The CAD Insider

Family Planning by Axomic

LAS VEGAS, NV (Autodesk University) - Revit users have gone crazy creating families, says Tony Page, who does sales for Axomic. Tony is speaking not of human reproduction but of "digital assets," or what Revit users call their collections of sinks, toilets, door knobs... all the the parts of the building that lend the finishing detail to the "lived-in" look of a building.

OpenAsset BIM does content management for Revit. Included is a Revit plug-in from which you can drag and drop

Along with this creative boom has come a need of management. Axomic's OpenAsset BIM claims to
organize Revit content so that companies (400 clients already, they say) can be more productive. For example, if an an architect want to include a window and is fairly sure someone, somewhere in the firm has made that window before sometime, he only has to ask OpenAsset to find windows, maybe including some parameter, such as smaller than 24 inches
wide, for example.

OpenAsset works like a librarian, checking in and checking out parts, and helps you find what you are looking for. A Revit plug in allows users to work entirely within the Revit interface, and they can drag and drop a family right into the Revit model.

How Much?

A block of 25 users can start using OpenAsset BIM for"less than $5K" per year. The software is installed remotely and training can be done remotely, too. It takes about a month for to get everything up and running.

Assemble Frees Data Imprisoned in BIM

LAS VEGAS, NV (Autodesk University) - A Revit model can be a tremendous investment for an architectural firm. A lot of design information goes into it. A big project could be 100GB worth of data. All that information is now available for future projects, for analysis, for review and other downstream application. If you know how to use Revit. If you have a license of Revit on your computer. If your computer is always with you.

That's too many "ifs" for managers, engineers in the field or anyone besides the Revit jockeys in the firm. Assemble Systems aims to make BIM information usually locked in a Revit file useful and accessible to others who can benefit from it, without having to buy and learn Revit.

Assemble extracts BIM information from Revit files and makes it available through a web interface

Are there no other programs that may extract information from BIM files? "There are," says Diego Torres-Palma, territory manager at of Assemble Systems, on hand at Autodesk University to show me how Assemble works. "But none of them do it as well." According to assemble, they are hard to use, not visual, can't handle really big projects and can't reach all the data. This is probably Assemble's idea of NavisWorks.

An entirely web-based application, and therefore usable on iPads and other mobile devices*, Assemble claims it get down to business within minutes. "It spiders into the SQL database," says Diego.

Assemble will proceed to sift through the Revit model and present the BIM data in a variety of format and for a variety of functions. It can even do takeoffs and schedules. The web-based interface will show a tabular data alongside the Revit model, a welcome visual confirmation.

How Much?

Assemble costs $3,600 per year per user ($300 per month). A $500 training session is required for new users. 

More Information

See www.assemblesystems.com

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*Currently, Assemble's viewer does not currently work with all iPads and mobile devices but data management functions do.

With BIM9 Private Cloud, You Know Where Your Design Files Are

LAS VEGAS (Autodesk University) - A Las Vegas casino design may have resulted in the largest Revit model at the time (40GB). While the design teams were in 4 separate US offices, the BIM model needed to be in one. That was good for the design team at headquarters, but not so good for the others who had to rely on slow connections to link to the BIM model. BIM9, a architectural IT service company, was created to solve just this sort of problem -- and, in the process, claims to have offer more benefits, such as being able to run Revit on an iPad.

 

Video from BIM9 site shows Revit on an iPad. The Revit model is on a BIM9 private cloud.

BIM9 immediately answers the first question on the minds of the cloud skeptics: who is looking after my data? With a private cloud, you are. With frequent headlines of cloud-based data centers being hacked, (here's one: Target 40 Million Credit Cards Compromised, CNN Money, Dec 18, 2013) it will generate some peace of mind to at least know the server is physically within your walls --not somewhere out there being minded by who knows who. Of course, private clouds can be hacked, but mega-data sites are probably much more popular targets.

BIM9 allows anyone with an Internet connection to access the single BIM model, the very same one that may be currently in design mode. Offices don't have to have copies of the BIM model and worry about synchronizing them. Those at the construction site don't have to download a copy before they hit the road and risk an outdated model. They can actually operate Revit from their iPad and edit the BIM model from the field.

Your might be worried about a private BIM cloud making everyone remote, and therefore slow, whereas before at least the headquarters office located with the server could be assured of the speed, latest BIM model, etc. But BIM9 is able to show fast-enough response at AU. Your mileage may vary. Despite virtualization wizardry on the BIM9 server, the biggest factor in performance is probably connection speed.

BIM9 is part of US CAD, a large Autodesk reseller.

