AEC Magazine March / April 2010

March/April 2010 >> Vol.47

AECMAGAZINE

DESIGN, MANAGEMENT & COLLABORATION IN THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT

Straight to the point Laser scanning and point cloud data special report

Geo-10 event preview Free software at Project Butterfly In detail: Advance Steel

Model: Paulig’s coffee roastery, Finland, by Lemcon Ltd

It’s all about you and your team

Tekla Structures Building Information Modelling (BIM) software is being developed according to a long-term plan of enhanced user experience, improved process, and premium functionality. This is to provide you and your whole project team a unique model-based way of collaboration. The new Tekla Structures 16 is not only better but better tested than ever before!

www.teklastructures.com

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Vol.47: Contents

Editorial Managing Editor: Greg Corke Email: greg@x3dmedia.com Consulting Editors Martyn Day Email: martyn@x3dmedia.com

SPECIAL REPORT Laser scanning 10 Capturing reality With a design process that is becoming increasingly 3D, tools are needed to capture existing structures and sites. Laser Scanning and ‘point-cloud’ data have been niche technologies but this year’s CAD releases will open up new possibilities, reports Martyn Day.

John Marchant Email: john.marchant@skilstream.com

12 SPAR 2010 conference

Editorial Assistant: Stephen Holmes Email: stephen@x3dmedia.com Design and Production Dave Oswald Email: davieos@googlemail.com

Laser scanning and point-cloud data will be widely used technologies in the coming years.

Martyn Day visited Houston to attend the only dedicated conference to digitally capture the real world in points.

Advertising

19 Event preview GEO 10

Deputy Advertising Manager: Steve King Email: steve@x3dmedia.com

GEO-10, the dedicated event for geospatial technology, is set to take place on the 24th and 25th March 2010 at the Ricoh Arena, Coventry.

AEC Magazine gives a run down of who’s who on the exhibition floor plus an overview of the two-day seminar.

Advertising Manager: Tony Baksh Email: tony@x3dmedia.com

Subscriptions Manager: Alan Cleveland Email: alan@x3dmedia.com

22 Event report Computational Design Symposium

AEC Magazine is available FREE to qualifying individuals. To ensure you receive your regular copy please register online at www.aecmag.com

In the second part of his analysis of the Computational Design Symposium at Autodesk University, Martyn Day asks what the impact of computational design tools will be and when Autodesk’s will be available.

24 Software Project Butterfly Autodesk Labs is a website where designers can download free software that is currently in development. An increasing trend is towards web-based applications. Martyn Day looks at Autodesk’s future direction.

About AEC Magazine is published bi-monthly by X3DMedia Ltd 93a Rivington Street London EC2A 3AY T. +44 (0)20 3355 7310 F. +44 (0)20 3355 7319 www.x3dmedia.com © 2010 X3DMedia Ltd

26 Software Advance Steel 2010 Starting out life as a modelling tool for structural engineers, Advance Steel has evolved into a highly capable steel detailing solution. Greg Corke reports on the AutoCADbased software that offers advanced modelling, connection design and a managed environment for the production of drawings, bills of materials and Numeric Control code.

All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part without prior permission from the publisher is prohibited. All trademarks acknowledged.

Opinions expressed in articles are those of the author and not of X3DMedia. X3DMedia cannot accept responsibility for errors in articles or advertisements within the magazine.

AEC Magazine is printed by Warners Midlands plc www.warners.co.uk

Front cover:

Stadium scan image courtesy of Alejandro Marambio, Virtual City Modeling Lab, www-cpsv.upc.es/lmvc

AEC MAGAZINE MARCH/APRIL 2010

28 Event report Showcase visualisation: Imagina 2010 The wealthy principality of Monaco was rich in 3D visualisation as this year’s Imagina event got underway in the Mediterranean sunshine.

By Stephen Holmes.

33 Technology Augmenting reality

32 Case study Merging talent and tools A motorway upgrade in Brisbane, Australia, employs a range of software platforms to improve road infrastructure and attract the best specialists available.

Virtual Reality promised much and delivered little. As a result the ‘virtual’ prefix has become a bit of a millstone for many technologies. With all the hype around Augmented Reality Martyn Day wonders if it will suffer the same fate?

34 Hardware Océ ColorWave 300 Océ’s new full colour wide format printer offers production level features in a compact footprint, writes Greg Corke.

CONTENTS

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London arts venue uses TurboCAD for stage sets The stage team at the Roundhouse, North London’s specialist entertainment and arts venue, is using TurboCAD Pro to produce 2D layouts and 3D virtual ‘walk-through’ models of sets for the stage team and for performers.

The Roundhouse was originally a steam engine turning shed, as Ben Ranner, Head of Stage explains: “It is a great venue, but its quirkiness and listed Victorian architecture means that production plans and processes often need to be adapted so that performers can work effectively in the space. Staging events on this scale is way beyond the usefulness of a paper and pencil planning sketch.” www.softwareparadise.co.uk

Collaboration tool to be used on nuclear programme EDF Energy, the UK’s largest producer of electricity, is implementing a new project collaboration system from UNIT4 Collaboration Software across its nuclear new build programme. The BC 5.3 system, which is being used for both internal and external collaboration, is providing a central hub for information management, tracking company processes in order to meet regulatory requirements. www.unit4.com

ArtVPS appoints first Shaderlight reseller ArtVPS has appointed bluegfx as the first UK reseller of its flagship interactive rendering software, Shaderlight, a plug-in for 3ds Max. Shaderlight is a physically-based, progressive ray-tracer that is designed to streamline the rendering pipeline by enabling interactive changes to be made to materials, environments, lighting and textures — the key MELT attributes — at any stage within the rendering process. www.artvps.com

Excitech to tune Inventor for construction projects Excitech has gained accreditation from Autodesk for the sale of Autodesk’s manufacturing solutions.

This extension to an existing relationship will enable the company to sell Autodesk Inventor, a product that is primarily designed for 3D mechanical design, simulation, and tooling creation. Excitech will help its customers make use of the new manufacturing technologies in a range of project types including the design of creative or organic forms for iconic buildings; the design and analysis of complex structural shapes; the design of large mechanical components in, for example, bridge design; and the parametric design of architectural fixtures and fittings. www.excitech.co.uk

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Dassault Systèmes to release new Catia-based construction software Dassault Systèmes is developing a new AEC solution for the entire lifecycle of a building, for use in design, construction and in-service. Scheduled to ship at the end of the year, Catia Architecture is not designed to compete in the same space as Gehry Technologies’ Digital Project, a Catia-based software popular with Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, and other signature architects.

According to Eric Piccuezzu, Dassault Systèmes architecture and construction industry leader, Catia Architecture will be a product for all AEC workflows and not necessarily just for ‘prestige’ projects that utilise the more specialist technology. Utilising Enovia V6, the software will make use of technology that was originally developed for the product design and manufacturing industry. “The strategy is to provide what we have been able to achieve with our Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software and to adapt it for the construction industry,” said Mr Piccuezzu. “To provide collaborative tools to help the architects and engineers, but also the citizens, the people that are doing the building, the contractor, and also people that are occupying or living in the building. Being able to communicate with one another using 3D as a common language and to talk in one community.

“The market is not waiting for a new Revit, it is looking for collaborative platforms that will help it to increase its productivity and achieve better construction co-ordination.”

AEC Magazine was given a video demo of the new product,

Gehry Technologies Digital Project is based on Catia, but the forthcoming Catia Architecture is not designed to compete with the established software. based on Catia Live Shape, a new generation modeller, showing some simple-to-manage shape extractions, the ability to model floors, walls and intelligent components such as windows, but not restricted to rectilinear forms. “You can create volume, but you have all the power of Catia, so volume can be any shape,” explained Mr Piccuezzu. “You can create any shape and affect the behaviour.”

Details of Catia Architecture are still quite thin on the ground, but AEC magazine will provide more information as soon as it becomes available.

www.3ds.com

Informatix ships next generation MicroGDS 2010 Informatix Software has released MicroGDS 2010, the next generation of its flagship 3D design and visualisation BIM software. The software is available in two versions: MicroGDS 2010 C, a premium release which features the Lightworks rendering engine, and MicroGDS 2010 EL. Both versions ship with a copy of Piranesi 2010 Lite, which provides users with non-photorealistic rendering capabilities, and feature an integrated Application Development Kit (ADK). This .NET based software offers Informatix users a way to extend and customise the core MicroGDS technology to fit a wide range of operational needs and methodologies.

“The success of MicroGDS has not just relied on us providing our customers with the latest 3D modelling functionality, collaborative working and knowledge sharing capabilities, and extremely high-end productivity, but also from us giving them unique features such as compatibility

with roaming profiles, CAD standards enforcement, centrally controlled installation and upgrade distribution, and a true multi-user capability across the whole product range.

And just as importantly, solutions based on and geared to delivering against, the industry’s buildingSMART (IFC/CObie) interoperability goals,” said Mr Steve Evans, Managing Director of Informatix. “Similarly, I believe that our long term relationship with Navisworks and our unparalleled DWF, DWG and DXF expertise has proven to be an excellent background on which to develop products that can help our customers grow into the BIM environment with confidence and comfort.”

MicroGDS 2010 was previewed in the November / December 2009 edition of AEC Magazine, which is available to download from www.aecmag.com. The magazine can also be read on the iPhone with the new AEC Magazine app available through Apple’s iStore. www.informatix.co.uk

AutoTurn 7.0 focuses on specialist transporters AutoTurn 7.0 is the latest version of the CAD based swept-path software from Transoft Solutions. The new release has a major focus on specialist transport systems, which is beneficial when designing for large-scale construction projects.

New features include the ability to generate complex vehicle simulations with standard or specialist transport vehicles including independent rear steering systems. Three part reverse simulations for three part vehicles have also been included and with support for Telescoping Joint trailers, AutoTurn users can now design using logging trucks or create new types of vehicles with similar characteristics. www.transoftsolutions.com

AEC MAGAZINE MARCH/APRIL 2010

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Courtesy of Heinrich Lampater Stahlbau Gmbh

CAD & DESIGN SOFTWARE FOR CONSTRUCTION PROFESSIONALS

Advance Steel Advance Steel is a major extension of AutoCADÂŽ that accelerates structural steel modelling and automatically creates and manages drawings, revisions, schedules/lists and NC files. Advance Steel is a specially developed BIM solution for the steel industry designed to improve collaboration, increase productivity and production quality.

Advance Design Advance Design conducts static and dynamic analysis of 2D and 3D structures based on the finite element calculation method. Advance Design is your in-house steel/concrete construction expert that features a 3D Climatic generator, non-linear calculation, support for large displacement phenomenon, structural optimization, and much more.

Advance Concrete Advance Concrete is a major AutoCADÂŽ extension that accelerates modelling, detailing and drawing creation for concrete reinforcement and formwork drawings. With its BIM links, Advance Concrete dramatically increases productivity while maintaining or increasing drawing quality.

www.graitec.co.uk

Advert BIM 10 WIP:Layout 1 12/03/2010 12:22 Page 1

Concept

Built

Occupied

Managed

Is “Green by Design” a gimmick?

