we allow the communities to hold on to that magic even when I’m not there.”

“The other side of community projects is how we empower communities through open-source projects and open-source designs through an engineering approach,” she adds.

Reed said one such example is in her Invisible Campaign where she puts sculptures in communities that ask the question, what makes you feel invisible? And participants can answer and put in a note. “So instantly you’re having these conversations about what our community is struggling with,” explained Reed. “It’s just these little simple, simple acts of curating experiences that really allow conversations to happen is what I’ve seen with that.”

Cracking the Code Through Community

Reed is big on community. She raves about the benefits of the 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS for Makers offer and having access to the Made in 3D community where she can share and collaborate on ideas and designs and network with people from all over the world. Her support from Dassault Systèmes comes from the highest level, with Bernard Charlès, president and CEO, commenting “Let’s make sure Kate’s dream can be fulfilled with xGen.”

“That was one of the best parts,” said Reed. “All of a sudden I had access just by posting in the community to some of the most amazing experts in the world. Those who make the software are actually looking and listening. And it was amazing. I would just post these ideas that I was close to figuring out, but I hadn’t yet cracked the code. Suddenly, I had these amazing mentors who were like, ‘Oh, here’s how you do it.’ I think that’s definitely an amazing perk of the community.”

“They have an amazing community of makers and mentors from all over the world who are just so wonderful, willing, active and really excited and interested in helping. That makes it a lot more fun. It’s not like you buy the software and you’re on your own. You get this wonderful community with it.”

Moving Forward

Looking ahead, Reed plans to continue intersecting biology and technology to make better designs and processes that are environmentally friendly.

She is currently working on making her own 3D printer filaments that are actively alive or impregnated with living plants and living systems. “I’m 3D printing slime mold, which has given me a lot of hope for the future. Imagine 3D printing a mailbox or something that was actually impregnated with living things and would really become one with the forest. I’m working on a future that changes not only the processes but also the material.”

“I’m pushing to get to not only living materials and living designs and systems, but also carbon negative, if not carbon neutral. Once we start to design with nature and design with living systems, we’re not only doing no harm, we’re starting to heal the planet. I see it in the very near future.”

Ready to Let Your Imagination Run Wild and Make a Difference? Join the Community

You too can take advantage of the experience and the offer. The 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS for Makers offer is available for a great deal of $99 per year or $9.99 per month, with one caveat: you can’t earn more than $2,000 income per year from projects designed in the software.

The offer includes 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS Professional, and access to browser-based tools including 3D Creator and 3D Sculptor.

Visit https://discover.solidworks.com/makers for more details.

To learn more about Reed’s work visit https://www.biomimetic.io/.

*xGenerative and xStudio are not yet available for Makers.

The post In Kate Reed’s Wildest Dreams appeared first on Engineering.com.

Rendering of the Sunshine Coast City Hall in Queensland, Australia. (Picture courtesy of Cottee Parker.)

Cottee Parker Architects doesn’t just design buildings, they design districts. The company is currently a leading firm in one of the world’s largest construction projects, Queen’s Wharf Brisbane in Queensland, Australia.

Around since 1989, the firm specializes in architecture, interiors and master planning with offices in Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Perth and recently the Gold Coast. The firm is an avid user of BIM [building information modeling] solutions. These include Archicad, dRofus, Solibri Office and Bluebeam Revu, all representing the portfolio of one of the global construction software leaders, the Nemetschek Group.  

Cottee Parker uses a data-driven approach, where they rely on information to drive the design process and ensure all stakeholders can easily access the data in one central location when they need it, and in the format they need it. This falls in line with Nemetschek’s vision that BIM is all about the information—or, at least, that is what it should be.

Nemetschek believes the “I” in BIM—information—is the most important aspect of a project, which goes hand in hand with a concept they are calling Building Lifecycle Intelligence, where the building data follows a data scheme that can be utilized across different software applications and non-graphical data drives the entire value chain.

“Building Information Modeling, as the name implies, should be all about information. But the reality looks quite different—most BIM processes are centered around model-based workflows,” said Viktor Várkonyi, Chief Division Officer, Planning & Design Division and member of the Executive Board of the Nemetschek Group.

A model-based approach implies that models are designed based on certain requirements, then data is generated and validated. Model handovers, however, often generate data loss and lead to errors. “Especially for large and complex projects, this approach is far from being efficient. But if we instead focus on the data itself and organize this data at a central point for all stakeholders to access, a smooth process can be guaranteed,” Várkonyi added.

A good example of a data driven approach that combines BIM and Building Lifecycle Intelligence, according to Várkonyi, is the Queen’s Wharf project. More on that later in this article.

We spoke with Cottee Parker to learn more about their BIM approach and lessons learned, and how Nemetschek helps them solve their design challenges.

Cottee Parker often finds themselves in a dual role as lead architects and BIM managers. We chatted with Quinton Cooper, Associate, BIM and digital engineering manager at Cottee Parker Architects about how they manage both these roles.

Quinton Cooper, Associate, BIM and Digital Engineering Manager at Cottee Parker Architects.

Cooper has been with the firm for almost five years and is a highly ranked presenter at national and international technology conferences. He has provided training to hundreds of design professionals for more than a decade. He has been using ArchiCAD software for close to 15 years, and worked for Graphisoft Australia as a training and support consultant.

At Cottee Parker, Cooper is responsible for the development and support of BIM and digital engineering systems where he leads his team of seven and weighs in on all projects across its five offices. Right now, he is mainly focusing on the Queen’s Wharf and Sunshine Coast City Hall projects, which we will discuss in detail.

“We are very fortunate to have senior technical leaders in each office that provide valuable support, as the volume of what we are dealing with is certainly too much for a single person to deal with effectively,” said Cooper. “I believe we have one of the best technical teams in the world. I’m also directly involved in the Queen’s Wharf Project, the clash detection and model auditing for Sunshine Coast City Hall and a number of other projects where Cottee Parker is engaged directly by the client as the BIM Lead.”

The firm engages in a lot of in-house programming and customization of the software they use, so flexibility is important to them when choosing software solutions.

“I think this flexibility is why we have gone with the Nemetschek products,” said Cooper. “Solibri, which we use for the clash reviews, allows us to write a lot of rules. We use the Solibri rule sets, but we customize them to suit the project.”

“A lot of the other architecture tools don’t really have that capacity. That’s why we have gone down that path. The same thing applies to Archicad as the authoring tool,” he added.

Solibri clash detection and model auditing conducted on various projects by Cottee Parker. (Image courtesy of Cottee Parker.)

Cooper’s team is self-taught in the area of programming. Archicad enables them to do a lot of programming natively, which saves them from hiring a programmer or developer.

“The programming language within the software is quite easy to use, and the customization is important to us,” he said. “We like software that allows us to configure it to work with each project in the optimum manner.”

Another challenge that Nemetschek products help Cottee Parker with is making sure the right project stakeholder gets the right information at the right time.

While he is heavily involved in the Queen’s Wharf project, which will be in construction beyond 2024, the Sunshine Coast City Hall project is also a key focus, as it is currently moving into construction.

Nemetschek software was also used on the Sunshine Coast project. This project is very near and dear to Cooper. It is about an hour from the house where he grew up—and is home to some of the world’s finest beaches, he said.

Positioned within Maroochydore’s new Central Business District, Sunshine Coast City Hall is over 10 stories tall. The project takes a different approach to a government building with a vision to create a building that represents the region and its climate, building on beauty and civic significance. By the looks of it in the picture, it certainly captures that and definitely has more of a campus or apartment building feel than a traditional government office.

Building Australia’s $3.6 billion megaproject with Nemetschek Group.

The Sunshine Coast project has about 10 different firms working on it, and so Cooper’s focus is on reviewing the work of the different disciplines. This is where clash detection, model data and services coordination play a key role.  

“It’s a very densely populated building in terms of the services that we have to get up from the basement all the way through the tower. There are a lot of tight areas that take carefully orchestrated coordination to align everything,” said Cooper.

But then also because it is a government project and they are handing the model over to a client at the end of the day, there is a data requirement. They have to stage the delivery carefully so that they are focused on the right part of it at the right time, all while making sure that people are on track for data delivery as well.

The Sunshine Coast project is a good example of the importance of the “I” in BIM as it is a complete BIM model. Everything has been modeled for all disciplines, even down to the landscape. Cooper said not only is the geometry important, but the information in the BIM model is also key, “because without the information the clash detection tools can’t really assess the validity of the clash. If you put a heap of geometry through a clash detection review, you often get 1,000 items coming out of the report. There are some things that are expected to clash. We needed to write additional rules to allow clashes in certain circumstances. There’s a lot more involved in it than simply just geometry intersecting. The classification of the item and the information about it really helps us write those rules.”

Though he comes from an architectural background, Cooper said he has always been more interested in the master planning aspect.

“When I was younger, I enjoyed design and documentation work on hospitals and prisons and other institutional projects that were very prescriptive in their outcomes, and which had a very clearly defined brief,” he explained. “I liked the idea of understanding what the rules were and what we could do with those rules. Now that we are working more in hospitality, casinos and other projects that are less institutional, we in the technical team still tend to apply the same logic. We look for what the rules are. We look for what the software can do and what a human can do, and we try to marry that together. The programming comes from necessity.”