For medium to large AEC firms working from different offices, a private cloud such as BIM9's, seems like a great solution. AEC firms ought to appreciate a technology vendor that is steeped in architecture and architectural design software, as opposed to a generic IT firm.

How Much?

For a small rack mounted server, good for 3 users, BIM9 will install a "30 day test drive" at your office for $3500. See other pricing on BIM9 website. 

Lenovo a Lesson in Overseas Success

LAS VEGAS (Autodesk University) - The world is going mobile. Sales of desktop computers have suffered.

from ITPoPortal

Most of the downward trend is on the consumer side, with family use and consumption of Web content, but most full time CAD users still prefer their stationary workstations with at least two big screens, right? Still there must be enough of a perceived need for mobility that most of the major computer vendors have created a line of mobile workstations.

Lenovo, which is now top PC vendor by shipments¹, was on hand at Autodesk University. Having a special fondness for ThinkPads for my personal (non-CAD) use for years, I cannot resist seeing what Lenovo is offering. Though nothing new was being presented, Lenovo was showing its 30" dream monitor. With a 2,560 x 1600 resolution and a $1600 MSRP, the ThinkVision LT3053 is worthy of top users only (see PCmag review). The W540, introduced last Fall and though it's 5.5 lbs may seem heavy compared to laptops, it claimed to be the lightest in the mobile workstation category.

Tom Salomone, world wide segment marketing manager at Lenovo declares Lenevo's 30 inch monitor "perfect for CAD."
(picture from CADplace, taken at PTC event)

Lenovo bought the personal computer product lines from IBM many years back, the desktop products first, then later the ThinkPads -- resulting in a collective gasp from business users who had prized their ThinkPads for their bulletproof reliability and legendary keyboards. What would happen to them when they fell into hands of a Chinese company no one ever heard of? Unbeknown to us, Lenovo was a force to be reckoned with in Asia with the giant share of that area's computer market. The best surprise of all, however, was that quality of the ThinkPads stayed just as good as it ever was and innovation actually increased. The Yoga, which may be named for its ability to contort itself into all sorts of positions, may have no equal in the touchpad market.

 
video of Yoga touchpad by Lenovo

Lenovo may be the lone exception in our industry of a company that has successfully leapt across oceans. Companies floundering in their attempting to sell in the US should study Lenovo. It helps to have great products but I see many great products that suffer from lack of understanding of US marketing -- and US psychology. Lenovo has done its best to preserve the same image that IBM so carefully generated: solid and dependable. Perhaps Lenovo has hidden its foreignness, but even if no one may admit to it as a corporate directive, it was genius to not introduce such a discontinuity.

For More Information

www.lenovo.com

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1. Lenovo Overtakes HP as the Top PC Vendor While U.S. Shipments Stabilize in the Second Quarter of 2013, According to IDC, July, 2013

Contour Roller Mouse or Carpal Tunnel Syndrome?

LAS VEGAS (Autodesk University 2013) - To use a computer mouse over 20 hours a week is to risk carpal tunnel syndrome¹. Yikes!

To call the Contour input device a Roller Mouse is not to do it justice. But maybe Computer Input System Alternative to the Mouse If You Are Having Medical Issues was just a little too long.

Contour Roller Mouse system fits under a keyboard, in this case a laptop.

Contour Roller Mouse may very well be a welcome alternative for all those who curse the ordianry mouse for being the source of their carpal tunnel syndrome.

The Contour Roller Mouse, as it is conveniently if not accurately named, is mostly a rest area for the heels of your hands as they are positioned over an existing keyboard, but its main feature is a rolling. sliding cylinder, which slides like an elongated bead on an abacus. Rolling the cylinder moves the cursor up and down, moving the cylinder laterally moves the cursor right and left. Several programmable buttons are embedded on the device. 

While most CAD users would think spending upwards of $300 for an input device an extravagance -- especially when the mouse came free with the computer -- it could be a small price to pay for those suffering from repetitive movement disorders. According to Doug Margereson, who sells the Contour device at Autodesk University, those with ailments from using regular mouse are the main customers of the Contour Roller Mouse.

In addition to the roller device (which will also do click function when depressed) the Roller Mouse has several buttons with various functions. All are programmable if you want to change them. The buttons may take a bit of getting used to as the buttons did not seem instantly intuitive but that could happen over time. It would help if the printing  near the buttons was a bit bigger, too. A small roller below the big roller functions as a zoom control.