Certainly our software developers don’t think so!

We believe that our decision to give customers the choice of implementing the brand new MicroGDS 2010 CAD/BIM product range as a Thin Client Application not only serves the environment, by reducing the carbon cost of setting up and running a CAD/BIM operation, but it also, and often significantly, delivers lower hardware purchase and upgrade costs, greater scalability, and cheaper and easier software distribution and management.

But how will MicroGDS 2010 help us in the current “Credit Crunch”?

And what about these CAD drawings from other systems?

There is certain functionality that just needs to be a given.

There is nowhere to hide from the issues of interoperability.

Working as a team in today’s ultra competitive market is critical to meeting deadlines and maintaining margins. We feel that even the Informatix is a world leader in the field of CAD data exchange, offering data representation in XML with 100% accuracy, as lowest cost Entry Level CAD/BIM product needs to provide: well as providing exceptional support for industry standard • Simultaneous “Multi-Users” – enabling a true multi formats such as DWF, DWG and DXF. discipline multi-team design environment.

• Built-In “Project Collaborator” – providing secure interdiscipline communication and knowledge exchange across the whole project team, no matter their geography.

• Built-In “Project Status” viewer – freely distributable software that allows clients, sub-contractors or non-direct staff to be involved in the project. Providing the ability to view and print 2D and 3D designs from anywhere in the world.

• Full Microsoft Integration – Easy to use and extremely powerful, making Excel, Word, Project, Outlook etc. data sets truly integrable parts of the project BIM.

The “Evolution of BIM” Can you explain to me exactly what BIM can do for me and my clients?

The power of BIM is better demonstrated then explained!

A complete range of short and highly watchable videos can be found at microgds.co.uk/bim

Please contact us for more information:

Informatix Software International Limited. 509 Coldhams Lane, Cambridge CB1 3JS Tel: 01223 246777 = Fax: 01223 246778 = Email: info@informatix.co.uk = Website:www.informatix.co.uk Images courtesy of Andrew Kuleshov and Marco Crawford

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Arup signs agreement with Tekla as Tekla Structures 16 is launched

Arup has signed a global framework agreement with Tekla UK covering the supply of Tekla Structures BIM (Building Information Modelling) software. This agreement builds on their existing relationship and includes the supply and maintenance of the software, development of a link to the Oasys GSA analysis and design software, and a working group to help develop project workflows between consultant and specialist sub-contractors.

“The agreement with Arup recognises the Tekla Structures BIM solution being a major advantage to any engineering consultancy. We are offering them the ability to bring value

to a project that perhaps no other solution can provide,” says Andrew Bellerby, managing director of Tekla UK. “Building Information Modelling processes on projects are becoming more commonplace, and the Tekla solution allows Arup to collaborate not only with the architect and MEP (Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing) but also to work more closely with the specialist sub-contractors.”

Meanwhile, Tekla has launched Tekla Structures 16, which is said to include close to 500 feature improvements and new benefits, such as an improved solution for cast-in-place concrete and better IFC data exchange.

In terms of other workflow improvements, Tekla claims a better utilisation of reference models, improved numbering, and model publishing tools, such as a free application to share the model over the Internet. Other new features include improved usability by snapping tools and by zooming to selected parts, an updated master drawing catalogue, better object-level settings, and new filtering and instant graphics on drawings.

www.teklastructures.com

Parametrics used to design retail building façade The CA Group, a supplier and manufacturer of industrial and commercial metal roofing and cladding systems, used PTC’s Pro/Engineer to help create the building façade for the recently opened Debenhams store in the £100 million Arc development project in Bury St. Edmonds, Suffolk. The building’s design features complicated, sweeping forms, and CA Group faced the challenge of starting the design work on the 85,000 square foot building before both the final floor shape and building location within the site were fully determined.

According to PTC, Pro/Engineer helped the company alter various aspects of the model, while the parametric changes flowed instantly throughout the entire design.

The advanced assembly package also enabled the CA Group to work on either individual parts, or the entire model.

Vertice helps open virtual doors for Microsoft Vertice, the developer of the Nova real-time 3D engine, has created two virtual models for Microsoft, which are being used to visualise the Microsoft Technology Centre and Windows Café in Paris. The virtual models were produced with Nova Server, which allows users to navigate virtual 3D models directly from the Web without the need for powerful 3D hardware. www.vertice.fr

Vital Engineering, a mechanical engineering consulting firm focused on sustainability, has selected Bentley’s Hevacomp Simulator V8i building energy simulation software (pictured) to perform energy analysis on the $80 million, mixed-use Station Pointe complex in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and achieve net-zero energy impact. The project’s success hinges on the team’s ability to meet the energy requirements for this complex, which in its current conceptual state contains a multi-storey apartment complex, townhouse buildings, and a 16-storey residential tower. www.bentley.com © Vital Engineering

The final design featured a three-dimensional, curved flowing skin, comprised of 3,822 individual parts with 384 different shapes. www.ptc.com

AceCad has released a new version of its collaborative 3D project review tool, StruWalker. The software is designed to enable effective communication and model sharing between architects, engineers, detailers, fabricators and construction teams and combines 3D visualisation with review and mark-up tools.

Models can be imported from StruCad and other structural engineering software through CIS/2 and features include sequencing and scheduling, piece tracking, plus the ability to measure distances and query piece data.

Meanwhile, AceCad has also released a new version of its steelwork modelling / detailing system, StruCad. Key features of version 15.5 include enhanced assembly editing, a centre of gravity CAD Macro, a lifting bracket connection macro, improved weights and areas handling, and enhanced nested drawings. Other enhancements include improved KISS Output, updates to Hi-Span cold rolled systems, and nudge and weld move 2D macros. www.acecadsoftware.com

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Digital Imaging company, Crystal CG, has announced the official launch of its international operations, Crystal CG International.

Headquartered in London, the company will combine its established operations in China with its new creative management team to grow the business and to deliver its 3D imaging and animation services to the European market for projects including the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Crystal CG is best known for delivering the digital imaging for the opening and closing ceremonies at the Beijing Olympics (pictured). www.crystalcg.co.uk

Hevacomp Simulator V8i to be used on $80m complex

AceCad unveils new collaborative review tool

MARCH/APRIL 2010 AEC MAGAZINE

Olympic games design viz specialist goes global

CSC offers design tool for small structural practices CSC has launched Fastrak Building Designer Limited Edition (LE), a code-based building design software for small structural engineering businesses. The software is a reduced member version of Fastrak Building Designer and features automated wind loading, composite beam design, multimaterial modelling and drawing production.

Fastrak Building Designer LE incorporates EC3 Eurocode design capabilities.

www.cscworld.com

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Bentley to help structural engineers build integrated project workflows Bentley Systems has introduced a new methodology called Integrated Structural Modelling (ISM), which is designed to help improve interoperability between the many software applications required for structural projects. It works by integrating the structural workflow, which entails modelling, analysis and design, documentation and drafting, detailing and fabrication, plus industry neutral formats such as CIS/2, SDNF and IFC, to aid better collaboration and sharing of data between authors and consumers of structural information.

“At the expense of trying to make up another file format, or yet another interoperability standard we have decided to actually create a workflow or managed process and that process is called Integrated Structural Modelling,” says Santanu Das, vice president, software, structural, Bentley. ISM works by providing a shared repository of common structural model data. We are not trying to move all the data across from one aspects of a workflow to another, just the common stuff. We want to co-ordinate all of the changes that are happening. Someone decides to delete a beam, add a footing, change where a window is supposed to be, we want to be able to track it.”

ISM is designed to provide widespread access to data models, so if someone does not have a piece of software on their desk it does not prevent them from making changes or interrogating the data. Change management is also a key feature of the methodology, as Santanu Das explains: “With most static interoperability formats that exist today you can not actually see what one particularly department, vendor, subcontractor, engineer or architect has done throughout the process.”

Through Bentley’s ISM, users are able to track revisions and compare differences between versions.

There are two components that make up ISM: Structural Synchronizer V8i and Structural Dashboard V8i, both of which are free to download from www.bentley.com/ism Structural Synchronizer provides the shared repository and enables users to track revisions and compare differences between versions. It also offers an open API enabling thirdparty vendors to integrate with the ISM workflow.

Structural Dashboard is used to manage workflows for common project types and lets users create customised workflows specific to individual projects. It can also be used to launch all structural applications from a unified interface.

Bentley was keen to point out that ISM is not only for Bentley products and confirmed that it could be used entirely with non-Bentley software, including Autodesk Revit Structure.

www.bentley.com/ism

take a more proactive approach to our IT deployment. By following this model it ensures that we are at the level of readiness required to guarantee a successful outcome on any project we undertake. This will result in lower costs, fewer disruptions during implementation, greater end user adoption and ultimately a clear return on the investment made.”

Professor Alshawi — m.a.alshawi@salford.ac.uk

Leica delivers compact next-gen laser scanner Leica Geosystems has introduced the Leica ScanStation C10, the company’s latest laser scanner for as-built and topographic surveys. The compact scanner is an integrated cable-less system that can carry out full dome scans up to ten times faster than its predecessor. This, according to Leica, means a typical room scan now takes less than two minutes. The scanner features a high-resolution colour touch screen and integrated, high-resolution zoom camera/video.

“This is the type of instrument that is truly worthy of being called ‘Leica Geosystems’ next-generation scanner’. Leica ScanStation C10 will no doubt reinforce our reputation for innovation and leadership in High-Definition Surveying,” states Dr. Juergen Dold, President of Leica Geosystems’ Geospatial Solutions Division. “From a value, versatility and productivity standpoint, the all-in-one Leica ScanStation C10 is ideal for organisations wanting to get into scanning or organisations wanting to add a more versatile and productive scanner to their existing fleet.” www.leica-geosystems.com

MARCH/APRIL 2010 AEC MAGAZINE

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LandSIM3D v2.0 is the latest release of the 3D simulation and visualisation software from Bionatics dedicated to city and territory planning as well as landscape preservation.

The new release facilitates the real-time loading and display of complete 3D cities made up of thousands of buildings and stored in common 3D formats such as 3ds or Google SketchUp. www.landsim3d.com

Bentley shakes up format of annual user conference

E-readiness model released for the construction Industry The school of the Built Environment (BuHu) at the University of Salford, has released its e-Readiness model, a new IT/IS capability model written by Professor Mustafa Alshawi and designed to help organisations establish whether they are ready to integrate technology investments into their work practices.

Mark Bew, director of business information systems at Scott Wilson, comments: “The model enables us to

LandSIM3D presents entire cities in real time 3D

Bentley Systems has opened registration for the inaugural Be Together: The Be Communities Live Conference, being held May 17-20, 2010, at the Pennsylvania Convention Centre in Philadelphia.

“Be Together is a marked departure from the Be Conferences of previous years,” says Keith Bentley, founder and CTO of Bentley.

