Beyond Design

Practical tips on starting and maintaining a BIM user group

Further to a blog about starting a BIM User group a couple of weeks ago and a worldwide list of BIM in Construction User groups, James Vandezande from HOK has kindly passed along a series of posts he has written about running effective user groups.

These are well worth a read whether you are looking to start a group or contribute towards a local group with more detail about locations, speakers, hardware and sponsorships.

http://www.allthingsbim.com/2012/01/effective-user-groups-part-1.html
http://www.allthingsbim.com/2012/01/effective-user-groups-part-2.html
http://www.allthingsbim.com/2012/04/effective-user-groups-part-3.html

Since we launched the BIM in Construction User Groups page we've added lots more groups across Europe and the Americas and Australia thanks to your suggestions. If you have a group to add, email us!

Be the face of Autodesk Construction products

Have you ever wondered how we put together the splash screens that you view every time you open the product? Have you wondered how Silver Cross Hospital or Blackfriars Station were selected to be the 'face' of Navisworks? Have you ever wondered how you would get your project to be the one everyone see's on a daily basis? Well wonder no more!

The Autodesk Construction team are inviting customers to submit images of your use of Navisworks for inclusion in the next release of Navisworks. We are looking for impactful and inspiring images of how you are using our technology on your projects. For all selected images, we will require you to complete a consent form, granting unrestricted use of the imagery to Autodesk. For the image that is placed on the product box and splash screen, we will request access to the model dataset so that Autodesk graphic artists can create the final renderings. All image usage will display a credit line as defined by you.  

What is the value of participating?

• Expanded marketing reach - You can dramatically increase the visibility of your company's work since the images generated from the datasets may appear in a variety of high-profile web and print marketing assets, with attribution to your firm. For example, customer imagery was prominently displayed on more than 100,000 units of AutoCAD® 2013 product packaging and receives more than 280,000 views per month on Autodesk.com
• Enhanced brand recognition - Close associations with Autodesk, a leader in 3D design, engineering, and entertainment software, can enhance your brand, build industry recognition for your company as a technology leader, and be a strong selling point to your clients, increasing your competitive advantage.
• Using resulting imagery - While the imagery created using your data sets is usually subject to embargo dates associated with product launches and campaigns, it will eventually become available for general use. In most cases, you can then use the resulting imagery for your own marketing purposes upon request.

One selected image will be used for the next release of Navisworks product box and splash screen. Here is the 2013 image of London Blackfriars station, courtesy of Network Rail and Jacobs®.

 

Other selected images will be included in the Navisworks installer (see below for 2013 images):

If you are interested in participating please email anthony.governanti@autodesk.com or sunny.hira@autodesk.com.  We will be happy to answer your questions and provide you with additional details on the submission process. The deadline for submissions is Wednesday, July 11, 2012.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Thank you,

Autodesk Construction Team

New release of Autodesk Constructware

With the release of the 2013 versions of the Autodesk products, there is also a new release of the Autodesk^® Constructware^® product. For those of you not familiar with Constructware^®, it's a web-based project management software that enables construction firms and owners to standardize and optimize business processes in order to deliver projects more efficiently.

London Blackfriars station, courtesy of Network Rail and Jacobs®

Constructware connects people, information, and processes to help streamline operations, manage change, and optimize execution in the field. Greater project transparency and accountability improve insight across projects of all sizes.

Gain more accurate near time cost visibility with the ability to exchange project data with accounting systems. And the configurable web-based software as a service (SaaS) platform can help to reduce costs associated with implementing and managing an IT infrastructure.

This release contains the following exciting changes to Constructware:

• Project Wizard – Ability to copy project level information: You can now copy project level information, such as Attributes or Routes, when creating a new project. With the 2013 release, a user creating a new project can copy the following information from an existing project in Step 2 of the Project Wizard: General Information, Attributes, Routing, View Options, Exhibits
  • Renaming Modules: With the 2013 release, the ability to rename modules has been added to the following modules.
    • Document Management
      • Architectural Supplemental Instructions (ASIs)
      • Design Review
      • Permits
    • Cost Management
      • Request for Change Order
      • Request for Quote
    • Risk Management
      • Safety Record
• Issues Module – Creation of Issues via API:  In a previous release, Constructware added the ability to exchange files within the File Director module via the WebDAV API (application programming interface) and an API for the RFI module.  Continuing this theme of enabling integration between desktop, mobile, or other applications, the Issues module now has been enabled with an API.
• Issues Module – Creation of Attached Files: As mentioned in the previous section, Constructware has added the ability to attach a file to an Issue via the API. The ability to quickly add an attached file has also been added to the standard user interface within Constructware. An attached file can only associated or attached to a singular document and cannot reside anywhere else within the application. Previously if a user wanted to add a file to an Issue they would have uploaded the file into File Director or the Documents modules as a supporting document.

Let us know if you want to hear more about Constructware, or what you think of the new updates by leaving a comment below.

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?

Subscribe to this blog, RSS feed

To any of you who have subscribed to the RSS feed of our blog, you may have not noticed anything coming through. This was due to a small change we made a couple of weeks ago.

You will now need to subscribe to this feed

http://feeds.feedburner.com/beyond-design

Apologies for any inconvenience.

Here’s a couple of great posts you may have missed

1.21 Gigawatts, 1.21 Gigawatts! Great Scott!!
Creating Smooth Animations

Welcome to Beyond Design

Over the past 29 years, Autodesk has become recognized as a leading 2D and 3D design software provider, but less known for how it goes beyond design, especially within the construction industry. The knowledge and insight that is held by construction professionals and engineers can be used to make better design decisions, which will ultimately benefit all phases of a project, from design, through pre-construction services, fabrication, project execution, operations and maintenance, even renovation or demolition.

The intention of this blog is to show how BIM design data can be utilized and repurposed throughout a project lifecycle, by providing insight into Virtual Design and Construction workflows and the use of Autodesk Construction solutions. By giving you the information and tools to better manage projects, increase productivity, improve workflows and influence the design, we want to empower you to get the most out of products you use every day.

We will focus on the functionality, workflows and interoperability between Autodesk Construction solutions, including Navisworks, Revit, Quantity Takeoff, Constructware, Buzzsaw, Vault, and AutoCAD based products.

Over the next few weeks and months we'll be acquainting you with the 2012 releases of the Autodesk Construction products, with suggestions of use for the new features, as well as hints, tips and tricks on how to make use of existing functionality. But overall, we want to hear from you - the people that rely on these tools every day - we’d like you to share your stories and your tricks; we’d like to hear your suggestions for topics that you’d like to know more about; and most of all we want to hear your feedback.

Welcome to 'Beyond Design' and we hope to hear from you soon.