For more information

1. The Latest Thinking on Computer-Related Pain, Ingfei Chen, New York Times, Sep 19, 2008

• Contour Roller Mouse - product site by Contour
• Input Devices - list by TenLinks

Related articles

Innovative RollerMouse By Contour Design Allows For Easy Multiple Monitor Control (video)

AU 2013 Exhibition Hall: Contour Design's RollerMouse for Multiple-Monitor CAD Jockeys

Eagle Point Pinnacle Series - Learn Civil 3D and Get Support

LAS VEGAS, NV (Autodesk University) - I'm always encouraged when an engineer rises to the top of an engineering software company. As logical as it may sound, it is a rarity in our industry. As a company grows, CEO are usually selected from other roles: business, sales... John Biver, CEO of Eagle Point, is a degreed civil engineer and he is eager to show me how his Pinnacle software will help educate users of Civil 3D.

An engineer who is a CEO and who can actually use his software -- that might be the only such twofer at AU.

Eagle Point has long been known for its civil engineering add-ons for AutoCAD. It's Pinnacle Series, however, provides tutorials for Civil 3D, Revit, Navisworks. Pinnacle combines videos (over 150 hours, including pre-recorded classes held by Eagle Point),'cheat sheets," tips, more. The videos are accessible from Eagle Point's cloud storage but other material is stored local on the user machine. Customizable, a company can also add to it their own material, creating their own help documentation.

Pinnacle, a Civil 3D learning product, includes a chat access to Eagle Point's Civil 3D experts.

But Pinnacle is more than just canned demos and help files. What  may be worth the entire price of admission is Pinnacles use as a tech support too. Users may chat among them selves and access Eagle Point support staff for live Q&A, that being included in the Pinnacle license.

Pinnacle is a standalone application so can be used on a machine without a license of Civil 3D.

Business Edition of Pinnacle costs $700 for the first year. An enterprise version is available for larger firms that offers unlimited usage.

For those who skimp on a well educated employees, I offer:

"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance."
Derek Bok, American educator and lawyer

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See Also:

• Pinnacle Series - product site, by Eagle Point
• CAD - Civil Engineering software - list by TenLinks

CAD Standards in Box - Altiva CADconform

LAS VEGAS, NV (Autodesk University 2013) - Most large architectural and engineering firms employ a drawing checker, usually a senior draftsperson or designer, that "signs off" on a drawing, assuring that the drawing meets company standards.Alta Vista, claims to have put that person in a box, having automated the final validation process with its CADconform software.

Also, CADconform claims to be the only software that issues a tamper-proof electronic seal (shown here, but it can take on company branding) that will "break" if the drawing is modified without being rechecked.

CADconform is an ARX application that appears as a dropdown menu inside of AutoCAD.

A MicroStation version is also available. It employs a spell checker. It will find problem geometry or text and list it for you as well as supply a for-management report. The software will burrow down to XREFs used it the drawing and check them, too.

CADconform recently signed the Georgia Dept of Transportation. Other DoTs Altiva counts as customers those from Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia and Michigan.

Cost is $1500, but volume discounts apply.

See Also:

• CADconform, by Altivasoft - company product site
• CAD Standards - list on TenLinks.com

Autodesk Dazzles at It's Annual User Event

LAS VEGAS, NV (Autodesk University) -  To have attended Autodesk University 2013 was to be dazzled by Autodesk. Autodesk's main user event of the year pulled in over 9,000 attendees, most of them users who take classes in how to improve their skills (hence the 'University'), but who also sit and listen to Autodesk keynotes - and attend their lavish parties. Live music plays, beer and wine flows freely and food is in great abundance every night.

It's a good place and time for the press to take the measure of the company, not just with the measured, rehearsed pitches from the stage but from the chatter of the users, the manner in which the presentations are received and the informal talks (many 'off the record') with company executives.

(picture courtesy of Autodesk)

This year, Autodesk outdid itself. From the initial almost boyish enthusiasm of their CTO, Jeff Kowalski and the 'Think Outside" speech to the smoothly delivered closing session by Amar Hanspal showing the most impressive Autodesk projects (virtual Smithsonian exhibits, a private lunar launch¹ and a 3 million builiding model of Los Angeles!), Autodesk gave every impression that it is the coolest and most capable company in our industry.

Autodesk was successful in creating a sense of wonderment and inspiration, of boundless and varied tools and apps. Yes, you could get tips and tutorials on your desktop application -- that's what a lot of the classes were about -- but also shown were many more ways to do it online, on mobile devices, with 3D printing, now with CAM, skills and tools of the future...so many of them, and Autodesk had them all. Autodesk was successful in creating an aura for the new tools as modern, desirable -- but not mandatory. Unlike user events of before, there was no naked sales pitch, no sense of being forced to follow, as in being forced to upgrade or forced to new licensing schemes. No come with us or be damned. Just showing a vast panopoly of technology, a lot of it cheap, some of it free. When you want it, we have it.