“Its format and content were driven by the members of our Be Communities website and Be User Groups. So attendees can look forward to a hands-on, product-oriented experience focused on helping practitioners get their jobs done faster and with better results.” www.bentley.com/beconference

Handheld surveying tool adds schedule creation Orthograph has updated its handheld building surveying software for Windows Mobile devices. Version 1.1 offers new export options and adds new features for schedule creation. It is now possible to schedule off measured areas, perimeters, and wall, door and window surfaces areas all on-site.

These schedules can be run on a single room, a selection of rooms, or on a whole storey. Orthograph also includes support for Leica’s new Disto D8 model, which features increased accuracy and a digital camera based point finder. www.orthograph.net

Workstation Specialists introduces six core CPU

Workstation Specialists has added three new products to its professional graphics workstation portfolio. The WS2600 and WS1600 Pro 3D Workstations are powered by the latest Intel Xeon six core ‘Westmere’ CPUs and are available with clock speeds up to 3.33GHz. The New WSM Mobile Pro 3D Graphics Workstations are powered by the latest Intel Core i7 four core mobile CPUs with clock speeds up to 3.20GHz.

www.workstationspecialists.com

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Laser scanning special report

Capturing reality With a design process that is becoming increasingly 3D, tools are needed to capture existing structures and sites. Laser scanning and ‘point-cloud’ data have been niche technologies but this year’s CAD releases will open up new possibilities, reports Martyn Day.

C

omputer Aided Design (CAD) revolutionised 2D drafting, with the majority of practices throwing their drawing boards away and benefitting from adopting a digital workflow.

However, design technology and best practice are always being redefined and enhanced to find competitive advantage. Today, ‘being 2D’ only assists documentation, the adoption of 3D is accelerating as it brings designs to life, providing the benefits of co-ordinated documentation changes, the chance to run analysis, create visualisation, provide quantities and even identify clashes before getting to site.

But with the move to a model-based process, everything has to be modelled which can be time consuming and bloat project files. So is there a quick way to capture existing infrastructure and merge it with 3D BIM models?

Survey There are a number of ways to create 3D models of an existing building in a BIM tool, the slowest route is to perform a traditional survey and create a drawing and then a model. For modelling in context, 2D maps can be referenced and faceless 3D blocks can be used to approximate forms of adjacent buildings - and for some instances, on small projects, this approach is cost effective.

But when a large ‘old’ or undocumented building needs to be modelled for renovation or retrofit this approach is slow, lacks detail and is manpower intensive. There is a smarter way.

Laser scanning and optical capture technology enables the rapid and accurate capture of the real world, from vegetation and topology to buildings and infrastructure. Laser scanners shoot a cone of laser light within a space, capturing X, Y and Z position of all the surface instances it hits. These systems work by measuring the time of flight for each laser beam, which can be fired between 10,000 and 100,000 times per second.

The resultant file made of X, Y and Z points is called a point-cloud. These points are often combined with a digital image created by an optical camera, to capture the colour and texture information of the item being scanned. Viewing

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SCANNING — SPECIAL REPORT

a point-cloud image from afar is very much like looking at a photograph. It is only when you zoom in that you see it is made from millions of individual coloured points.

To complete a survey a number of overlapping scans need to be performed as areas in shade from one scanning position will not be detailed and lasers are only accurate over a set distance. All the survey data is brought into software, which works from a common reference point to bring together the point-cloud surveys for alignment and registration.

These point-clouds can be extremely dense, comprise billions of points and make multi-gigabyte files that can tax most hardware.

Other common laser survey problems include edge definement, which lasers may not hit, highly reflective surfaces and details down narrow ‘gaps’.

In these instances some preparation work may have to be done to aid the system, such as placing tape on corners. Laser scans can also not be performed in rain, as the light hits the water and ‘noise’ will be introduced into the point-cloud.

Highly detailed view of a section of Oxford Street, London, displayed in the PoinTools Vortex engine. The model was created using multiple scans.

On the roof dark areas are shadows where point-cloud information could not be gathered.

Scan to BIM It would be absolutely fantastic to scan a building and automatically take the resultant point-cloud and get a parametric, accurate model out the other end. Unfortunately that is nowhere near possible, although people are already working on it.

While the point-clouds produced by these 3D scanners are often not used directly, it is possible to use them for visualisation and measurement.

A single point survey of a road junction captured using a Leica scanner.

Multiple views scans would be necessary to fill in the detail as lasers can only capture line of sight.

The next task is to convert these points into something more usable and ‘CAD friendly’. The options are to create polygon meshes, NURBS of tessellated surfaces or feature-based solid models. As the complexity increases, the time and the cost unfortunately also escalate, so it is really important to identify exactly what the data will be used for.

Turning point-clouds into meshed models can be useful for visualisation and allow analysis and even CNC machining. Editing meshes is not ideal and the tolerance and quality of any surface is compromised as everything is made up from straight lines. There are many mesh editors out there including Meshlab (which is free), McNeel and Associates’ Rhino and Kubit PointCloud for AutoCAD. The next ‘step up’ in accuracy is full surface conversion. By converting point-clouds to NURBS or Splines, it is possible to generate quilts of continuous curved surfaces from point clouds.

These can be stitched and edited with an array of standard tools, again Rhino, Kubit, Autodesk’s 3ds Max, Maya and Geomagic. Surfacing software has come a long way in the last five years and a surface model is eminently more usable today.

So far the ultimate goal for conversion has been a full solid model but this has been because the majority of companies using scanners have operated in automotive, aerospace and product design. There are no major CAD or BIM tools that produce actual solid models, which are overkill for an AEC system, but this could be used as part of conceptual design process.

Any natural shape or one built in a model can be brought in to CAD to edit, and it is possible to AEC MAGAZINE MARCH/APRIL 2010

two most common methods appear to be mixing the point-cloud with the CAD BIM model to show design or proposed changes in context, or using the scan to produce referenced 2D vector floor plans, from which the BIM model can be quickly generated.

Looking at cost

capture that in a point-cloud and add intelligence, such as parametrics to a converted solid model.

Products such as Geomagic Fashion will find blends, fillets and features in point-clouds and allow the full power of a solid modelling tool to be used to reshape and refine a scanned object.

However, the software is not cheap.

Scanning to BIM is perhaps a misnomer as there is no direct software tool to provide that service. BIM is not about geometry, it is more about the information that is attached to the geometry. Point-clouds are just X, Y and Z dots and most of the tools generate CAD geometry.

In areas such as process plant, objects like pipes, valves and cylinders are standard shapes and sizes, it is possible to convert the points to solids or surfaces and find and replace the dumb geometry for intelligent CAD components.

Buildings and civil infrastructure just are not as standard. This is not going to stop research into delivering on the concept and there are a number of companies looking at ways of doing this. The MARCH/APRIL 2010 AEC MAGAZINE

Renowned for having the fastest point cloud engine available, PoinTools offers a range of standalone applications for the manipulation of point-clouds. Its technology is also being embedded in Bentley’s next version of MicroStation.

With a scanning machine priced anywhere between $35,000 and $100,000, these are not the kind of devices that many companies have in-house, but there are many global bureaus that offer a terrestrial-based service, together with aerial, car and train-based scanning.

With such expensive hardware, the software to load, manipulate and convert these huge point-clouds has traditionally cost a pretty penny, anywhere between $10,000 and $20,000 a seat, which has inhibited wide-scale usage in the field of architecture. However, scanning has found a home in richer markets such as oil, gas, mining, and in government funded areas such

as civil infrastructure and geo/mapping.

The cost of entry is about to change significantly, with Bentley and Autodesk introducing point-cloud engines and capabilities into their core products.

For Bentley customers, the company is adding the renowned PoinTools Vortex engine to core MicroStation. PoinTools is widely regarded as the fastest tool for manipulating large pointclouds. While Bentley has had an arrangement with Leica and its software technology in the past, the Vortex engine will undoubtedly boost performance. Bentley has many customers in big industry that are already heavily into scanning plant, road and rail infrastructures.

Autodesk demonstrated a new point-cloud engine at its Autodesk University gathering in Las Vegas last December. Billed as ‘forthcoming technology’, it is widely expected to be a core feature of the next release of AutoCAD, which should be available in the next couple of months.

In the past, Autodesk had licensed technology Continued on page 17

“Laser scanning and optical capture technology enables the rapid and accurate capture of the real world, from vegetation and topology to buildings and infrastructure.”

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Laser scanning special report

SPAR 2010 Conference Laser scanning and point-cloud data will be widely used technologies in the coming years. Martyn Day visited Houston to attend the only dedicated conference to digitally capture the real world in points.

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very year in a leafy suburb of Houston, the world’s only dedicated scanning event brings together people from across the industry to catch up on the latest state of the art technology and meet important customers. Called SPAR, it is organised and run by SPAR Point Research, a company which is dedicated to cover and consult on 3D scanning, imaging and position capture technologies.

The company is headed up by Tom Greaves who formerly worked for Daratech, a consulting group that focussed on CAD and Process Plant. In my research for these articles Spar Point has provided invaluable access to the key players in the industry.

In the past, the three-day symposium has reflected the industry’s niche focuses, but with the expanded use of laser scanning and increased need to capture the real world the show has been growing. This year’s event attracted 750 attendees, up over 23% on the year before. The topics covered ranged from Process Plant and Avatar to protecting ancient monuments and detecting snowfall on Mars. The breadth of application for this technology is clearly mushrooming.

A dedicated track on Scan to Building Information Modelling (BIM) was new for this year and the sessions were surprisingly packed out. Autodesk and Bentley Systems were in attendance, both in the exhibition space and on stage. Saying that, the majority of the case studies given in the BIM stream concerned getting cloud-point data into Revit, but more on that later.

Keynotes

The interior of a Volvo assembly plant comprising two billion points in total. Image courtesy of Volvo Car Corporation and PoinTools.

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There were many great presentations given at the event but I want to concentrate on three. The first was given by Paul Debevec, associate director, Graphics Research, University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT); the second by Rajeev Kalandani, Virtual Manufacturing supervisor from Ford Motor Company; and the third was a highly informative Scan to BIM session by Pat Carmichael, manager, Advanced Technologies, HKS architects.

Paul Debevec took from his initial research project at UC Berkley, trying to capture shapes from photographic images, all the way through to the work he did on the blockbuster movie, Avatar. Mr Debevec started by trying to capture the campus of his University and product a photorealistic image.

Using cameras on kites and from the highest AEC MAGAZINE MARCH/APRIL 2010

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vantage points, and old aerial photography, he managed to develop a photogrammetric modelling system that created a texture mapped, 3D model given minimal user input. This was demonstrated at the SIGGRAPH computer graphics exhibition in 1997 where a Hollywood movie director picked up on the technology and asked Mr Debevec for help with a film he was trying to make, called the Matrix.

In fact the technology that Mr Debevec developed was used to capture many of the real-world scenes that involved the slow motion bullet dodging. While that was very impressive Mr Debevec was not happy that he was ‘stuck’ with the lighting that was captured in the original photographs and bitmaps, so set about looking at ways of liberating the geometry from the sunlight.

Mr Debevec’s next project for SIGGRAPH 2004 was to capture the Parthenon, put back the Elgin marbles, return it to its former glory and animate it - this section really was quite extraordinary. With the assistance of Quantapoint laser scanners, the team scanned the Parthenon in five days - and on one of those days it was not possible to do anything due to a strike.