Regardless of scale, Cottee Parker applies the same design and information management principles across all projects with a scalable approach to suit the application. The Queen’s Wharf project spans about six city blocks and will feature five new hotels including Ritz-Carlton, 50 restaurants and bars, a riverfront cinema, 12 football fields of public space and nine heritage buildings open to the public, some of which will be restored.

The project began in 2016, demolition of previous structures was done in 2017 and development will continue into 2024 when two more towers will be added.

Destination Brisbane Consortium is in charge of the $3.6 billion Queen’s Wharf development. When completed, the site is expected to draw in close to 1.4 million tourists and provide 8,000+ jobs. It is the largest construction project in Queensland. At peak construction, it will employ nearly 2,000 people.

To begin the Queen’s Wharf, renovation engineers undertook the largest demolition and construction scheme ever attempted in central Brisbane. Almost half a million cubic material was removed, the most ever recorded for an inner-city project in Queensland. Much of the material removed is being reused by the Brisbane airport for reclamation work and to help build what will be Australia’s first automotive precinct.

As you can imagine, building a new district of this scale alongside a river while preserving the historic buildings in a city center can be extremely challenging.  

Cottee Parker embraced a digital collaboration to plan and coordinated the vast amounts of design data working in an information modeling environment and employed 16 different software tools across 39 contributing companies from architects and engineers to contractors and suppliers.

Of the 16 solutions being used on the project, Cottee Parker is using four of Nemetschek’s brands for planning to operation. They use Archicad for the design, dRofus for data management, Solibri Office for model checking and Bluebeam Revu for the comprehensive digital documentation.

Information modeling allows the Cottee Parker team to organize all of the project’s key information in an easy to access central place where the 3D models, data and specifications can be kept and coordinated by the team in real time.

The information modeling approach not only increases efficiency and understanding of the project, but also cuts waste.

Archicad has been used for the design stage where integrated design has been implemented so that architects and engineers are able to review and check the same models in real time to gain an understanding of each other’s intentions and detect errors before they occur on site. Archicad’s openBIM compatibility enables models not designed in Archicad to be brought in and coordinated in Archicad as well.

Plus, Nemetschek software helps Cottee Parker get the most out of each step of the way, without disturbing the workflow, which is important to help team members stay focused. For example, Solibri was used to check design information for errors before it was issued to the contractors on site.

Aside from ensuring information is correct, finding and getting access to what users need on a project of this size can be challenging, especially on site. Making sure everyone can easily access and open what they need is crucial.

With Bluebeam Revu, Cottee Parker has saved the team from having to navigate through thousands of physical documents by enabling a digital, paperless workflow. This has cut the time spent reviewing drawings by a staggering 50 percent, while decisions involving multiple stake holders have been made more quickly as even newcomers to the software can pick it up easily.

A paperless workflow is certainly a priority at Cottee Parker and Bluebeam has helped with that. Cooper said that although they have used Bluebeam loosely in the past, Queen’s Wharf required a very structured approach since they had to coordinate a fairly large team.

When Bluebeam was brought into the practice, it was easy to pick up, and so a lot of teams started using it. They used it to manage the workflow for the teams. They’d have senior team leaders marking up documentation and assigning tasks for the day or week.

“We got to the point where we were not printing out drawings anymore, even on the billing side. On site, nearly everything is on an iPad,” said Cooper. “People aren’t printing on paper.”

“It changed the way we document,” Cooper added. “Traditionally, when working on a building design you would have the building on the center of the page in front and all the dimensions around the edge of the page. Whereas now, people have the information live on an iPad where it’s updating frequently.”

“The use of devices onsite gives the end user the ability to interrogate the information in more detail, which has had unexpected impacts on industry standards even down to the positioning of annotation. We introduced coding and annotation standards that reflect this use as a result of the feedback coming from the construction site. For me, this is part of the fun. It’s constantly evolving. You get those loops of feedback and responding to them really forces innovation,” Cooper added.

A megaproject such as Queen’s Wharf can involve 10,000 times more documents than would normally be used on a domestic building. Digital engineering specialist, DBM Vircon, is also using Nemetschek products on Queen’s Wharf, and has over 340 models under management and is processing 215 individual models each week.

dRofus was used to help Cottee Parker process their data, helping to consolidate the huge amounts of information coming in from multiple sources, keeping it in one place and allowing users to easily access and edit it when needed.

dRofus was new to Cottee Parker, introduced midway through the project. Ideally, dRofus would be used at the beginning as a briefing tool for the client. Cooper said this proved to them it could be brought on to a job at any stage. At Cottee Parker, it was used less as a briefing tool and more as a data capture tool for this project because they had developed systems within ArchiCAD that structured the data in such a way that it would feed into almost any other software. Overall dRofus was reasonably straightforward for them to implement and usable in getting the information they needed for the client.

At this point the Cottee Parker team is motoring toward their goal of completing the core elements in 2022 and renovating the sites history in 2024. While information modeling is essential in the design and construction phases, Nemetschek believes it will play an even greater role once Queen’s Wharf is completed, helping to manage and maintain the new district enabled by the technology.

The software tools Cottee Parker uses must have the ability to be customized or Cooper’s team has little interest in them. They have had a long-standing relationship with a lot of the Nemetschek brands where they have been fortunate in many cases where the Nemetschek team will come to Cottee Parker to get their input on the development of their software.

“If a software developer develops something for us, it’s done in a way that it benefits everyone in the industry. From there, we can take the solution and expand and expand on it with our own customization,” said Cooper.

“There’s only so much you can expect from each product. Part of taking a lead role in BIM is accepting that there has to be some sort of customization that is bespoke for your practice.”

To learn more, visit Cottee Parker and Queen’s Wharf Brisbane.

The post Cottee Parker and Nemetschek Group: Together for a Custom Approach appeared first on Engineering.com.

3DxSUITE integrates Elysium’s ASFALIS, CADdoctor, DirectTranslator, 3DEXPERIENCE
DirectTranslator and CATIA V5 – JT DirectTranslator, which have been consolidated to comprise the platform.

The all-in-one platform is equipped with all the essentials to meet design and engineering firms’ model-based definition (MBD) and model-based engineering (MBE) needs with tools for data translation, healing and validation, reverse engineering and more—in addition to packaging 3D data for supply chain distribution.

Elysium is headquartered in Japan, with offices also in the U.S. and Europe. It specializes in interoperability software and has been crafting data translation solutions for more than three decades.

We recently spoke with Kentaro Fukuta, general manager of Global Business at Elysium, and Annalise Suzuki, vice president of Technology & Engagement at Elysium, in a Microsoft Teams meeting.

Fukuta woke up in the wee hours of the morning to take our call—bless his heart. He has a masters in aerospace engineering and has been with Elysium for almost 20 years.

Kentaro Fukuta, general manager of Global Business at Elysium.

Based in Michigan, Suzuki has been with Elysium 10 years—and it showed. She displayed an impressive knowledge of 3DxSUITE and the industry and led the conversation. She has a bachelor’s degree in Japanese and international business.

Annalise Suzuki, vice president of Technology & Engagement at Elysium.

We asked what prompted Elysium to develop this platform.

Their customers—the request came directly from customers, according to Fukuta. Customers were the biggest motivator for the company to combine its solutions.

“That’s the one really big motivation for us that [it] will definitely benefit the customer because now all the functionality is available in one single platform, so customers have the freedom to pick the required or necessary functionality to build their solutions which best fit their purpose.”

Suzuki weighed in, “Our roadmap tends to be very customer driven. So, this evolution of what we support and launching 3DxSUITE in the first place is highly related to the direction of our customers and we’re very receptive to that.”

Adding to that, Suzuki said that 3DxSUITE is ideal for those who focus on model-based initiatives—commonly used in aerospace and defense and automotive design—and also an area of growth in high-tech industries. 3DxSUITE provides a single architecture for model-based workflows, enabling users to easily perform quality checks, data translation and validation, as well as other required processing steps.

Here are some notable features of 3DxSuite.

PDQ (Product Data Quality) Check

Quality checking is huge in model-based workflows as it is used to ensure that a design will pass customer quality checks and help avoid rework.

The PDQ Check verification functionality in 3DxSuite identifies defects in geometry and topology so that users can ensure the data is reliable and can be shared and manufactured.

The criteria for PDQ verification can be customized to meet a company’s specific requirements, and Elysium supports the customer-specific quality rule between the supplier and customer as well as multiple industry standards, such as QIF, 3D PDF, STEP.

Translation

Translation is key when working in a multi-CAD environment, and 3DxSUITE supports more than 100 formats, including 3DEXPERIENCE, CATIAV5, NX, Creo Parametric, SOLIDWORKS, Autodesk Inventor, STEP, and JT.

Elysium prides itself on providing accurate geometry and says that users can expect a high-quality translation with original computer-aided design (CAD) colors, 3D annotations and attributes.

Validation

3DxSUITE is also highly configurable. You can get a side-by-side comparison to review two CAD models and easily isolate their differences. Validation looks at system attributes, user attributes, notes, datums, datum targets, Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T), saved views, dimensions, face attributes, and face geometry.

Validation reporting types include 3D PDF and HTML for 3D viewing and XML for automated integration such as product lifecycle management (PLM) integration.