So smart.

Autodesk, already in control with the biggest user base in the CAD, CAM and CAE world, manages to keep users from ever eyeing the grass on the other side of the fence. Being in advance of user needs in so many areas (credit to well selected examples of awesome technology use, on stage at AU as well as in the incomparable Autodesk Gallery) means that the millions of every day users will always have a place to turn to. A company that seems to be riding every technology wave is a company they can stay with for the future.

At the same time, being seen as technology leader will encourage acceptance by new and young customers, they being already facile in the the latest technology -- and expecting it in their professional tools.

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1. Moon Express

We're Online. Who Cares About the Rest of the World?

 LAS VEGAS, NV (Autodesk University) -  Autodesk has come out strong in favor of online CAD (many new apps are browser-based, require online access) and cloud technology. This years AU, both Carl Bass, CEO and Jeff Kowalski, CTO , rolled over opposition to online apps and cloud technology in the press Q&A session.

The Jeff and Carl at AU2013: We're online and in the cloud.

In response to Autodesk's adamant stance on online sharing and collaboration, a press member from Argentina said, "We don't like to share." Another from India said "Only 6% if us are online."

Suddenly the world we in the US take for granted --24/7 broadband access, smart phone always in hand, iPads at the airport, one step from having our toasters text us when the toast is ready --has collapsed into its true size.

That's about a billion people right there who can't see the modern picture. Add to that most of Africa, the rest of Asia and Latin America and you have the majority of humans that are a long way off from having the online tools and toys we take for granted. Do tech execs dismiss them as irrelevant?

I feel ashamed. Aren't those countries the growth markets we are always going on about? Don't we pat themselves on the back for sending them baby incubators made from car parts¹ or low emission high-tech cooking stoves² so everyone in the mud hut doesn't die of respiratory failure. We drop coins in the beggar's cup but we think no more of him when we clink our wine glasses

Consider the plight of Rwanda, for example. Landlocked with uncooperative neighbors and denied  access to Internet submarine cables (which is how most of the world gets access) it has to rely on expensive satellite signal, which is split so many ways that the few connections that available are spotty. A tech school³ a hour's drive from the nation's capital has been trying to get Internet connection for years.

The privileged few that set the tech policy really ought to get out more.

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1. Design That Matter

2. Customer Stories BioLite, Inc.: Biomass Stoves - case history by Autodesk

3. SolidWorks Visits ETO Gitarama in Rwanda, Roopinder Tara, CAD Insider, May 9, 2010

Autodesk Buying Delcam Ignores Hottest Trend in Manufacturing

What will Autodesk buy next? It's a game CAD insiders play: pondering the next move of a cash-rich market leader.

Oh, it would have to be company that has great technology and a bright future. If you've been listening to CEO Carl Bass, Autodesk would have to be looking for a company that would help the future generations, kids or their adult(ish) counterparts, the makers. The company, lock-step behind their leader, is embracing new business models. Design apps, not monolithic software on archaic workstations, but apps for their mobile devices. Cloud based, preferably. And helping design was just getting started. Let's make things, they say. But in a new way. Let's make what you (the consumer) wants to make, be it a copy of a sculpture you like, some furniture, something frivolous, a replacement for the knob that fell off you oven and broke...The company with an overabundance of design tools seemed itching to help the entire population be able to hold in their hands whatever may have popped into their heads but may have lacked the design/engineering/manufacturing/financial skills/resources/expertise. No worries, Autodesk was going to make it happen. Mass customization. The very democratization of creation. It had to be simple enough for the person off the street.

Autodesk would just have to buy a 3D printing company, right?

On November 6, Autodesk announced it would be buying Delcam (see press release). Old school CAM at its finest. Picture metal shavings on shop floors and skilled machinists running hulking metal cutting machines. Delcam, a market leader in mainstream CAM. Even with the fanciest multi-axis CNC set up, the state of the art in subtractive machining, is basically the way things were made. Metal gives way to plastic. More parts are made from composites for which no surface machining is required. But the latest generation doesn't even want/need any of that. They want to hit a button and have the part come out.

Even 5 years ago, it would have surprised no one if big CAD bought big CAM. But now, a different way of making things had all of us in rapt attention. 3D printing everything from guns to livers has certainly captured the public attention, but the advancements show promise of 3D printing in manufacturing.

It is a promise from which Autodesk seems to have diverted.