The laser scanner used could shoot 100,000 points per second and capture panoramic views. In total they took 120, 60 million point scans and with

The next issue was capturing the textures. Taking photographs is good but they have the lighting and shading ‘baked’ into them, impacting the texture map that would be applied to the model. Mr Debevec needed to come up with a way to divide out the impact of the lighting conditions. This was primarily achieved through taking pictures at different times of the day but it is also a challenge to take inconsistently lit photographs to create texture maps.

The other solution meant that every time a photograph was taken, another picture was taken at a light-measuring device that comprised three balls on a wooden disc. One ball was black, one chrome and one diffuse grey. The controlled image would provide all the radiance, sun colour and intensity information about the light in that scene. This meant every photograph came with detailed information on how the hemisphere was lit at that exact moment. This enabled the light to be factored out of the texture map, giving near perfect colourisation.

The Parthenon’s famous frieze was taken ‘for safe keeping’ by Lord Elgin between 1801 and 1812 and is currently held in the British Museum. Mr Debevec wanted to scan the frieze and digital place it back in the model, on a trip to see it Mr Debevec took a number of

a variety of techniques the site was pulled together.

However, there was scaffolding and cranes all over the building and site, which had to be digitally removed and then converted into surfaces, converting small sections of the geometry at any time due to the processing needs.

photographs of the gallery and put some feelers out to see if he could scan the marbles. As it was a politically sensitive issue, Mr Debevec decided to find another solution and discovered that many plaster casts of the marbles were created 200 years ago and one intact set were available in Basle Switzerland.

New Technology There was plenty of new technology on show at the event, with faster, more accurate laser scanners, together with innovative software to make sense of all the dots. For now however, the cost of these scanners is still high and the software that is required is not that cheap either.

With both MicroStation and AutoCAD set to receive enhanced support for the native handling of point-cloud this will change over the next year. From the HKS keynote in particular it could be heard just how painful it was to manage the data and get it in the right format at the right time. The following companies caught my eye while wondering around the show floor:

ClearEdge3D Mentioned a number of times within the Scan to BIM track, ClearEdge3D offers a number of products to make rapid

The externals of a complex building converted to CAD. HKS used Edgewise to drastically cut down point-cloud conversion time using this technology.

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sense of all these dots. Its primary product is Edgewise, which automatically extracts simplified, highly accurate, editable CAD models from point clouds using new algorithms. It converts these vectors to polygon models within minutes. The results can be imported directly into Google SketchUp or any other CAD application, where solid modelling tools can quickly fill any remaining gaps in www.clearedge3d.com the model.

PoinTools PoinTools is the small British company that has ‘done good’. One of the founders and key personalities is Faraz Ravi. Formerly an Architect, Mr Ravi decided he wanted to go into programming. He quickly decided to write the fastest point-cloud engine and, from the number of people that use his software, it would appear he has succeeded.

Its Vortex engine lies underneath a number of its key products: PoinTool Edit and PoinTools View Pro. There are two add-ons available, one for Rhino (PoinTools 4 Rhino) and one for AutoCAD (PoinTools Model).

Mr Ravi gave a brief demonstration of forthcoming technology to break up large datasets into referenced cells, so the data can be worked on by a distributed team without hitting file size issues. It looked like a great solution to a common problem and could well have come out of the work that PoinTools did with Ford. www.pointools.com

Kubit Coming from Germany and having strong links with Leica Geosystems and Autodesk, Kubit has a few tricks up its sleeve. I sense that there is something going on between Autodesk and Kubit with the new point-cloud tools that Autodesk is developing, which would make sense given the degree of AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT integration that Kubit has opted for with its products.

On the show floor, the company was demonstrating its mobile PC application TachyCAD, which links AutoCAD to a Leica TotalStation, enabling all measurements to be entered directly into the CAD system for instant surveys.

The company also develops PhoToPlan for image manipulation inside AutoCAD, PointCloud for 3D point processing, MonuMap for mapping building conditions DisToPlan for capturing real world as-built information and a Facilities Management application hylasFM.

www.kubit.de

Secret Service With so many interesting tracks of talks given in parallel it was hard to see every presentation. Until the end of the event I had totally neglected to go the security sessions but a talk on how the army was using laser scanning to find Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in Iraq and Afghanistan seemed too interesting to miss.

Unfortunately the heavy snow on the east coast had played havoc with the presenters and the timetable and

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To properly capture the human face, Paul Debevec uses multiple light conditions while scanning, including diffuse, specular diffuse and striped lights at different brightness provide a basis for life-like computer renderings.

that had run earlier in the day. Instead I had a fascinating presentation from the FBI on how it scanned, modelled and rapid prototyped a semi-submerged drugs boat they caught, which had originated in Colombia. There were strictly no cameras or audio allowed, so to see an image, Google search for ‘semi submersible cocaine Colombia’.

It appears drugs barons are getting into manufacturing and have multiple jungle-based workshops where they assemble hundreds of these rather odd looking craft. They cost about $1 million each to manufacture and they launch them in flotillas of ten to fifteen in one go, each one is unique and not built to a plan. Sitting so low in the water they are very hard to detect and if found the operators frequently scuttle the boats. In fact once their payload is delivered the boats are scuttled anyway. Delivering $10 million of cocaine, at a cost of $1 million.

The FBI managed to catch one intact and a team was sent in to laser scan in the internal and exterior of the boat - not an easy task give the cramped access. From the point cloud a detailed model was created in McNeel & Associates’ Rhino. The model allows agents to familiarise themselves with the craft and for analysis to be performed on the shape. Leaving little wake and at slow speeds these semi-subs are proving hard to track down. Surprisingly these machines have no exhaust port and the engines are shut in, with the operators occasionally opening the door to let the fumes escape.

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Building his own scanner out of a video projector and a video camera, his team managed to capture and digitise these copies. Based on his tourist photos from the British Museum, Mr Debevec also managed to digitally recreate the rectangular room in which the marbles are housed.

Mr Debevec then demonstrated the video, starting with renderings of the sculptures, highlights of carvings discovered on the blocks, together with a canon ball and impact carter, when it was used as an ammo dump by the occupying Ottomans. A time lapse sky was added to the hemisphere lighting the model as the building is found today, cutting to the British Museum the frieze is magically reunited with the Parthenon and eventually coloured and rejuvenated, finally pulling back to show the complete complex as it would have looked in ancient times.

However, Mr Debevec was not finished there. One of the biggest limitations of computer graphics has been in replicating the human face. With so much complexity and subtlety, our eyes can quickly recognise a real person talking and a computer generated animation.

With more research on lighting and capturing all the subtlety that skin contains, Mr Debevec came up with a way of capturing geometry and lighting allowing highly dynamic and realistic animation.

This work came to the attention of a certain James Cameron and this new technology was applied to the characters of Avatar. All the key actors were scanned in great detail for the Weta animation house. This led to incredibly lifelike facial expressions and lighting of

skin (albeit blue skin). Even some of the characters which were not big blue aliens were scanned and in some shots were animated instead of acted. All in all an absolutely breathtaking keynote.

Digital factories Avatar is a tough act to follow and many on the conference circuit have come up against someone who did a bit of work on the film. Rajeev Kalandani from Ford Motor Company was up next and he apologised for having to talk about digital factories for Powertrain assembly instead of aliens. While this may sound like it has no applicability to architecture, just hold that thought a second.

Mr Kalandani’s talk was entitled, ‘Visualising the Elephant in 3D — The changing paradigms in Powertrain Manufacturing at Ford’. The automotive world is in transition from 2D to 3D. While the automotive design has been done in 3D for a considerable period of time, the manufacturing design is still in the process of moving to create virtual manufacturing environment.

To design the manufacturing system for a Powertain design Ford allows 48 months lead-time till the first one rolls off the factory line. In the traditional process, the manufacturing division could really only get seriously going when the product was fully designed, back loading the design of the manufacturing plant. By adopting an upfront virtual manufacturing approach, the assembly lines can be

The American Coastguard is looking to try and identify the sound signatures of the engines so they can pick them up on their underwater listening equipment. However, more worryingly, the Colombian authorities have found a partially complete proper submarine in the jungle that was being constructed with Russian and American experts. It was scheduled to make regular drug delivers to places as far away as Italy.

London calling I was happy to bump into representatives from South Wales Police and the London Metropolitan Police force in this track. Both use laser scanners to capture scenes of crimes. According to the organisers, last year there was a presentation given by the Secret Service on how laser scans were used to protect President Obama at his inauguration. The entire area of Washington D.C. was scanned so line of site could be attained on any possible trouble spots and was used to aid the deployment of special forces and secret service agents.

Zebra Imaging We have covered this technology in the past but it never fails to impress. Zebra Imaging has created a holographic printer which outputs colour 3D models ‘trapped’ in a 2D holographic plane. As you walk past their booth you get the distinct feeling something is following you and it is, as the whole cityscape can be looked around. These have to

A 3D computer model of proposed buildings can be output as a holograph and used for meetings. As your view changes, you can actually ‘look around’ the project.

A laser scan of a car which had been crashed into by a train is captured and printed to a 2D surface by Zebra imaging. The print was used in a court case. be seen to be believed. It is even possible to video the view and capture the 3D effect. Certainly worth checking out the website. www.zebraimaging.com

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designed simultaneously with the product design, offering obvious benefits.

Also as the products are designed in 3D, the manufacturing teams can now run casting and solidification analysis, Finite Element Analysis (FEA), CNC machining and virtual assembly line simulation.

Everything can be run and tested virtually in the computer before the design is finished, improving quality and removing unwelcome surprises on fabrication.

Ford has a number of uses for scanners. Mr Kalandani explained that as each component moves around the factory it sits in a bespoke pallet and these pallets are not cheap. Using scanning technology they can take a pallet, compare with new components, check for interference, redesign the cradle and issue a detailed rework order, saving time and a fortune in the process.

Another use of laser scanners is to capture each of its manufacturing plants (factories) in great detail, so they can run manufacturing simulation in the actual plant. Having decided to start with one plant, Mr Kalandani describes the fly through of the first colour cloud model of its Cleveland line as a watershed moment for senior management.

The company can combine CAD as it moves through the assembly line with the point-cloud of the factory giving an amazing virtual experience. The result was more money to buy laser scanners and the directive to scan all 30 facilities worldwide.

The use of scanned data has extended with Autodesk’s Navisworks, which can mix both CAD

geometry and point-cloud and provide clash detection, prior to any installation work.

Mr Kalandani explained that while CAD models are precise in nature, they may not be accurate representations of ‘as built’. This is another major advantage of laser scanning. While Ford has many 2D drawings of its factories, the laser scans give rapid access to the as-built nature of the factory content.

This can then be used to more accurately make design changes but require multiple applications to make any real use out of the point-cloud; FSP Viewer, PoinTools View Pro, PoinTools Model, Navisworks and Geomagic Fashion are all used in conjunction with the FARO scanning equipment and software.