You can also compare a 3D PDF report to the CAD model and select the criteria you’d like to see. For instance, you can select the options you want to detect, such as geometry, PMI difference or positional change and topology differences, and get quick results.

Beyond that, 3DxSUITE has reverse engineering tools, simplification and more.

Sharing and Simplification

You can protect your data with the simplification functionality as well as remove features and nonvisible parts to ensure that only necessary information is shared. Whether you are sharing data with a customer or supplier, there are options to protect data such as removing internal components, extracting surfaces and manipulating the location where data is stored.

If computer-aided engineering (CAE) is your cup of tea, you can simplify models for finite element analysis (FEA) and injection molding analysis.

3DxSUITE’s Data Package Studio is directly integrated with Adobe Acrobat Pro DC and enables users to share and collaborate with 3D PDF templates so that they can customize to ensure they are sending the right information.

Aside from being customizable and flexible, one of the biggest advantages of 3DxSUITE, according to Suzuki, is that it reduces manual rework and inaccuracies. “The quality of sharing data is one of the biggest challenges we overcome because our quality for interoperability is really high,” she said. We’re providing a trustworthy process that’s reliable and highly accurate.… It’s dependable. So, in every scenario, customers can convert it and rely on it … because they have the certification, either from a quality report or validation report, that is trustworthy and credible.”

She said that although data translation has come a long way, there are still a lot of use cases for having to validate data to ensure that nothing is lost in translation, such as converting a model from native CAD to STEP or JT, or after preparing a model for downstream use. 3DxSUITE performs a thorough check on the geometry, PMI, attributes, model views, and so on.

“Companies spend a lot of time converting data or manually redoing things or manually preparing data for someone else to consume in either a different software or program and there is often a lot of manual work involved to get it to what they need or to fix problems,” explained Suzuki. “We overcome those challenges of manual rework and inaccuracies and things like that.”

3DxSUITE also comes in handy for engineering changes, taking the guesswork out of what may have changed as it automatically detects the changes and communicates them in the results.

Fukuta remarked that another key benefit of 3DxSUITE is automation, adding that customers can automate their interoperability process or data exchange between suppliers. For example, you have an entire vehicle assembly that you need to quickly convert to a large model so that users can schedule conversions overnight and you need to spread the task over the bandwidth of their system. Fukuta noted that setting parameters and setting permissions can be automated as well.

He stressed that interoperability is the core concept of 3DxSUITE and that companies can integrate their CAD or PLM systems with 3DxSUITE as Elysium is partners with many of the CAD and PLM developers, such as Autodesk, Dassault Systèmes, PTC, Siemens and Aras Corporation.

To put the new platform in perspective for Elysium’s existing customers, 3DxSUITE is essentially the next generation of ASFALIS, explained Suzuki. “And because it merges Elysium’s products together under one umbrella, it makes the implementation a lot easier and more streamlined for the customer,” she continued. “Because now, if they want to read in CATIA to do validation, for example, and to do some simplification, they don’t have to buy two products and upgrade to different products on different timelines. They can actually work within one platform. I think that makes things easier, but it’s not a complete overhaul and they don’t have to start over or anything like that.”

So current customers will not be losing any functionality by transitioning to 3DxSUITE—rather, they will gain more functionality with the new platform.

It should also be noted that the ASFALIS and DirectTranslator products will be replaced by 3DxSUITE, but CADdoctor will still be available as a bundle, which is essentially a collection of various 3DxSUITE modules.

This all-in-one approach is also what makes Elysium stand out from competitors like ITI [International TechneGroup], Core Technologies, Theorem Solutions, for example. Suzuki said that back in the day a big focus for Elysium and its competitors was data conversion, but that as the technology has evolved, competitors have all set out to solve different problems.

“We don’t really have a competitor that covers the same portfolio that we do,” she explained. We have a competitor that might also do data translation; there might be a competitor that also does validation. There might be another one that does data packages, or perhaps someone might look at the CAD vendor for quality checking.”

As for implementation options, there are many, whether you want to use 3DXSuite via a desktop on a local workstation or you need a web-based setup for remote work. Fukuta listed options that vary for companies of all sizes and noted that pricing depends on a company’s needs.

“From desktop to enterprise, it’s scalable, so it can fit something that’s very low volume for smaller needs, as well as high demand, global enterprise-level needs,” Suzuki added.

To learn more about 3DxSUITE, visit https://www.elysium-global.com/en/product/3dxsuite/

The post Elysium Simplifies Data Interoperability with New 3DxSUITE appeared first on Engineering.com.

(Stock photo.)

There’s a reason—well, three reasons, really—that ENR Top 100 companies rely on Bentley Systems enterprise collaboration solution ProjectWise Design Integration for collaboration: secure access to data when they need it for reviewing or sharing, the ability to view multiple software formats and being able to track progress throughout a project’s lifecycle, ultimately enabling complete design integration and work-in-progress coordination for large complex projects.

Now, with the ProjectWise 365 online version, small-to-medium architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) companies can also reap the benefits of Bentley’s collaboration tools at a fraction of the cost of the enterprise version.

ProjectWise 365 is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering that enables teams to easily collaborate, conduct design reviews, track progress on engineering projects, share data internally or with others, such as owners, clients, suppliers, and stakeholders.

ProjectWise 365 services were first introduced at Bentley’s Year in Infrastructure (YII) event in 2017 as part of the ProjectWise CONNECT Edition. In 2019, it became available as a stand-alone service when Bentley announced ProjectWise 365 cloud services at the last YII event in Singapore. Bentley introduced a new portal for ProjectWise 365 in October 2020.

During the pandemic, Bentley offered free subscriptions of ProjectWise 365 to help infrastructure teams who were working remotely stay connected and remain productive.

Key Features Make the Case for ProjectWise 365

To learn about the latest iteration of the service, we spoke with Robert DeFeo, Bentley Systems’ Director of Product Strategy, Project Delivery and product manager for ProjectWise 365. DeFeo has been with Bentley Systems for 12 years and in the AEC industry for 35+ years.

DeFeo said ProjectWise 365 aims to help small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) collaborate easily through a browser so they can deliver projects faster. As he explained it, project teams can work independently on internal projects or coordinate on external projects with owners and clients. The primary benefits are design collaboration, support for multiple file formats, real-time design reviews, streamlined issues resolution and collaboration with external owners and clients.

As 3D modeling is the core of any engineering project, it is crucial that design teams have the ability to review and track the status of their models and share progress with owners and clients to get engineering projects completed on time and on budget.

With ProjectWise 365 design reviews are included in the price, unlike some of the competition, and since everyone is working in the cloud everything appears in real-time.

“The review of 3D models and the status of a model is extremely important to design quality and project productivity,” said DeFeo. “ProjectWise 365 allows not only designers, but any project team member to participate in a real-time 3D design review.”

Collaborating on a project has never been easier. With ProjectWise 365 users can initiate a design review with others to quickly identify and evaluate issues on a project. With the real-time capability all changes to a model are automatically updated and users can view comments and action items such as tasks and assignments. ProjectWise 365 is praised for its design task capabilities. ProjectWise tracks who did what and when, and saves past design reviews in case they need to be revisited.

From Hydro-Utilities Consulting Engineers (Pvt) Ltd. “We needed to ensure our engineers could quickly and easily collaborate with the larger project team, whether working on-site, from home or any other location. We believe ProjectWise 365 will enable this by providing a fully web-based solution for internal and external project stakeholders to access real-time project documents, provide feedback on designs and manage outstanding tasks, to maximize our productivity and competitive efficiencies.”—Thami Mpala, Director

ProjectWise 365 is also equipped with a number of tools for tracking issues such as those defined from a design review, deliverable package or an ad hoc issue. A central dashboard lets you visualize issues assigned to you for action.

Knowing the status a project is priceless. With ProjectWise 365, project managers can see project status and issues that still need addressing. Teams can see priority tasks that need attention and also see what others are working on – which means they don’t have to interrupt their colleagues, allowing them to stay focused on designing and being productive.

From BLA, Inc. “The present work-from-home conditions and coordination with multiple parties highlights how critical it is to our business and our role as prime consultant on projects that our project teams always stay connected and productive. ProjectWise 365 cloud services enable us to rapidly deploy a common BIM collaboration environment that avoids the data silos, coordination delays and the other limitations we’ve experienced while using network drives, file-sharing services and email.”—Gregory J. Ellwanger, P.E., Project Engineer

The ability to create deliverables and track them is another key feature and perk of the project collaboration portal. For instance, users can see if the deliverables have been acknowledged by the recipient and whether they have been addressed, whether it is a transmittal or an RFI. General correspondence is registered and captured within the project with a full audit trail of who was sent what and on what date, and you can track whether it has been addressed in a timely manner. Users can view all this information on the dashboard to see any delays, what caused the delay and who is responsible, in order to help make more informed decisions on a project and pass that information on for additional projects so it is avoided in the future.

Sharing information externally is also critical for design teams. With ProjectWise 365 users don’t have to worry about protecting intellectual property as it runs securely on Microsoft Azure cloud services.

Not only is ProjectWise 365 a secure service, but what also makes it appealing is that it aims to make file sharing simple. In that respect, there is a cloud storage area specifically for sharing. There is also a “work area connections” feature for companies using with ProjectWise Design Integration.

