I've never seen so many iPads in one place

At the end of last week I got back from the Construction MobileIT 2011 Conference in London in the UK, it was a great one day discussion about how mobile devices can be best used in the construction industry. With fascinating insights from Transport for London about how BIM models are helping with Emergency Service planning on London Underground after the 7/7 terrorist bombings in 2005, discussions about the safety of putting data in the cloud, using QR codes in versioning of drawings, use of point cloud technology by surveyors across the life cycle of a building project and whether social media has a place in construction for resolving RFI's.

It's a growing area revolutionized by the iPhone, iPad and App Store by Apple, but there's Android and Windows platforms amongst others in the marketplace and more rugged tablets designed for field use on construction sites. We've heard of people who use their tablets to remotely connect to their work machine to view their Revit and Navisworks models, but more and more developers are using our APIs to create apps such as CadFaster to let you view and markup Revit models on your iPad and Vela Systems to bring data from the field back into your information model.

With the mobile applications we already offer such as the newly released Constructware Field app to help manage projects from the field, Buzzsaw for managing files, AutoCAD WS for editing files and Bluestreak to help collaboration, there's a growing list of apps to help with your workflow and no doubt there'll be more to come in the future.

We just have one question for you, if you could take one app into the field with you tomorrow to help with your day to day work, what would it be?

Comments

[Lee Mullin]

Hi Robert and Paul.

Thanks for your comments. Unfortunately I can't talk about any specifics with mobile releases. It's something we are looking at, there's been a few demo's at AU, but you'll have to hold tight for any official announcements.

[Paul Jordan]

+1 for NavisWorks Portable. I don't think it'd be necessary to have a Management level, more like something between the Freedom and Simulate.

[Robert Hansen]

I love your blog. But I have a question. I am thinking of buying an Ipad 2 for X-mas. Is there a Navisworks app for the Ipad 2? I work with AutoCad MEP and often I use Navis Mangment to show are field Electricains how I want conduit installed. Sometimes the pretty picture of Navis is alot clearer than a print I made in autocad with a ton of section cuts. Allows me to show the Electricains why conduit is going here and what other systems we are trying to avoid. Thanks any info would be great.