With all this processing, Mr Kalandani said that there was an increasing cost to turning point-cloud to CAD and it is not always necessary with increasing cost data rates; points, meshes, tessellated and finally CAD (solid models). Ford only models objects that are going to be physically manufactured, tessellation is for visualisation, analysis and virtual assembly and mesh is for analysis and rapid prototyping. Coloured Pointclouds are great for visualisation and clash detection.

The technology does not come without its issues, aligning and segmenting data from large areas, in excess of 250,000 sq ft means manipulating multigigabyte files and the computing power is never enough. Alignment is an issue with 2D AutoCAD data and maintaining all this data is a headache. The interoperability, or lack of it is an area Mr Kalandani would like to see improved, with a reduction in the number of applications required.

Summing up, Mr Kalandani stated that ‘Field checks’ was the killer application for laser scanning in Ford, saving money when integrating utilities and structural elements into existing facilities. Ford’s vision is to fabricate off-site and have plug and play installations.

Scan to BIM This is a market segment that did not exist last year.

There was scanning in transport and architecture but the BIM part is really a new introduction and like all three letter abbreviations, it really depends on how you define BIM. In this case you would walk away with the idea that BIM was Autodesk Revit, as the majority of projects were completed in Revit. The key problem with Revit and scanned data is that it does not currently support point-clouds in their native formats.

So ‘Scan to BIM’ is not really an automated process, which we all hope it will be, it is more of an ordeal.

However HKS architects’ Pat Carmichael, manager, Advanced Technologies, was on hand to show what can be achieved if you have nailed that process.

Over the last eleven months the firm has completed a number of projects using Revit and scanners, experimenting as they go to get a defined process. The company uses Leica’s Cyclone and ClearEdge3D Edgewise to build a wireframe of the point-cloud. Mr Carmichael was a big fan of Edgewise as it dramatically assisted this process.

50 United Nations Plaza is a Federal Building in San Francisco comprising 360,000 sq ft of

Hardware profiles Faro Based in Lake Mary, Florida, FARO develops and markets portable co-ordinate measuring devices together with industry-specific software solutions, to allow high-precision 3D measurements and 3D comparisons of parts and complex systems directly within assembly and production processes. Its product range includes the measurement arms, Laser Scanners and the CAD-based measurement and reporting software.

The company’s key laser scanner is the FARO Photon, a portable non-contact measurement system to accurately capture 3D data. The system rotates 360° and measures everything within its line of sight up to 120 metres. With a scan rate of 976,000 points per seconds and an accuracy of up to ±2mm it can be used in a wide range of industries.

Recently FARO helped Autodesk to demonstrate new technology at it Autodesk University in Las Vegas by scanning the Mandalay Bay Hotel. www.faro.com

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creating accurate deliverables and working with large scan data sets. www.leica-geosystems.co.uk

Riegl

Leica Geosystems Leica Geosystems is one of the leading players in the surveying, mapping and monitoring markets.

The company offers everything from simple levels and theodolites to aerial and terrestrial scanning, machine guidance lasers and global positioning systems.

For surveying the Leica TotalStation theodolite and Leica DISTO handhelds are industry favourites for surveying and distance measuring.

The Leica ScanStation brand is the cornerstone phased-based high definition laser scanner and combined with Leica Cyclone, Leica CloudWorx and Leica TruView software, offers geo-referencing, surveying, and CAD integrated engineering tools for

Austrian-based Riegl provides scanners for terrestrial, mobile and airborne survey, geo-spatial monitoring, industrial process control, as-built 3D documentation, altimetry and aerospace applications. These products are based on a 30-year heritage in research, development and manufacturing of time-offlight based optical radar systems.

The company’s new V-Line 3D Terrestrial Laser Scanner, Riegl VZ-400 uses unique echo digitisation and online waveform processing, which achieves accurate measurement capability even under adverse atmospheric conditions, as well as the evaluation of multiple target echoes. The line scanning mechanism is based upon a fast rotating multi-facet polygonal mirror, which provides fully linear, unidirectional and parallel scan lines. The product

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office space, 1,200 rooms, over seven floors with a basement and an attic, which needed to be remodelled for new Federal clients. Mr Carmichael described the building as having the characteristics of a tank, as it could withstand anything a number of earthquakes have thrown at it so far. It is a large building with 450 ft hallways that took an amazing three weeks to scan, convert and have detailed drawings. A team was sent out to laser scan the building and courtyard, while the architectural team built the family of parts for items such as windows and doors, required for the Revit model. From the edge-converted scanned model, the Revit model was quickly generated, snapping to the edges — this produced a phenomenally precise model.

Without laser scanning Mr Carmichael said that it would have taken months to complete the project, despite having the original 1932 drawings, which only reflected the exterior. The Revit models created were used for visualistaion, construction drawings and amazingly detailed capture of significant historical architectural elements, such as the stairs.

Carmichael finished off with a great demonstration of the company’s own ARCHengine, which is developed using Unreal Tournament. All its 3D models can be loaded up and flown through in real time with varying degrees of rendering. Overall an excellent presentation and demonstrated that Scan to BIM could be done with Revit, once a process was ironed out. Under questioning at the end, Carmichael did admit that the file format issues created in generating the point-cloud required a full time ‘File-Wrangler’,

is aimed at scanning facades, as-built, archeology and cultural, city modelling and civil engineering. www.riegl.com

Topcon Based in Japan, Topcon Positioning Systems designs and manufactures precise positioning products and solutions for the global surveying, civil engineering, mapping and GIS, and construction markets. The company’s solutions include theodolites, Total Stations, levels, slope lasers, pipe lasers and combined laser/optical scanners.

Topcon is renowned for developing innovative new technologies that simplify projects such as its flagship laser scanner, the cable-free GLS-1000, which can be operated by one person.

All the data is stored on an SD card and the inbuilt Wi-Fi allows PC connection if more detailed control or checking is required while scanning. Topcon also produces the ScanMaster software, used with the GLS1000, is designed to simplify laser scanner point collection and manipulation. www.topconpositioning.com

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someone who had all the conversion utilities and could get the right information, in the right format to the right person at the right time.

The bottom line is that this firm can survey, model and produce new construction drawings on a 360,000 sq ft job in three weeks.

Conclusion Laser scanning and point-cloud data is exceptionally useful and has proven itself in many different sectors.

The SPAR conference is a fantastic event to really get a taste as to just how diverse these applications can be and the value that companies derive from using it.

While in CAD we have for so long spent time creating new geometry from scratch, it will become increasingly easy to capture existing geometry and intelligently edit and manipulate these forms. In a way we can ‘sample’ the real world and remix it in our design tools.

The key early areas appear to be in capturing old buildings for renovation and retrofit as well as capturing buildings of outstanding cultural importance for preservation. I expect this to expand and see cross over opportunities in factory design, modelling in context, GIS and the user of 3D raster for archive formats.

The key take away from my days in Houston came from Ford’s Mr Kalandani, in that to produce 3D solids or geometry has the highest cost. If data can stay in point-cloud and perform its task, then there is no point in modelling everything. It certainly seems to be working for Ford. www.sparlic.com

Zoller+Fröhlich Zoller+Fröhlich is a dedicated to the 2D and 3D laser scanning and measurement technology market and provides solutions to Architecture, Infrastructure, Digital Factory, VR and Heritage building markets.

The company’s Z+F Imager 5006i has a range of 79 metres with a resolution of up to 100,000 points around 360 degrees.

It can operate over WLAN or via Ethernet.

The company offers software for laser control, LFM for modelling point-clouds, VSF for measurement, Geomagic for 3D model creation and 3D Reconstructor to mesh pointclouds together.

Capturing Reality Continued from page 11 from Ambercore for its AutoCAD Civil3D product but the company has decided to write its own point-cloud engine and include it in vanilla AutoCAD. This will be significant as it will add millions of possible point-cloud consumers and is surely also going to be included in the company’s BIM modelling tool, Revit.

At the show, Autodesk teamed up with scanner manufacturer Faro to laser scan the cavernous Mandalay hotel and gave us a fly through of a massive point cloud model. The demo even included conversion to AutoCAD 3D geometry. It certainly set high expectations for graphics performance in the next release, which I suspect will be called AutoCAD 2011.

This is not to forget other CAD vendors like McNeel and Associates’ Rhino, which already has a PoinTools plug in to import and manipulate point-cloud data. With such a diverse range of applications, from jewellery to architecture, customers can bring in scans of existing objects for conversion and manipulation.

Conclusion In nearly all aspects the scanning and point cloud market is very mature, with advanced hardware and software for an expanding range of applications. The cost of the hardware is still going to remain an issue but with key vendors providing broader access and a lower cost of entry to handle the point clouds, further reductions in cost are expensive. For instance it is rumoured that one manufacturer is trying to bring out a sub $10,000 laser scanner.

CAD systems are now incredibly capable of modelling in 3D, surfaces, solids, meshes. It was only a matter of time before raster point cloud was included in these base level design systems. With Bentley and Autodesk providing extended capabilities in future products, users will have increased options in how they can create and use these 3D models, mixing proposed design with highly accurate existing point clouds.

The actual conversion from point cloud to mesh or solids still has some way to go. Companies like Geomagic that have developed powerful pointcloud to intelligent solid models but have focussed on big ticket markets like automotive and aerospace. The ‘Scan to BIM’ market segment only really appeared in 2009 and a lot of research is required to turn a mass of points automatically into a Revit parametric wall, but I do believe that technology is coming.

For now the hardware and software is at least part of the way there, with best practice workflows for architecture still needing to be properly defined. It is not without its issues, with format juggling rife within existing point-cloud projects. Users also rely on multiple software applications and transforms to get the data in the right format for each step of the process.

With the main CAD vendors now adding scanned information as a core capability to their design systems I fully expect to see these problems addressed in the coming releases with corresponding expanded use of 3D point-cloud in the AEC market.

PoinTools — www.pointools.com/ Leica Geosystems — www.leicageosystems. com/en/index.htm Faro — www.faro.com/uk.aspx Bentley — www.bentley.com/en-US Autodesk — usa.autodesk.com Ambercore — www.ambercore.com Geomagic — www.geomagic.com/en Meshlab — meshlab.sourceforge.net Rhino — www.en.na.mcneel.com

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GEO-10 event preview

GEO-10, the dedicated event for geospatial technology, is set to take place on the 24th and 25th March 2010 at the Ricoh Arena, Coventry. AEC Magazine gives a run down of who’s who on the exhibition floor plus an overview of the two-day seminar.

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rom measurement and data collection through to advanced geospatial analysis and visualisation, GEO-10 is set to bring together a wide range of geospatial technologies for two days this March. The annual GEO conference and exhibition is designed for everyone involved in construction, civil engineering, development, local/national government agencies, professional survey practice and consultancy. It will include show floor seminars, live product demonstrations, professional development and networking opportunities, including a Las Vegasthemed gala evening on 24th March.

GEO-10 will again be hosting the m3 conference.

Representing the three m’s of measuring, modelling and managing geospatial information, this year’s programme features plenary sessions on both days.