Companies using ProjectWise Design Integration can give team members, clients, and consultants easier access to their data and documents via ProjectWise 365. This web access is secure and can be controlled allowing accessibility to only the project information they need to collaborate effectively. 

In terms of simplicity, ProjectWise 365 also enables companies to work with different file formats.

Bentley certainly recognizes that AEC industry firms use many different file formats. When it comes to integration, in addition to sharing Bentley DGN files, ProjectWise 365 also supports AutoCAD’s DWG files and Revit files, as well as IFC and other formats. Engineers and designers can continue to work in their familiar desktop applications, while coordinating their data with the project team via the cloud. This coordination is effortless and without disruption to their workflows.

As other file types, such as Revit and IFC are popular in the AEC space, ProjectWise 365 has the capability to combine all those file types for a design review in a single iModel.

How Does ProjectWise 365 Stack Up to the Competition?

ProjectWise 365 is focused on design-work-in-progress and collaboration throughout an engineering project, where other industry project collaboration applications are geared for construction workflows.

Unlike other brands, design review and PDF markup tools are included in the cost of ProjectWise 365.

In addition to PDF markups, users have access to Microsoft 365 document editing and can collaborate on projects right from Microsoft Teams.

Get Started and Become a ProjectWise 365 Pro in Just One Day

Since ProjectWise 365 is accessed through a web portal, companies do not have to worry about expensive IT to get it up and running—users simply log-in.

As far as learning the software goes, the interface provides users with the steps necessary to set up a project. Once a project is set up, all the features on the task bar have a description and a short video. In addition, there is a resource center that offers additional resources to learn more about the available features, including more videos and an announcements section so that when a new feature is released users will be notified.

Plus, there is an “ideas” section that provides a way to submit feature requests directly to Bentley’s product management team.

To learn more about ProjectWise 365, visit the Bentley website and get a free trial.

The post Bentley ProjectWise 365 Cloud Collaboration for Small and Medium Businesses appeared first on Engineering.com.

Package delivery goes airborne. (Image courtesy of Speedbird Aero.)

It’s a bird. It’s a plane. No, it’s a drone—possibly one of Speedbird Aero’s drones en route to deliver pizza or medicine. Brazil’s Speedway Aero takes delivery methods to the sky and is changing the delivery industry with its stellar drones-as-a-service offerings.

If there was ever a time for change or the need for more options, it is right now, as we all have come to rely on deliveries for over a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Delivery is being used more than ever, and ordering is right at your fingertips using apps from Amazon Prime for just about anything, groceries from Instacart or fast food from Uber Eats now that businesses are opening up to some degree since vaccinations have been available. In Brazil, however, COVID-19 cases are still high, due in part to a low vaccination rate.

There could not be a better time to be in the delivery technology business. Speedbird Aero is downsizing traditional delivery methods by offering businesses drone services for the delivery of small orders, including food, medicine and various products for commercial, industrial and health use.

Not only is Speedbird Aero reducing congestion and emissions with their delivery approach, they are providing economic opportunities for local and regional businesses. Imagine what this could do for congested areas such as New York City or reducing congestion, pollution and getting food and medicine to hard-to-reach places.

(Image courtesy of Speedbird Aero.)

However, due to drone restrictions and aircraft regulations, operating unmanned aerial vehicles such as drones is not yet mainstream. Speedbird Aero hopes to change this, and was the first company in Latin America to gain approval for drone deliveries in Brazil in early 2020. Based in Franca, Sao Paulo, Brazil, the start-up specializes in aerial unmanned vehicles and logistics and was founded in 2018 by Samuel Salomão and Manoel Coelho.

Since then, Speedbird Aero has performed thousands of flights for its customers, such as iFood in Brazil who uses Speedbird Aero’s drone services to deliver food from restaurants and supermarkets.

Not only are they revolutionizing the delivery industry, Speedbird Aero is advancing the drone industry. These are not remote-controlled drones. Speedbird Aero’s drones are automated by software using coordinates, GPS, sensors and LiDAR. The transport is managed by Speedbird Aero’s operators who monitor the deliveries and the drones are equipped with specialized software created by Speedbird for routing, safety and automated take-off and landing. For instance, the operator gives the commands like “start mission” or “abort mission.”

Speedbird Aero currently offers three drone aircraft models to choose from: the DLV-1 model for urban logistics, typically used for light products such as food and medicine in neighborhoods; the DLV-2 for heavier loads, such as industrial items and beverage packs; and the DLV-4, which is a hybrid-electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft for long-range trips that connects cities, warehouses and hospitals.

Speedbird Aero’s innovations are impressive. Not only do they offer drones-as-a-service, but they design and build the drones in-house and develop the navigation systems to operate the drones.

Mauro Hassan Tanure, mechanical engineer, Speedbird Aero. (Image courtesy of Speedbird Aero.)

“We don’t sell drones, we offer drones as a service,” said Mauro Hassan Tanure, mechanical engineer at Speedbird Aero.

Tanure was at the hangar in Sao Paulo where they build and house the drones when we spoke to him recently. We even got a virtual Zoom tour.

Since joining the company in September of 2020 as the lead mechanical engineer for the DLV-1 program, Tanure said things have progressed quickly. For starters, the company has grown in size from five people to 30. They have also set their sights higher, as it were, increasing their monthly design and build volume with plans to produce 30 drones a year starting in 2022. Plus, they plan to expand their reach beyond Brazil and will be testing out flying drones in other countries—with the flight still monitored from Brazil.

Most employees have an aerospace background and come from Brazilian aerospace giant Embraer. This is 25-year-old Tanure’s second stint in the aircraft industry, as he has worked mainly in the automotive and transportation sectors, including a gig with Formula Tesla (UFMG) before graduation and designing drone ground-stations in a drone-infrastructure startup in Lisbon.

When Speedbird came on board, they started out using off-the-shelf drones and parts, which became challenging, as parts were getting harder to find on the supply chain. This caused delays with getting the drones built and ready for certification, which was a crucial part of operations because they needed to get authorization to fly the drones. During the COVID-19 pandemic, especially, it became harder to find components such as electronics, and some parts they had been using were no longer available.  

“The global supply chain right now is a mess,” Tanure said. “You can’t find semi-conductors and components. So, we’re trying to internalize and get everything we can here in our facility, because it gives us more flexibility, so we don’t have to wait on suppliers.”

With all those challenges, the company decided that designing and building their own drones would enable them to get their drones ready for certification at a faster pace and specially crafted for the application.

“It’s better to design our own,” Tanure said. “The hardest part is to integrate everything to make sure it’s going to be accepted and approved by the authorities.”

Drone modeled with Solid Edge (Image courtesy of Speedbird Aero.)

They began to shop for a 3D design solution that was capable of design, documentation and for preparing large assemblies—and one solution fit the bill. They came across the Solid Edge for Startups program by Siemens Digital Industries Software, which offers free Solid Edge software for startups and entrepreneurs. Through the program, qualifying companies are granted Solid Edge software for mechanical design, electrical design, simulation, manufacturing, technical publications and more.

Tanure said that being a startup, they had to be extra careful with their money and that the currency in Brazil was not very strong, so they had a limited budget.

“Solid Edge was really important for us because when I came here in September, we needed new software to design,” he said. “At the beginning we didn’t have a guy to actually design. The startup program was very important for us because our team was growing and we now had three people designing aircraft.”

Tanure is using Solid Edge 2020 Desktop, and this was his first experience using Solid Edge. He has been a mechanical designer for five years, and in the past he has mainly used SOLIDWORKS. When asked which one he liked better he replied, “Solid Edge. It’s easier to design with the synchronous mode. It’s straight forward. There are way less bugs. It became my favorite over time.”

Some of the things he likes about Solid Edge are that sketches do not have to be perfect, and that you can easily make modifications. “Assemblies are templates that I use every day,” said Tanure. “The way that you can just make modifications without the need to go into the initial sketch is the stuff I really like. It really helps.”

He said his team had not yet had the chance to dive too deep into the other features such as the electrical design and the technical publisher because they don’t have a huge team, but the next phase was to start designing the full wiring harness inside the aircraft in Solid Edge. He said this will help with the certification and manufacturing process as the documentation will be even more professional and systemic.

Tanure said the hardest part of the design process is integrating everything in a way that the aircraft will be easy to assemble and friendly for maintenance processes. He liked that when he had a problem the Solid Edge support team was fast and he could get issues resolved quickly.

The company has evolved from a prototyping scenario to manufacturing the parts for the drones and their workflow includes 3D printing for not only prototypes but also for functional parts used on some of the components of the drones, such as the landing gear. Tanure said he uses the 3D print function in Solid Edge and exports the file to the slicer.

They typically use nylon with carbon fiber reinforcement for parts with mechanical requirements, but are exploring other materials, such as different types of plastics.

They also rely on visual computing and artificial intelligence (AI) for the automated landing process, to ensure packages are delivered to the intended destination safely. The drones land at a fixed location called a droneport, in order to prevent people from approaching and coming into contact with it as the whole procedure has been pre-certified in order to ensure safety, which is a top priority.