The aim is to bridge the gap between those engaged in geospatial data collection and those developing or using commercial applications for geospatial data so that both sides can learn from the other.

The sessions will focus on five critical areas for geospatial professionals including location and positioning from enhanced GNSS, collecting, modelling and using 3D terrestrial laser scanning data, modelling and analysing data from aerial Light Detection And Ranging (Lidar) surveys and other remotely sensed data sources, advantages and pitfalls from open source software and other “free” data sources and new business opportunities.

On the show floor, exhibitors will be demonstrating the latest technology and developments in the fields of Geographical Information Systems (GIS), global positioning and navigation systems, laser scanning, data modelling and analysis and mapping together with leading trade organisations and academic institutions. Throughout the exhibition floor there are a number of technologies designed specifically to get survey data directly into CAD software. In addition, laser scanning and the software required to manage the huge datasets it creates, will also have a major presence.

Here is a run down of some of the key AEC-related companies to watch out for at the show.

3dlaser mapping Nottinghamshire-based 3D Laser Mapping will be demonstrating StreetMapper and StreetMapper Portable, the mobile mapping system designed for the rapid mapping of highways, infrastructure and buildings.

StreetMapper 360 offers a 360-degree field of view and a range of 300m. It uses V-Line scanners from Riegl and an integrated high-resolution digital camera can be used to capture either still or video images.

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with large point cloud datasets within AutoCAD, and TerraScan, a dedicated software solution for processing laser-scanning points and creating fullyfeatured terrain models. www.3dlasermapping.com

Applications in CADD (AiC)

Faro Scene 4.6: Faro’s processing software for point cloud data.

Applications in CADD (AiC) develops a range of software for all aspects of data capture, processing, display and retrieval of informatics for the engineer, designer, architect, or surveyor.

Among the many products on show, the company will be presenting its AutoCAD-based 4Site survey and data capture software. Intended for use infield with small rugged tablet PCs, 4Site Survey links total stations and GPS receivers directly into AutoCAD. As soon as an angle/distance measurement is taken, or a GPS reading recorded, the software automatically converts the data into the local XYZ co-ordinate system of the drawing. As a result, drawings can be created, edited and updated while still in the field. www.appsincadd.co.uk

Faro

Miniplan can be used to generate CAD-ready floor plans.

The onboard navigation system includes a Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) receiver, a fibre optic gyro-based Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) and the latest Direct Inertial Aiding (DIA) to assist in areas of poor GPS reception.

In addition to its mobile mapping systems, 3D Laser Mapping offers the full range of terrestrial 3D laser scanners from Riegl including the VZ-400, and the LMS-Z620.

The company also sells a range of software including PoinTools that offers the ability to work

StreetMapper is a mobile mapping system designed for the rapid mapping of highways, infrastructure and buildings.

Faro will present its latest laser scanners, the Photon 120 and 20, along with the new version of the Faro Scene V.4.6 scan processing software.

The new laser scanners can capture up to 976,000 measuring points a second. According to Faro, the Photon 120 has a range of 120 metres, the longest range in the category of phase-shift laser scanners, while the Photon 20 has been designed for scanning objects at up to 20 metres.

Faro will also be showing Faro Scene 4.6, the latest release of its scan processing software for point cloud data that enables users to post-process laser scans. The software automatically detects reference marks and assigns them to each other. Meanwhile, the individual scan locations are positioned in 3D to each other and, upon request, geo-referenced. www.faro.com/uk

Miniplan Miniplan will be presenting its building measurement software, which is designed to generate CAD-ready floor plans and calculate floor areas, surface areas and room volumes automatically on the fly.

The software works with a range of devices including ultra-mobile personal computers (UMPC), PDAs and smart phones, tablet PCs, laptops and PCs. Measurements can be automatically recorded from

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Spheron Pioneers in high-dynamic range (HDR) capture devices, Spheron, will be presenting its latest camera technology, which is specially designed for professionals who want to create lifelike 3D renderings.

The fundamental idea behind this ‘image-based lighting’ technology is to measure the true luminosity at the survey location and use it to illuminate computer-generated objects inside a range of design visualisation software.

Also on show will be Spheron’s SceneWorks visual scene documentation software, which uses output from the company’s HDR camera to enable users to create interactive virtual tours. www.spheron.com

South Survey

any Bluetooth Leica Disto, or may be manually entered if using a tape measure. miniPlan is available in three versions: miniPlan Go, an express version of the software, miniPlan Pro for the generation of more detailed plans, and miniPlan Profiler which uses the tilt sensing abilities of a Leica Disto D8 to measure sections and profiles of buildings, bridges, tunnels and other structures. www.miniplan.co.uk

Z+F’s Profiler 5006i allows 2D profile data to be captured over tens or hundreds of miles, for example over a rail network.

Kubit Kubit will be demonstrating a range of software designed specifically to help get surveying data directly into the CAD environment. TachyCAD works as a direct plug-in to the latest versions of AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT and using a total station like a 3D/real-world mouse, users are able input familiar CAD commands to perform traditional surveying techniques.

DistToPlan is an AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT-based solution that uses a Bluetooth hand-held laser to measure distances. These are immediately transformed on site into true to scale CAD data: rooms, doors, windows.

PointCloud is an AutoCAD-based post processing software for 3D laser scanning data that is designed to work with a wide variety of scanners.

In addition to managing millions of points, the software offers a variety of functions designed to facilitate and speed up the processing and evaluation of point clouds in AutoCAD. PointCloud Pro extends the functionality with advanced modelling and clash detection tools.

PhoToPlan enables the true to scale rectification of digital or digitised photos and plans within AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT, and finally hylasFM structures new or existing CAD floor plans, the results of which can be used within regular CAFM software that requires geometrical and non-geometrical building data.

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PhoToPlan enables true to scale rectification of digital or digitised photos and plans within AutoCAD.

South Survey will be presenting GStarCAD, a low-cost alternative to AutoCAD based on IntelliCAD. The product uses DWG (2.5 to 2009) as its native file format, which is provided through the OpenDWG specification. It also offers compatibility with AutoCAD command line, menu (.MNU) and script (.SCR) files, hatches, fonts and true type fonts, complex line types, multiline text, lightweight polyline, draw commands, audit and recover as well as AutoLISP and ADS. South Survey will also be presenting other software tools including SiteMaster, a mobile surveying solution that creates AutoCAD compatible drawings on-site. The product is designed for professional surveyors and other non-CAD professionals. www.southsurvey.co.uk

ZF-UK TachyCAD uses a total station like a 3D/realworld mouse directly inside AutoCAD.

PointCloud is an AutoCAD-based post processing software for 3D laser scanning data.

Spheron’s SceneWorks visual scene documentation software can be used to create interactive virtual tours.

Z+F will be launching the latest release of its LFM modeller, which is used to convert high-resolution scan data into intelligent CAD models. The Manchester-based company will also be showing LFM Register, which is used to ensure 3D laser scans are correctly orientated to a defined co-ordinate system, and LFM NetView, a web-based application that allows 3D laser scan data to be shared with peers and colleagues.

In terms of laser scanning hardware, Z+F will be demonstrating a number of machines. The Profiler 5006i allows 2D profile data to be captured over tens or hundreds of miles, for example over a rail network, while the Z+F Imager 5006i can capture up to 500,000 pixels per second and boasts improved point cloud data quality when compared to its predecessor, the Imager 5006.

An optional M-CAM Camera that adds coloured laser scan data to the Imager 5006i is also available. www.zf-uk.com GEO-10 takes place on the 24th and 25th March 2010 at the Ricoh Arena, Coventry. www.pvpubs.com/events.php AEC MAGAZINE MARCH/APRIL 2010

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Computational Design Symposium In the second part of his analysis of the Computational Design Symposium at Autodesk University, Martyn Day asks what the impact of computational design tools will be and when Autodesk’s will be available.

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obert Aish has been at Autodesk for around 18 months now. Formerly working at Bentley Systems, where he designed the Generative Components (GC) layer for MicroStation, Dr Aish opted to move to Autodesk and leave that work behind. This meant he had to start from scratch to develop a new application for computational design on a new platform. To date, the annual Computational Design Symposium, held the day before Autodesk University in Las Vegas, is the only real chance to see what advances Dr Aish’s team has made.

The technology shown at the Computational Design Symposium did not fail to impress, with Dr Aish providing a compressed demonstration of his scripting language, codenamed D Sharp, to produce the complex structures and surfaces of the Metz Pompidou Centre, a competition prize winning design by Shigeru Ban, Jean de Gastines and et Philip Gumuchdjian.

Choosing to model something difficult and real is in keeping with the theme of the event, which aims to showcase existing, completed, work with an array of existing computational solutions. At the inaugural event, Neil Katz of SOM, gave a memorable talk on his work for the World Trade Centre, which involved him creating special programs to explore different options in configurations.

Algorithmic Design Dr Aish believes that with computing power and 3D, we are at a point of design innovation. Pre-CAD, when

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designing, an architect would grab a felt tip or pencil and draw. When computers came along the software mainly emulated those old drafting techniques of creating representational 2D geometry. CAD meant we could edit, copy and change the drawings, increasing productivity. This is very similar to what word processing did to writing, but it but did not change the way we write. Drafting tools do not change the way we draw and it is still a surprisingly manual process.

Computational design is designed to take some of these manual tasks away and reduce the risk of handling complexity. A conglomeration of rules defines buildings, for instance, to populate a facade with a specific type of glazing panel, or use specific mullions, the computer can complete all this.

Then there is the ‘what ifs’: should you chose a different glazing solution, or wish to study the impact of a shading solution, testing every option is repetitive and tedious, requiring the redrawing the facade many times, due to the number of different possible options. With technologies like Computational Design, sliders can be created to make geometrical changes to the model, with the computer’s processor taking the strain.

This does, however, alter the design process, as the architects or the person creating the design rules for the computational design system needs to analyse and define what make up the building’s important rules before they are scripted into a D Sharp program.

This bespoke scripting language will give teams of users the ability to make the design rules themselves.

Vancouver Convention Centre

The new Vancouver Convention Centre Expansion Project in British Columbia opened on April 3, 2009 and is a model in Sustainability.

Designed by Seattle-based LMN Architects, it features a six-acre green roof.

Featuring 150,000 sq ft of floor-to-ceiling glass throughout the building, the company deployed computational design techniques and analysis to validate the design.

Photos: LMN Architects

One of the talks given this year highlighted the benefit of this approach to common problems, specifically curtain walling.

The stunning Vancouver Convention Centre design has 150,000 square feet of inclined structural glass curtain wall, which needed to be analysed using advanced Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and then optimised to minimise deflection from its own weight and wind. This end result was a unique curtain wall that is supported by wind trusses hung from the roof structure above.

The $833 million project was conducted as a Building Information Modelling design, using integrated models and advanced CAD techniques.

While BIM brought its challenges, there is little doubt that this steel job would have been more difficult without it. With more than 19,000 unique steel pieces fabricated for the structure, some of an enormous size, it was imperative that the owners, engineers, and fabricators could see what was being built and where conflicts may occur. In the end, communication lines were open and BIM was instrumental in understanding the geometry, minimising the amount of steel required, and solving problems before they happened.