Precision landing is just one of the factors when it comes to certifying a drone. Embedding AI technology in the drone design can show regulators the safety of the whole system during an inspection, assuring the aircraft is able to fly safely over more densely populated areas. With Solid Edge, the team can design and assemble drones more quickly and have them ready for inspection faster, ultimately getting their drones in the air sooner, which leads to satisfied customers and the possibility of increasing their bandwidth and customer base.

Looking to the future, Speedbird Aero envisions one operator monitoring multiple drones at the same time, so they can increase their services and flights. Right now, they operate about 20 flights per day.

When asked if there are plans for consumers to be able to use Speedbird Aero’s services, Tanure was ready with an answer.

“It will take a while for drones to deliver to homes for many reasons like safety, regulations and necessity of infrastructure. What we already offer is a B2B [business to business] solution to fill the gap where you depend on a ferry boat or where the traffic is completely jammed in rush hours, for example. It’s not just demos anymore, we already offer a viable and needed solution, but we are still just scratching the surface of what the drone logistic will be in the very near future. The authorities are starting to allow the drones to fly BVLOS (beyond visual line of sight) above cities,” he said.

Sounds like things are looking up for the drone delivery industry. Tanure said one key thing needed to escalate the drone market is for the UTM (unmanned traffic management) to allow multiple drones flying in the same area and autonomously avoiding each other.

As for Tanure, personally he said he is looking forward to exploring more material options. “Materials is more of my forté. Materials in general is something I like to spend time on, materials for 3D printing and the aircraft. We are just scratching the surface of the 3D printing world of new materials. This is something that is very exciting for me.

Tanure is so passionate about his job that in a couple of months, he plans to pursue his master’s degree with a focus on 3D printing for aircraft.

We close by wishing Tanure the best of luck with his plans for the future, and we look for Speedbird Aero to get really big—to expand services worldwide, have others will catch on and also provide these services.

(As this author lives in an urban area 20 minutes from town with no pizza deliveries, no Instacart or local grocery store deliveries so, we are rooting for Speedbird Aero.)

For more information about Speedbird Aero visit speedbird.aero.

To start a free trial of Solid Edge or learn more about the Solid Edge for Startups Program, visit solidedge.siemens.com. 

The post New Drone Design Takes Delivery to the Sky appeared first on Engineering.com.

Ever think of designing your own space or renovating a room in your house? These days not only are do-it-yourself projects trending but design-it-yourself is also a thing as tools are right at your fingertips with software programs now accessible and easier for consumers to use.

The whole premise of Cadsoft’s Envisioneer Online is that you don’t have to be a CAD expert or an architect to use it. It helps that the software is accessible to everyone on any device.

Envisioneer Online is a free cloud-based home design tool introduced in 2019 that lets users design, visualize and collaborate on home projects. Envisioneer Online is now ready for mainstream as Cadsoft launched the online tool to the public earlier this year.

Canada-based Cadsoft has extended its expertise and expanded its market from design and building professionals to consumers. The company certainly has the qualifications as it has specialized in BIM (building information modeling) solutions since 2001 with its flagship Envisioneer desktop offering for design professionals.

Cadsoft’s roots date back to the pre-BIM era in the ’90s when the company was creating third-party apps for AutoCAD 2D design and drafting software. Frank Baldesarra, engineering.com’s very own CEO and cofounder is Cadsoft’s executive chairman and has led the company since 2001.

Like many other CAD software developers, Cadsoft is tapping into the consumer market.

Autodesk, for instance, introduced Homestyler, a free online home design platform in 2009, and Dassault Systèmes launched HomeByMe, an online design application for interior designers and retailers, in 2020.

Then there’s the ever-popular SketchUp, which has been around since the 2000s and offers its own variation for consumers with SketchUp Make (formerly SketchUp for Home and Personal Use and introduced in May 2013), a free-of-charge version of the software for home, personal and educational use.

Cadsoft knows consumers have options. What makes Envisioneer Online unique is that users can collaborate with others simultaneously in the cloud. And coming soon, artificial intelligence to guide users through design choices, according to Chantale Pitts, chief revenue officer at Cadsoft.

Chantale Pitts, chief revenue officer at Cadsoft Corporation. (Picture courtesy of LinkedIn.)

Envisioneer Online was designed with consumers in mind, so it’s about simplicity, said Pitts. With programs like Envisioneer Online, consumers don’t have to spend thousands of dollars on CAD programs that are hard to use.

To bring us up to speed, Pitts gave us a demo and shared the company’s vision for Envisioneer Online.

“We wanted to have a space where anyone can design, anywhere, at any time, on any device,” said Pitts. “So, it’s completely in the cloud. And it allows them to design and create, but it also allows them to collaborate.”

While a demo can be informative and is a good way to start, there’s no better way to learn about it than to try out the program yourself. So, I gave it a whirl and here’s what I found while trying it out.

To get started, you just hit launch and you can watch the demo or dive right into it. I would encourage you to watch the intro video first, so you’ll be ready to design your own room in no time.

You can pick a template for a particular room, such as a kitchen, living room, or bathroom, or you can start with an empty template. You can design it yourself from scratch or pick from predesigned templates such as traditional or contemporary, which can be modified to your liking.

The interface is pretty straightforward and uses icons that you can scroll over to view a description of the tool. For instance, it features a Build tool, where you can add doors, windows, HVAC, and so on. There is an abundance of options to choose from. For instance, there are 95 door options and 160 window types. Each item has a picture and basic description, for example, bathtub 5′.

There is also a Materials tool with paint options where you can choose from close to 500 colors or select from various countertops. To keep track of what you’ve selected for your model, you can click on the three dots in the upper right corner to view your cart. You can also download a PDF of the list.

Envisioneer Online lets you select furnishes like appliances, furniture, plumbing fixtures (like sinks, bathtubs, faucets), lights, cabinets and random things such as TVs, arcade games and guitars. You can also make selections from categories for items specific to rooms like bedroom, office, mudroom, and so on. You can even choose items from manufacturers like Pottery Barn or allen + roth. To make it more convenient, there’s even a search option in each of the Build, Materials and Furnish tools to help you easily narrow down options. For instance, say you only want to see chairs. Or you can choose Type from the dropdown menu, for example, when in the Furnish tool, to narrow down furnishing types to sofa, chair, storage, and so on.

Envisioneer Online also features various item views where you can display a bigger picture of an item or get a smaller picture with a more detailed description. For instance, the smaller picture view shows the dimensions and the manufacturer next to an item.

Once you’ve added the items to your design model, you can also view their details by clicking on an item and then selecting the icon on the left. For example, say you want to quickly see the dimensions of a couch you’ve placed.

Making selections and placing items in your design is a snap. Note that you must be in 3D mode to add items to your model. Simply click on the item you like and then click on the space in your template where you’d like to place it. You can easily move items by double-clicking on them and dragging them or by selecting them with the move tool.

What’s great is that with AI built into the program, if you are trying to place an item that doesn’t fit correctly in a space, the program won’t let you place it there.

What’s cool is that if you run into any issues or have questions, you can use the live chat window. I tested it out, and the response time was immediate and I was able to get multiple questions answered by a live person.

If you reach the chat after hours, you can leave a message. I did, and the support team got back to me the next day. In fact, I had three responses, and have been able to use the same email to communicate back and forth to ask additional questions. But the live chat is where it’s at if you’re in the middle of a design session.

You can hit save throughout your design session and you will be prompted to save or discard the updated model when you hit the exit icon.

When you exit or sign in, you’ll see that all your projects are conveniently listed under My Projects by date of the most recent. From here, you can also share, update the description or delete a project.

Sharing is simple too. When you hit the share tool, you are prompted to provide an email and you can assign Edit/View or View access for the recipient. When the recipient receives the link via email, they are asked to register to view the project. The invite expires after 24 hours.

For viewing and navigating, you can toggle between 2D and 3D mode and there are multiple options for zooming in and out, through the Envisioneer Online interface or by using your keyboard or device. There is also Walk or Orbit mode.

• You can be in 2D or 3D to add elements to your project.
• You can easily move items by clicking on them and dragging them or by selecting them with the move tool.
• To delete items, click on them and hit the delete button on the screen or use your keyboard.
• You can use the undo and redo tools on the interface or use keyboard commands.

Whether you’re looking to get your foot in the door with your own design or you’re a professional designer, Envisioneer Online really does have something to offer for everyone. And the beauty of it is that you can do it from anywhere, on any device.

Stay tuned for updates as Cadsoft plans to offer more features for both consumers and design professionals.

Ready to try Envisioneer Online out yourself? Go to https://www.envisioneeronline.com/. After a few days of tinkering in the program, I think I may be ready to even take on my own project!

The post Cadsoft Expands Its Consumer Market with Envisioneer Online Home Design Application appeared first on Engineering.com.

Katerra, the billion-dollar construction technology startup, is making waves again, but this time it’s shockwaves. After the company filed for bankruptcy protection June 6 to implement financial restructuring, it has laid off hundreds of employees. The company could not be reached for confirmation, but reports that it was closing its doors are numerous, including news of officials with Ensemble Investments and S3 Development taking over Katerra projects in Reno, Nev.

The bankruptcy relief filing press release stated that Katerra has “voluntarily filed for relief under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas as the company takes steps to conduct a marketing and sale process to maximize value for its stakeholders.

Katerra has also secured a final cash infusion from SoftBank, its main investor, a $35 million loan, technically referred to as a Debtor-in-Possession (DIP) financing, to fund operations during the Chapter 11 process.