Conclusion Dr Aish is in the Autodesk’s Platform Group, not the Architecture/ Engineering/ Constructions division, which would indicate that the technology is seen as a core capability that all the verticals could use. It does after all manipulate standard AutoCAD geometry. While much of the emphasis is around architecture and fabrication for that industry, it is clear that Autodesk sees this as potentially beneficial to all its customers.

With the new releases of Autodesk product almost upon us, it would be wild speculation to think that Autodesk is ready to release its computational design tools to the market. Looking at the company’s modus operandi, there should be a lengthy trial on the Autodesk Labs website before any commercial version would be available.

Also, starting from scratch, 18 months is not a lot of time for Dr Aish to flesh out all that would be required. However, the complexity of the Metz model, which was created, albeit in a canned demo, was exceedingly more advanced than any geometry demonstrated in the previous Symposium. I would hazard a guess at seeing something more concrete on Labs in the next 18 months.

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Project Butterfly Autodesk Labs is a website where designers can download free software that is currently in development. An increasing trend is towards web-based applications. Martyn Day looks at Autodesk’s future direction.

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here has been much written about cloud-based applications and while this concept is nothing new, the technology to enable this is still very much in development. For the foreseeable future, running a CAD application installed on a local hard drive, on a PC, will still be the normal way of doing business. However there will be a range of web tools that will start appearing, quite soon, which will enhance the way we work with design data.

The biggest web project Autodesk Labs is trialling is called Project Twitch, which allows a limited number of users to access full versions of AutoCAD, Inventor, Revit and Maya through a web browser. This is currently limited to people based in North America.

This project is testing one of the cloudbased delivery technologies, namely a technique developed by the cloud gaming firm Onlive. In this instance, the applications run on powerful servers and just the graphics are compressed and sent to users. This happens so quickly that there should be no visible lag with the remote user and the CAD application. As relatively little hardware is used on the user’s machine, this means products like Revit could be run on a netbook. The main limitation appears to be the distance from the server to the end user, the further away, the greater possibility for network lag and drop out. Onlive is due to launch its cloud-based games service in June 2010 and if it can be done with modern games, it surely can be used for CAD. Autodesk is also trying a different approach with Project Dragonfly and the recently launched Project Butterfly technology preview. In these instances the CAD application runs in the web browser, is lightweight and streams the DWG files over the Internet. Project Dragonfly is 2D and pseudo 3D and aimed at interior design. Project Butterfly is almost the exact opposite of Project Twitch in that most of the processing is done on the local machine.

This 2D technology came from an acquisition that Autodesk made back in December 2009. Amazingly, in a matter of weeks, the technology was up on Autodesk Labs.

So what does Project Butterfly do? Essentially, the product allows AutoCAD DWG files to be uploaded to the web for viewing, review and markup, share and co-edit drawing files. In many ways Project Butterfly is like Autodesk Review but with some collaboration added extras. The fact that basic new geometry can be added, gives the impression that, if it wanted to, Autodesk could build a webbased version of AutoCAD but with over 20 years of

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After logging in, Project Butterfly offers a number of choices. As the software is evolving any new features are highlighted, together with previous session logs and drawings. There are also handy video tutorials.

development, rewriting each capability for the web would take quite a while and possibly create a fat web application. It is a case of allocating resources to develop the most essential design tools.

I had the opportunity to talk about Project Butterfly with Tal Weiss, one of the co-founders of the technology that is behind Project Butterfly.

Weiss was part of an Israeli-based developer, formerly called PlantPlatform, that had developed an online DWG viewing and edit tool called VisualTao. Autodesk saw the technology and quickly snapped it up for $20-$30 million. Weiss told me the drive to develop VisualTao came from an architect friend of the developers, Iris Shor, who kept badgering them to work out a way to create drawings online. Weiss said at first they thought it was impossible but after a while they came up with a way to possibly create a web-based CAD system using Adobe Flash and after two years they had a running demonstrator.

Despite the technology having only been in development for two and a half years, Weiss is really excited about the potential for this tool, which would give people access to their drawings wherever they are in the world. Now, all you need to see your drawings is a computer and the Internet. Could this even be the end of the USB stick? I doubt it.

In use While not a complete CAD system yet, command and entities are being added to the draw and creation tools most months. For now, lines, text and colours offer some insight into the potential for this technology.

Drawings can be quickly sent for review with other team members. One simply invites people using the Review command and emails them.

Permissions can be set and cropped sections allocated. Using the built-in commands, drawings can be mark-up and commented on.

After logging in to the Project Butterfly website an Adobe Flash-based user interface is loaded. Here, all of the tools are loaded into the session, along with the DWG. When a DWG file is uploaded to the Project Butterfly servers, it is converted in real time to its own streamline format and sent back to the Project Butterfly users. I say ‘users’ because DWGs can be shared.

The ‘Home’ screen displays a useful overview of any hot news from the Project Butterfly development team, session logs of invitations, conversations, including contacts and which drawings they relate to, some tutorial videos, and previews of drawings uploaded. To import a drawing there is a button on the top right and to move to a session the menu bar on the left offers ‘Drawings’ or ‘Editor’. It really is a very simple interface.

By entering the Editor, the interface changes, with a drawing display space and a tool bar section at the top of the screen. Drawings load fairly quickly, after an initial pause, and then a number of things can be done.

In the Draw menu, a select number of very familiar icons provide access to 2D geometry AEC MAGAZINE MARCH/APRIL 2010

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drawing in the same session.

There is another, more straightforward capability built-in and that is to ‘Share’ drawings, again with admin rights if required, this simply allows other users to open these shared drawings, not being part of an active Review or a co-editing session.

Project Butterfly has a nice utility to display the drawings as Plots, coloured CAD model or greyscale.

The Plot mode displays the various pen width allocations and supports various style sheets, so can act as a useful check.

Limitations

creation tools: Polyline, circle, line, ellipse, arc, rectangle and freeline, together with arrow, cloud and leader, which are more commonly used in redline/mark-up. There are controls for Text entry, dimensioning, ortho locks, snaps, colour, line weight and layers, as well as cut, paste and erase. These are the basic geometries supported, together with traditional AutoCAD layering. The view manipulation tools reside at the bottom right of the screen, pan and zoom, together with ‘start a review’ and ‘Co-edit’. The View tab gives access to Xref information, plot styles, fonts and layouts and there is a ‘Timeline’ tab which has a time slider, indicating that Project Butterfly stores the history of these edits and additions.

To ‘Start a Review’ click on the button and it initiates an email dialogue box to send a Review invitation to colleagues. Here, permissions can be set as to allow anyone to edit the drawing or download it; switching these off would protect the drawing and render it a read-only invite. If editing is allowed the edits will not be destructive to the original file but will build up a number of changes, which are tracked and included in the reviewed drawing. Also of note, is that it is possible to crop a drawing and just send a relevant portion for review, which I think is pretty neat.

The Co-edit capability is really breaking new territory in the concept of view and mark-up. Here, it is possible to invite other Project Butterfly users to load the same drawing and have access to editing tools. There are admin rights for invitees but without that the session will react to view commands and edit commands from multiple people simultaneously. One would assume that everyone would be on the phone talking through the drawings and agreeing who was going to be in control.

I have actually used this co-editing capability with a journalist friend, Kenneth Wong, who is based in San Francisco. We successfully and simultaneously drew, edited and dimensioned a MARCH/APRIL 2010 AEC MAGAZINE

As the drawing is stored on a remote server, multiple users can access it simultaneously for a drawing review or to actually draw in real time, sharing the same view. It can be a bit of a free-for-all but one would suspect that a simultaneous conference call would allow users to choose who should take control.

Project Butterfly is very much in development.

Ignoring the limitation of geometry creation, there are limits to how many entities can be selected at once, currently 30. While panning and zooming seems almost instant, the speed of the animated zoom transitions can get a little annoying. Selecting objects I found a little confusing as some entities when selected are surrounded in a bounding box, looking like a block, but are not. Oh, and while blocks can be inserted and exploded, there is no blocks list available. However, as the code is online the team regularly update the products capabilities, without needing an install at the user end.

Conclusion

Files can be easily shared via the built-in email system, so other Project Butterfly users can also have access.

There is three view modes in Butterfly: ‘as a plot’, ‘as a CAD model’ or in greyscale.

Autodesk is trying to work out which technologies are best suited to deliver the best end-user experience and the reality is that cloud-based design tools are going to come in a number of shapes and sizes and will use different ways to arrive on our desktops.

Project Butterfly is already a useful tool for view and mark-up and sharing documents and well worth using today. Its geometry tools still have a long way to go but as a demonstration, it really opens up the mind as to what could be possible with CAD-based browsers.

It seems that Autodesk is intrigued too and the development team is busy adding new tools to see how far this technology can be pushed to possibly provide a browser-based AutoCAD. For now, Project Butterfly can be used to provide a meeting place, or a collaboration tool.

This summer my attention will be focussed on Online and how gamers react to the remote running of software with very demanding graphics. The benefit of never having to upgrade their own hardware or wait to download or install software must be tempting. Being able to play games written for PC or consoles on their computers will appeal even more.

It will inevitably come down to how many frames per second and how much lag hits these demanding customers. If Onlive gets it right, then it will not be long before you will see your favourite CAD applications available on demand.

Project Butterfly — butterfly.autodesk.com Project Twitch — labs.autodesk.com/ technologies/trials Project Dragonfly — dragonfly.autodesk.com

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Advance Steel 2010

Starting out life as a modelling tool for structural engineers, Advance Steel has evolved into a highly capable steel detailing solution. Greg Corke reports on the AutoCAD-based software, which offers advanced modelling, connection design and a managed environment for the production of drawings, bills of materials and Numeric Control code.

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ith over 30,000 users worldwide, Graitec is one of the largest structural software developers in the world, but the company remains relatively unknown in the UK. This is starting to change though. Building on its acquisition of Autodesk reseller, Adris Computing Concepts, in 2009 the French company formed Graitec UK, and now a year later it is beginning to gain traction with its Advance range of structural engineering and detailing tools.

There are three products in the Advance family.

Advance Design for the finite element analysis (FEA) and design of reinforced concrete and steel structures, Advance Concrete for reinforced concrete detailing inside AutoCAD, and Advance Steel for steel fabrication detailing and general arrangement drawing production inside AutoCAD. Advance Steel, the subject of this review, has actually been in the UK for a number of years. Originally called HyperSteel, the product was sold by specialist structural software developer and reseller, CADS. The Poole-based company not only sold Advance Steel, but also adapted the product for the UK market, developing local content and libraries as a value add. In 2009, however, the relationship between CADS and Graitec ended and Graitec integrated all of CADS’ localisation work directly into the core product.

Like most modern steel fabrication and detailing software, Advance Steel is a 3D product. It provides a range of tools to model steel structures in 3D, from beams, columns, and connections, right down to the individual nuts and bolts. From this master model, the

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software can automatically create general arrangement and detail drawings, cutting lists/bills of materials (BOMs) and NC (Numeric Control) files for automated workshop machinery. Then, should the model change in any way, all of this can be automatically updated.