From the Chapter 11 filing:

“We are implementing initiatives on multiple fronts to maximize value and provide the best path forward for Katerra and its many stakeholders,” said Chief Transformation Officer Marc Liebman in an official filing. “Our multi-step action plan has rapidly evolved and includes consolidating U.S. activities, continuing our international businesses, advancing key asset sales, securing DIP financing and commencing an in-court restructuring process. We are grateful for the extraordinary ongoing work and support of the Katerra team and other core constituencies through this extremely difficult time.

“Katerra recently notified its key stakeholders that many of its U.S. projects will be demobilizing. In keeping with Katerra’s ongoing commitment to the safety of the site and the general public, the company is working to ensure a safe transition.

“The rapid deterioration of the company’s financial position is the result of the macroeconomic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the construction industry, inability to procure bonding for construction projects following the unexpected insolvency proceedings of Katerra’s former lender and unsuccessful attempts to secure additional capital and business.

“The company intends to file customary motions with the Bankruptcy Court requesting authorization to continue paying remaining employees, vendors and others in the ordinary course of business moving forward.”

On June 10, the company made a statement that business at Katerra continues in India.

Headquartered in Menlo Park, Calif, the company was founded in 2015 by Michael Marks, former CEO of Flextronics and former Tesla interim CEO, along with Fritz Wolff, the executive chairman of The Wolff Co. In May 2020, former Schlumberger CEO Paal Kibsgaard had taken over for Marks as CEO of Katerra.

Everything had looked promising for Katerra. The company was borne of an initial $1 billion-plus investment from SoftBank and garnered a total of $1.4 billion in venture capital investment. It has had more than $3 billion in project backlog. With so much backing, the company set out to revolutionize the construction industry with technology, boldly stating on its website: “The $10 trillion U.S. construction industry is ripe for disruption. As the last craft industry, construction has yet to enter the industrial or technology age. The majority of the industry is building today essentially the same way they did in the mid-1800s. Economies of scale just don’t exist. Most sites/projects are designed, planned, quoted, bought out and built as one-off projects. Yet, they all have many standardized materials, labor skills, design components and processes in common. We saw a grave need to modernize the entire process of construction, so we’re doing that from end to end.”

Katerra offered a number of services for residential and commercial new builds and renovations and was known for its use of technology across the entire building lifecycle, in addition to providing prefabricated building components, such as mass timber to reduce carbon footprint. It also offered software solutions for design and management of construction projects.

The 150,000-square-foot Catalyst building in Washington was designed by architect Michael Green with Katerra’s cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels from Katerra. (Image courtesy of Katerra.)

It also acquired two architecture companies in 2018: Michael Green Architecture (MGA) in Vancouver, a leader in designing with mass timber, and a larger firm, Lord Aeck Sargent, which had six offices in the U.S.

MGA made a statement on its website about the latest news on Katerra, stating, “Unfortunately, this week Katerra made the hard decision to wind down their business.”

“We are sad for the many people impacted by this decision. However, we are grateful that these actions have no impact on our operations, other than the movement of MGA shares back into our control. We are fortunate that we have been insulated from Katerra’s challenges because Principals Michael Green and Natalie Telewiak have been and remain the controlling directors of the firm.

“Our team remains busy with fun projects and great clients, and we are excited to continue to innovate and move forward to help solve the greatest challenges of our time for people and the planet.”

As for Lord Aeck Sargent, Katerra has arranged for the sale of Lord Aeck Sargent architecture business lines to private buyers, subject to bankruptcy court approval.

In 2017, Katerra was named as one of LinkedIn’s Top Startup Companies to work for. At one point, it had 8,000 employees. Now, the company has 2,300 employees, according to its LinkedIn page. There are also reports of former employers suing the construction startup after the employees received insufficient notice of termination.

Signs of financial issues have been in the works the last couple of years as the company has made multiple layoffs. In December 2019, Katerra reported the company laid off approximately 200 of the workforce and closed its building components factory in Phoenix, Ariz., which it moved to Tracy, Calif., where they used automation technologies such as robotics and a digital manufacturing process using self-guided vehicle technology.

The Phoenix closure came shortly after one of the founders, Wolff, left the board—a sign of trouble. Another layoff made the news last July when more than 400 employees had been laid off just one month after the new CEO, Kibsgaard, came on board. He reportedly left the company last month.

It also had factories in Spokane, Wash., and two factories in India. As of May 2019, it had signed a deal with Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Housing to build 4,000 homes in Saudi Arabia. However, the company stated in the bankruptcy filing that the company’s international operations are not affected by the bankruptcy filings.

A letter from the CEO in December 2020 reported nearly $2 billion in revenue and acknowledged that the company had at times overcommitted itself. He said, “Along Katerra’s journey, we have also experienced challenges and missteps. As with many startups and disruptors, Katerra pursued a path of lightning-speed growth, expanding rapidly into new geographies and business lines with a cost-intensive program that included high capital investments and R&D spend.

“As a result, and despite positive intentions, Katerra at times became overcommitted and spread itself too thin. Accordingly, the company spent substantial amounts of investor capital while establishing and growing numerous businesses in parallel — ultimately more than we could fully develop and maintain all at once within this very capital-intensive industry.

“Since taking over as CEO in July 2020, the new leadership team and I have worked to implement a plan to help address these issues. Our priority has been to refocus on our core set of high-potential business lines, reduce overhead spending, strengthen our operational and financial systems and build a world-class leadership team.

“We have made significant progress on this plan over the last several months, placing Katerra on a much stronger path toward sustainable and profitable growth. But it also became clear that we would require additional funding to fully execute on our plan, especially as we navigate the COVID-19 pandemic that has resulted in added project costs and delays.

“After reviewing all potential options, Katerra’s board determined that our best path toward resetting and refocusing the company was to recapitalize the business, thereby strengthening Katerra’s balance sheet by eliminating substantial debt and providing new capital funding. This recapitalization is supported by SoftBank, demonstrating its vote of confidence in Katerra and our future prospects. As with any recapitalization, all Katerra shareholders experienced dilution to their prior investments as part of the transaction.

“Looking ahead, we are confident that Katerra will be well-positioned for success in this next chapter and will continue working to drive transformation within the construction industry. You can expect to see a refined, focused, deliberate approach from Katerra moving forward…”

Six months later, it’s not looking good for Katerra, or its employees, unfortunately. While it may be good news for its competitors, it’s still a shame to see such an innovative company call it quits. Engineering.com reached out to Katerra to confirm some details and hasn’t heard back. Multiple solutions providers were also asked for reactions on the Katerra news, including Autodesk and Bentley, both champions of construction technology. Newforma and Nemetschek Group responded to engineering.com. Slater Latour, Newforma chief marketing and product officer, responds to our questions below. Commentary from Matthew E. Wheelis, Nemetschek Group vice president Industry Strategy, Build & Construct Division, follows.

What does Newforma think about the recent news of Katerra filing for bankruptcy protection of its U.S. operations?

Latour: Ultimately, it didn’t come as a huge surprise. Obviously, there was news several months ago about them being in trouble.  But fundamentally, I think their approach of trying to vertically integrate the entire construction value chain was always going to be a major challenge. Delivering large-scale projects is complex and highly regulated. The industry has solved for that through specialization. 

Don’t get me wrong, there are many large-scale firms operating in multiple disciplines—we count many of them as our customers. But we also know that on a typical large-scale project there tend to be many large and small firms involved across the planning, design and construction phases, each knowing how to deliver their individual pieces of a project profitably.

Katerra secured $1.4 billion in funding and demonstrated strong potential to change and improve construction projects through its technology platforms, off-site manufactured components and acquisition of two construction firms, plus 8,000 employees. What do you think about that?

Latour: I think if the potential was really there, the company would have been able to secure additional funding to continue on. There is a massive amount of money spent on construction. I read this morning that there is a shortage of 5.5 million housing units based on current demand. If the economics made sense, even if only for certain project types or in certain regions, I think the outcome would be different. 

Yes, they raised a lot of money, but it’s hard to prove a strategy as complex as Katerra’s and put $2 billion to work. Frankly, the amount of capital might have worked against them. A more incremental approach may have been wiser, but when investors have poured $2 billion into your company, there is a lot of pressure to put that capital to work. If the business model isn’t proven out, scaling that quickly, whether through hiring or M&A [mergers and acquisitions], can work against you.

What do you think this means for the competition? Should construction technology companies be worried?

Latour: The reality is that almost every built object is one of a kind and there aren’t a lot of repeatable processes or economies of scale. Building technology for the design and construction industry is not easy, and it takes the focus of an entire organization to do it successfully. There is a huge amount of opportunity in specialized solutions in this industry, but no one company will be able to solve it.

Wheelis: Much of Katerra´s investment was in acquiring traditional architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) firms and building factory capacity. This is a very capital-intensive approach. It also made it very challenging to unify the organization. This is always a concern with a very rapid series of acquisitions.

There were many innovators inside the company who will be taking their learned lessons forward into new ventures. Significant effort, thought and resources went into their technology platform, and the people that drove it are unleashed to innovate further and differently. This is good news for the market.

I don’t think it should worry technology firms specifically but should show the need to take improvements across industry in a way that can be absorbed.

The post Katerra Bankruptcy a Cautionary Tale for Construction Technology appeared first on Engineering.com.

EnSuite-Cloud ReVue is what CCE calls a “secure peer-to-peer CAD collaboration solution” that works directly on a browser without the need for any software installation or CAD licenses.

EnSuite-Cloud ReVue was introduced just this year as a beta in January after CCE announced in November 2020 that “engineering collaboration was about to change forever” with EnSuite-Cloud ReVue on the company’s blog.

Vinay Wagle, VP of Sales and Marketing at CCE. (Picture courtesy of CCE.)

We talked to Vinay Wagle, VP of Sales and Marketing at CCE, who said that up until this year the company had provided a desktop version of the software and then during the pandemic saw how companies were collaborating on Zoom and Microsoft Teams virtual platforms and so it came up with a cloud version, which is based on a lot of the technology CCE built over 30 years.

“We got a lot of inquiries where people said they were collaborating with their suppliers and they wanted to be able to view CAD files and share the CAD data with their suppliers and they wanted a way to do that and our EnSuite desktop product didn’t do that. That’s how we came up with this new technology where you can actually bring up CAD data and you can work with it with your supply chain—or your partners or remote teams—with the same CAD information.”

Wagle, who is based in the Michigan area, headquarters of CCE, has been with the company since the beginning in 2000 and has been managing the sales ever since. Stick around until the end for some fun facts about Wagle (a super nice guy, by the way), who explained things straightforwardly, because, well, EnSuite-Cloud ReVue is pretty straightforward. 

There’s a couple of options for Organizers, Presenters or Reviewers; it can be used for just sharing 3D data for­­­­­ viewing, or if you want to make changes, you can download ReVue LiveLink and work directly in various supported 3D CAD products and collaborate securely in real time.

The first option with EnSuite-Cloud ReVue is a stand-alone version that provides participants, such as design teams, clients and suppliers with a secure platform to conduct engineering design reviews by uploading 3D data from CAD systems, including CATIA V5, CATIA V6 (3DXML), SOLIDWORKS, NX, Creo, Autodesk Inventor, Solid Edge, JT, IFC and glTF and other formats.

The second option using Revue LiveLink enables Organizers or Presenters to make changes in real time directly from supported CAD systems, including Inventor, Solid Edge, SOLIDWORKS and SketchUp, in a live session with all participants. Presenters or Reviewers can download ReVue LiveLink for free; however, if you are an Organizer sharing the session from your CAD software, you must purchase an Organizer license.  

Other Key points and capabilities highlighted by CCE:

• It’s ideal for people who currently use software like Zoom, Teams, WebEx or other screen-sharing apps for engineering collaboration, design reviews or 3D design sharing with their team or suppliers.
• CCE offers a free 15-day trial for people to evaluate the product.
• No software installation or browser extensions are required.
• It provides real-time collaboration using 3D multi-CAD data—no CAD licenses required—EnSuite-Cloud ReVue uses CCE’s proprietary CAD interoperability technology. Users don’t need a license of any of the CAD systems to view multi-CAD data. Note that you must have a CAD license of the CAD software for which you want to download a ReVue LiveLink integration using the EnSuite Organizer license.
• It’s secure—no storing of proprietary design data on any server and no data footprint left after collaboration.
• It provides an integrated conference call facility.
• There are well-defined roles and privileges (Organizer, Presenter and Reviewer) for participants to provide data protection.

See the image below for pricing and the various features for Organizers, Presenters and Reviewers.

Putting things into perspective, Wagle explained more about the roles and various licenses for the software.

An Organizer license, which is $550 per user annually, is required to set up a meeting in EnSuite. How it works is that an Organizer logs into EnSuite to set up a meeting and invite other participants. The other participants in the meeting can be either a Presenter, which requires a license that is $300 per user annually, or a Reviewer, which is a free license. 

“The idea is that the Organizer opens a CAD file in the browser in EnSuite and everyone else who’s logged into that session can see the same file and the same data of the 3D models,” said Wagle.

“The beauty of this product is that if I’m the Organizer, you load a file as a Participant, or the Reviewer can actually have different views of the file—you can rotate the file, you can take sections of the file and you have your own independent control over the CAD model, where you can see the file independently.… And once you are done with the session, nothing is left. There is no footprint, so there is no intellectual property concern, because the file is never uploaded on any server.”

For those who want to use the software beyond reviewing a 3D model and want to edit the model in a collaborative session where the changes will update in real time, the ReVue LiveLink integration can be used, instead of using the browser stand-alone option, where users can start a session from inside a CAD system. 

Wagle explained, “Let’s say you’re using SOLIDWORKS and you open up SOLIDWORKS and in SOLIDWORKS, you’ll have an option to start EnSuite. You select the option in EnSuite, you invite other people to participate in the same meeting, but now you drive your CAD file from SOLIDWORKS. And when you modify the file, those changes are reflected in real time for everyone.”

He further explained that in the browser option you’re just loading the file and everyone can see it. In the stand-alone browser option, you can view only the model.

In Revue LiveLink—hence the reference to live—you are actually modifying the file in the CAD system and everyone sees those modifications in real time in the conceptual design or engineering review stages.

Wagle had a few points on what makes EnSuite-Cloud ReVue unique compared to viewers and other platforms. Viewers, for example, are meant to be used by one person, while CCE’s focus for EnSuite is to enable multiple people to view or work with a file.

He said another key point is that CCE is an independent third-party company, so they support far more formats compared to CAD vendors.

And unlike other solutions, with EnSuite-Cloud ReVue, you don’t have to upload anything to a server, which makes the solution more secure. 

Another plus compared to other up-and-coming collaboration platforms is that there is no high-tech technology required. For example, we talked about NVIDIA’s Omniverse Enterprise real-time collaboration platform. “Omniverse is really meant for large datasets and you need a very powerful platform to run it. You also need NVIDIA’s RTX technology to view the files,” noted Wagle.

“Ours is very simple. A small- to mid-size business may find our technology a lot easier to adopt compared to Omniverse, so that’s really the differentiation. And we are much more than a viewer, but we are not so heavy weight like Omniverse. We are sort of right in the middle, designed for small- to mid-size businesses who don’t have a lot of IT that need to collaborate with each other or their suppliers.”

As far as what else is in the works, be on the lookout for other integrations for ReVue LiveLink, including Creo, Revit and Rhino 3D coming soon.

And as promised, here are some fun facts about Wagle, who has a master’s in mechanical engineering and started his career at Chrysler in the 80s, worked in the automaker’s CAD department and developed CAD software for them. He left Chrysler to start a company called company Compunix in 1989 that focused on data transmission software. And in 2000, he merged his company with another company to create CAD-CAM-E (CCE).

In addition, Wagle’s favorite state happens to be New Mexico, where the author is from. “I love Albuquerque. Oh my god, I love the adobe-style houses that you have and you don’t have any grass in your front yards. With all the yard work we have to do, I wish I were there.”

The post CCE Adds CAD Software Integrations to Its Real-time 3D Collaboration Software appeared first on Engineering.com.

This year Bentley has made a number of acquisitions, including INRO, Seequent and E7 to name a few.

SPIDA, operating since 2007 and based in Columbus, Ohio, is the company’s latest conquest. SPIDA provides software solutions to electric and communications utilities and their engineering services providers and is used by hundreds of companies across the U.S., Canada and abroad that use SPIDA’s solutions for engineering and managing their assets.  

Some of SPIDA’s customers include electric utilities companies such as Ameren, EPCOR, Nashville Electric Service (NES) and Southern California Edison (SCE).

SPIDA’s utility pole solutions include SPIDAcalc for capturing and modeling overhead transmission and distribution assets for structural loading; SPIDAsilk to analyze cable sag and tension design for physical and ambient properties; and SPIDAstudio, a cloud-based platform that centrally tracks and manages the asset health and physical condition of overhead systems.

SPIDA is revolutionizing loading and oversight of utility asset analysis and management of structural health. (Picture courtesy of SPIDA.)

According to the press release, Bentley plans to integrate SPIDA with its OpenUtilities engineering software and grid digital twin cloud services to help address the challenges of transitioning to renewable energy sources, such as electric vehicle charging, joint usage of utility poles to support broadband networks’ expansion to 5G and  modernizing and hardening the electric grid.

SPIDA, with many partnerships and integrations with others, including a partnership with SBS, provider of design solutions, helps utility and telecom organizations leverage the power of their investments in utility networks, GIS, CAD and enterprise systems. This May, the two companies announced an integration that connects SBS’s Automated Utility Design (AUD) application with SPIDA Software’s SPIDAcalc structural analysis software.   

Last September, SPIDA announced a partnership with Schneider Electric, Geographic Information System (GIS) solutions for utilities and communication providers. The partnership aims to tighten product integration between SPIDAcalc and Schneider Electric’s ArcFM Designer and offer joint solutions that will streamline engineering and design processes and simplify the challenges of traditional pole loading methods. SPIDA also has a partnership with Esri, maker of the popular GIS mapping software, ArcGIS.

Through the acquisition, the SPIDA Software team will join Bentley. SPIDA is a somewhat small company consisting of about 29 employees. The Bentley team welcomed SPIDA saying, “As the rapid expansion of renewable energy sources and greater demand created by electric vehicles increasingly stresses our grid infrastructure and for 5G-enabled broadband rollout, the grids’ utility poles are ‘priceless’ for sustainably advancing infrastructure,” said Alan Kiraly, senior vice president of asset and network performance at Bentley Systems. “We are very pleased to welcome our new SPIDA colleagues to Bentley Systems and to OpenUtilities, and we look forward to further integrating and globalizing SPIDA software, already known as the trusted stalwart for energy distribution engineers in their essential work to improve grid performance and resilience.”

SPIDA, whose motto is “Build a Better Grid,” certainly ought to be enabled to do bigger and better things with Bentley by its side.

Brett Willitt, president of SPIDA Software, said, “Our vision with SPIDA has always been to provide a complete and open solution for maintaining and improving the health and integrity of our users’ power and communication overhead infrastructure assets. Within the Bentley team, we look forward to accelerating grid digital twin solutions, which leverage our industry domain experience and incorporate SPIDA structural analyses. Existing and future SPIDA users can look forward with confidence to leveraging grid digital twins as they upgrade, modify, expand, and manage their overhead systems.”

SPIDA makes no secret of its passion for utility poles. From the company website:

“Confession: we’re obsessed with utility poles. We’ve been known to pull over on the side of the road to get a picture of that nasty pole on the corner. We’ve worked as make-ready technicians, pole inspectors, and CATV installers. We’ve even made our family members/spouses jump a ditch to look at a pole for us.”

Get an idea of how SPIDAcalc works in this video.

The post Bentley Acquires SPIDA, Developer of Utility Pole Applications appeared first on Engineering.com.

Last month IMAGINIT Technologies, a division of Rand Worldwide announced its latest version of the IMAGINiT Clarity 2022 product suite, its enterprise solution that aims to automate tasks, improve building information modeling (BIM) integrity and collaboration.

If you’re not familiar with IMAGINiT, it is an Autodesk Platinum Partner primarily focused on Autodesk solutions. The company has been around for 40 years and provides solutions, consulting services and training for design and engineering professionals in the manufacturing and building space. IMAGINiT is also the creator of the Scan to BIM[i] solution.

IMAGINiT Clarity was originally launched in 2012 as a web-based solution to enhance the Revit server platform but has recently expanded to include integrations with AutoCAD, Autodesk Civil 3D, BIM 360, Collaboration for Civil 3D, Bentley Systems ProjectWise, Procore and others.

Clarity 2022 now supports Revit 2022 and all earlier versions dating back to Revit 2018, and adds AutoCAD task processing, new data integrations and security enhancements for collaboration.

To learn more about the latest release, we talked to Matt Mason, director of Software Development for Rand Worldwide, who has been with the company for more than 25 years. At Rand, Mason manages the Software Products Group for the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) and manufacturing industries.

Matt Mason, director of Software Development at Rand Worldwide. (Picture courtesy of Rand Worldwide.)

Before we dive into what’s new in IMAGINiT Clarity 2022, I asked Mason to walk me through how IMAGINiT Clarity initially works and to provide a few examples of how it’s used.

“You can’t really use it without a CAD tool, but it’s not really an add-in in the traditional sense; it’s more like an enterprise tool,” he explained. “People install it on a server inside their company. It provides a sort of an intranet—a sort of web interface for setting up where are the projects, do they live in BIM 360 or do they live in, you know, a folder on the network somewhere? Do they live in a Revit Server or Bentley ProjectWise?” he explained.

“You set up your projects and where they live, and what most people start with is the sort of manual time-consuming tasks that we need to do week in and week out and how do we set those up to happen automatically in the background. A lot of people use it just for things like making PDFs and making DWG files out of Revit files, or that kind of thing—in terms of using files that need to get repeatedly produced and then distributed either inside the organization or outside the organization to a consultant or something like that.”

Mason said that the functionality of Clarity varies for different software applications. For instance, there are tasks that work on Revit file content and AutoCAD file content, and there are tasks that just work with files for moving, copying and backing up.

Some of the specific task automation and analytics features of Clarity for Revit include:

• Print requested PDF sets for Revit. CAD files can reside in a network folder, BIM 360 or ProjectWise. The PDFs can be delivered to eight locations, including ProjectWise, Procore, and others (the process also works the same for AutoCAD).
• Export DWGs and share them to BIM 360, Dropbox, BOX, or an FTP site.
• Back up projects to a specific folder or system. There are tasks that make backups of many location types, such as network folders, Revit Servers, BIM 360, Procore, BIM Track, Glue, SharePoint, Teams, ProjectWise, and others.
• Create data sheets for rooms, equipment and furniture for Revit models.
• Clean up Revit and AutoCAD models and transmit them to stakeholders .
• Clean up models as they come in from partners for Revit models.
• Eliminate potential problems and improve the performance of Revit project integrity with monitoring and notifications, such as increases in file size, unresolved warnings, and more, including: track more than 60 model metrics, provide an overall model health score based on your criteria, highlight projects and models requiring attention and provide visibility at the model, project, group and firm-wide levels

Mason said that currently the above project integrity features apply only to Revit, but noted that the company is planning to expand them to AutoCAD soon.

As far as visibility and business insights go, Clarity enables users to access the rich data in a Revit project to gain an understanding of project performance. Some capabilities include:

• Allow non-Revit users to run reports
• Export model data for use with business intelligence systems
• Use design data to inform business decisions

These capabilities are available only in Revit, but Mason said the company will add AutoCAD and other platforms if there is a demand.

Moving on to the brand-new functionality in Clarity 2022, Mason said the biggest improvement in this release is not only support for Revit 2022 but also deeper support for AutoCAD task processing, where customers can use Clarity for AutoCAD, and not just Revit. “We started slowly bringing AutoCAD into Clarity, but with this release we really pushed into what we call a first-class kind of support where you could use Clarity with just AutoCAD, if you want to,” said Mason.  

He said the demand came after IMAGINiT realized that people working in AutoCAD needed help with automation and scripting. “Firms that were multidisciplined, in particular, that were using Clarity to automate the Revit side of their projects really liked it and wished that they had something similar to automate the AutoCAD side of their projects.”

On the Revit side, Mason said that there are many new features around new PDF mechanisms that exist in Revit 2022. There are also new ways for people to automate or develop their own tasks with scripting tools that people use such as pyRevit, a plug-in for helping users developing scripts using the universal Python language. “It’s kind of like the way people use Autodesk Dynamo to make their own sort of custom tasks and automation,” explained Mason. “You can now do the same thing with the pyRevit tool, and we’re just sort of integrating with pyRevit to let people take the pyRevit scripts that they’ve made and drop them into the Clarity platform for automation. It’s handy to be able to mix in those little tools with Clarity, which can help with certain enterprise-level scripting or scheduling.”

He also pointed out that Clarity works a bit behind the scenes—that it’s typically set up by the power users in the firm, while most other users don’t even know much about it because it’s set up and everyone can forget about it. For instance, you could set the software up to pull the latest BIM 360 files and run the pyRevit scripts overnight.

In terms of other integrations, Mason said that recently  IMAGINiT is doing more work with integrating Procore so that people can move their files and synchronize their files between BIM 360 and Procore. For example, if changes are made on the BIM 360 side, those changes can automatically be brought over to Procore. Likewise, if the Procore data changes, you can pull the files from Procure and bring that data into BIM 360.

“A lot of the work that we’re doing these days is really around letting people work in the tool that they want to work in and try to do all of the sort of grunt work that might be involved in keeping things up to date in multiple places make that just happen automatically in the background,” said Mason.

Specifically for this release, Clarity 2022 adds integration with business intelligence tools, including Power BI and Tableau to deliver visibility into model health, Autodesk Revit performance, and a variety of Revit project data.

Aside from task automation, Mason said that in general there are other interesting things that Clarity does that are enabled by task automation—say, for example, trying to take data that’s normally locked up inside the Revit model and get it out and make it available to people outside of Revit. Some of what Clarity does is Revit health checks and key performance indicators (KPIs), which you might use to measure Revit models.

The other data-centric area is that Clarity extracts design data out of Revit and puts it into a database while keeping that data fresh by having it perform an export nightly or on whatever time frame it is scheduled to do so.

“We have a variety of tools that are made to help people with business intelligence kinds of questions, said Mason. “So, for example, people working on hospital planning would be able to ask a question like, what was the average size of an operating room across our last five hospital projects?, or something like that. That’s something that people would like to be able to access—that type of data … and we sort of facilitate that by setting up that sort of constant data extraction for all of the projects, and then centralizing it to make it easy to get to. So, yeah, a there’s a variety of things that we’re doing on the data side that are also interesting.”

Another key feature IMAGINiT mentioned about this release is that Clarity 2022 received a security boost. The press release stated, “For remote collaboration environments, Clarity 2022 offers additional security options to enable team members to securely connect with data and view reports across projects. Visibility into model data can now be based on user access within Clarity, giving different team members unique access to data as the project requires.”

To learn more about the latest release, we encourage you to catch the webinar hosted by Mason and other members of the IMAGINiT team called “What’s New in Clarity 2022.”

From what we learned, it sounds like Clarity could certainly be a time saver.

The post IMAGINiT Clarity 2022 Adds Support for Revit 2022 and Plans for AutoCAD appeared first on Engineering.com.