One of the most important selling points of Advance Steel is that it works directly inside AutoCAD. Its file format is DWG, so it offers good compatibility with other systems and it offers all the benefits of Autodesk’s seasoned CAD system, such as rendering, DWF export for design/review and sharing data over the web and a fully customisable user interface. It also means that, for those already up to speed with AutoCAD, the learning curve is not as steep.

Modelling and connections Modelling inside Advance Steel can be as easy as drawing an AutoCAD line, then using standard AutoCAD commands to copy and array elements to build up a frame. Additionally lines can be automatically changed into intelligent structural members, with the user having full control over orientation, section size, centre of gravity and numbering/classification.

The product comes with a comprehensive library of hot and cold rolled sections. Standard UK, European, and International hot rolled sections profiles are all included and compound and custom sections can be created as required. Advance Steel also has close links with a number of UK manufacturers and libraries of cold rolled building products are also included

The connection Vault makes it easy for novice user to browse connection types.

Advance Steel features a number of macros to help automate the modelling and detailing of steel staircases. Model courtesy of Marshall stairs (UK).

from the likes of Ayrshire, Metsec, HiSpan, Tegral and Structural Sections.

Structural elements can be intelligently cut, notched, drilled or welded and any number of openings created for doors windows or ducting. Should the position of any of these change the structural element will automatically heal.

Advance Steel supports linear and curved grids, and also includes a number of import/export options to help make the most of upstream and downstream data.

The product comes with a vast library of parametric connections and these can be used to automatically connect structural members to each other, creating endplates, bolts, welds and shortening or extending members. Full control is provided via dialog boxes, which include dynamic graphical illustrations that change depending on the context and the parameter selection. Custom connections can also be defined.

Connections can be validated against the new EC3 codes with the system providing a full report if a connection fails. To enable this forces and loads need to be applied to the model and this can be done manually using an engineer’s report as reference or imported directly from a structural design application.

Traditionally, Advance Steel’s connections have been accessible via a collection of icons found in a dedicated toolbar, but the 2010 release introduces the Connection Vault. Designed to make things easier for less experienced users this groups together all of the connection types in a single browseable visual environment to make it easier to choose.

For detailing connections are compliant with the British Constructional Steelwork Association’s (BCSA) green book and the system offers similar support for other regions.

To verify the model the system can carry out clash detection between all structural elements; right down to individual bolts. Potential clashes are presented in a list, but resolving them is still a manual process. It would AEC MAGAZINE MARCH/APRIL 2010

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be useful to have a direct link between the list and the position of the clash in the model, as well as the ability to manage the process — in a similar way to how Word manages its spell checking with options to change or ignore.

Complex modelling Advance Steel features specialist macros for the design and detailing of complex steelwork including straight and spiral stairs, handrails, ladders and balustrades.

The macros are British Standard compliant and not only help model all the required structural elements but also typical connection types and footings. Macros are presented through clear dialogue boxes and everything is fully customisable.

For bespoke stairs that are not covered by macros, the full range of components is available to build them up manually.

Advance Steel also includes broad functionality for modelling sheet and plate metal. This ranges from simple circular and rectangular plates to more complex folded, twisted or conical forms. According to Graitec, with AutoCAD handling the geometry for such forms it helps ensure that these complex plates can be fabricated and machined properly. This makes it of particular interest for bridgework, where lots of multiple angle shapes, box girders and plate girders with big cambers and curves are often used.

Connections can be validated against the new EC3 codes with the system providing a full report if a connection fails.

Interoperability With AutoCAD as its foundation product, Advance Steel already has good interoperability with other AEC products through DWG, DXF, DGN and other formats.

For more intelligent exchange of data it offers import and export for the object orientated file format, IFC 2x3 (Industry Foundation Classes), plus a direct two-way link to Revit Structure.

For links to other structural engineering software it supports CIS/2, the CIMsteel Integration Standard, and is able to import and export fabrication and analysis model types. This means it can accept data from CIS/2 compliant analysis applications and use this data as the foundation for its fabrication model. It also supports SDNF (Steel Detailing Neutral File) version 2.0 and version 3.0, which includes definitions for straight and curved beams, plates and cuts on elements.

Interoperability with other Graitec software is managed through the GTC (Graitec Transfer Centre), which offers ‘intelligent’ model transfer between all Graitec products. Finally, for those involved in plant design it has a bi-directional link between Advance Steel and PDMS from Aveva.

Collaborative working A key feature of Advance Steel is its model share technology, which enables multiple users to work on one model at the same time. Starting with a single master file, users check out parts of the model, from a single beam to a complete section, to work on their local machine. Any connecting geometry is greyed out MARCH/APRIL 2010 AEC MAGAZINE

Product Advance Steel 2010 Supplier: Graitec Price from £3,450 www.graitec.co.uk

and can be referenced but not edited. Then, when data is checked back in everyone is made aware of it.

Drawings, BOMs and CNC While the 3D structural model forms the backbone to Advance Steel it is the final output that drives steel fabrication. This includes drawings, bill of materials (BOMs), and output code for workshop CNC machines.

General arrangements and workshop details can be automatically created from the master model and the style of these drawings customised with full control over scale, dimensions and labels. Users can modify anything within a drawing and the full AutoCAD toolkit is also available to add any additional details.

BOMs are also directly linked to the master model and these can be placed on drawings or exported to a number of common formats including Excel and PDF. A number of templates are provided including beam list, bolt list, part list and material summary, and these are also fully customisable.

For NC code generation, Advance Steel outputs to NC-DSTV and NC-DXF files which can be used to communicate with beam lines, drill lines, notching machines, angle lines and also plate burn cuts and plate folding machines.

The full power of Advance Steel comes into play if any changes are made to the master model and intelligent links are maintained to all drawings,

“One of the most important selling points of Advance Steel is that it works directly inside AutoCAD. Its file format is DWG, so it offers good compatibility with other systems and it offers all the benefits of Autodesk’s seasoned CAD system.”

BOMs and NC output. This is all controlled within the Document Manager and the system will flag up any documents that need updating and a simple click of the mouse will action these updates. For GAs and details the system only updates the drawings themselves and any additional annotations that were previously added will be retained.

Conclusion With its roots stemming back to the 1990s, Advance Steel has matured into a highly capable 3D steel detailing solution. It boasts a powerful modelling engine, intuitive connection design and is efficient in its production of drawings, BOMs and NC code. It also offers support for a wide range of import/export formats and its multi-user capabilities is very useful for busy detailing offices.

The fact that Advance Steel is based on AutoCAD also offers many benefits. It boasts a shallow learning curve for existing AutoCAD users, its native file DWG file format and import/export options means good interoperability, it has built-in rendering tools, good 3D navigation tools, and DWF is readily available for design/review and sharing data over the web. For those with existing AutoCAD seats it also compares favourably on price to competitive products.

While Graitec will have its work cut out to displace the likes of Tekla Structures and StruCad, which have a strong footing among the larger UK steel fabricators, there is a big opportunity for Advance Steel with the smaller, specialist fabricators and engineering practices that are still using vanilla AutoCAD and LT in a largely manual workflow. This, plus its ability to make light work of complex detailing tasks such as stairs and railings, means there is much potential for Advance Steel. With Graitec now placing a big emphasis on the UK market, 2010 is going to be a critical year for the AutoCADbased product. www.graitec.co.uk

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Showcase visualisation Imagina 2010 The wealthy principality of Monaco was rich in 3D visualisation as this year’s Imagina event got underway in the Mediterranean sunshine. By Stephen Holmes.

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he rearranged exhibition hall was much more concentrated on the key themes of architecture and landscape visualisation at this year’s show held at the Grimaldi Forum, Monaco.

There are fewer more attractive venues for a trade show to take place. As one of the largest European visualisation and simulation conferences of the year, some of the biggest players from the industry were present, along with a cast of veteran visualisation gurus.

High profile speakers included leading French architect and urban designer Jean Nouvel, and some of the digital artists behind this year’s cinematic blockbuster Avatar.

There were a lot of new exhibitors showing their wares, with fresh-faced graduates launching their own real-time rendering software alongside new products from new companies.

There was a strong French contingent among the exhibitors, with the likes of Dassault Systèmes and The French National Geographic Institute (IGN) providing the biggest stands and a number of the speakers.

For the second year running, Imagina 2010 was host to a specialised Digital City and Territory Village for local authorities, towns, local governments and regions, mainly populated by French and Swiss cities keen to show off the progress they had made using the latest technology to digitally map their streets, buildings and landscape.

The introduction of the 3D Ethics Charter was met with royal approval as HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco made an appearance to launch the shared ‘operating manual’ defining the context, aims and criteria for the use and representation of 3D data.

The document was signed by a varied group of primarily French speaking nations (the French National Geographic Institute (l’Institut géographique national), the Republic and Canton of Geneva, the Swiss Society of Engineers, and the Quebec Order of Surveyors to name but a few) all pledging to use only good-quality, recent, reliable, official information in any territorial representations produced by public authorities.

The entire event was finished with the annual Imagina Awards Ceremony, which rewarded and celebrated some of the stand-out 3D visualisation work that had gone on over the previous 12 months.

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Enodo was presenting its realtime visualisation software based on Cryengine videogame technology.

Best technical animation was awarded to Alex Roman for the visualisation Third Dimension, pictured here and below.

Dassault Systèmes revealed its latest foray into the AEC market with Catia Architecture.

Winners in the architecture and urbanism categories included Alex Roman (www.thirdseventh.com) for Best Technical Animation; Artefactory (www.arte-factory. com), winner of Best Communication Film for its interior and exterior visualisations of the living spaces of the house-sized Wally Hermes Yachts; and the State of Geneva and HEPIA (University of Applied Sciences Western) were rewarded for their model of the city with the prize for Best Territory Model.

Stand-out stands A few of the most eye-catching technologies at the show included:

Enodo

Giving effective 3D performance without the need for the silly glasses, 3DTV Solutions also showed off some effective plug-ins for CAD software.

Renamed at last year’s show from IMAGTP, Enodo had an announcement of more technical prowess at this year’s show. Its adapted hi-end video-game technology, Cryengine, was shown in its third release, with realistic real time visualisation. For use in industrial simulation, urban planning, transportation or serious games, the detail left the crowd astounded at the realism of natural world effects such as grasslands, leaves and flowing water. www.enodo.fr

Dassault Systèmes The CAD software colossus gave us some interesting news about its further movement into the architecture and construction market with the launch at the end of this year of Catia Architecture. Eric Piccuezzu, Dassault Systèmes Architecture and Construction Industry Leader, said: “The market is not waiting for a new Revit, it is looking for collaborative platforms that will help it increase its productivity.” Adding: “We AEC MAGAZINE MARCH/APRIL 2010

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The State of Geneva and HEPIA (University of Applied Sciences Western) were winners of the Best Territory Model at this year’s Imagina awards. consider it will be a breakthrough.” (See page four for more on the announcement of Catia Architecture). www.3ds.com

Spaceyes 3D The French company, specialised in transforming Earth observation images into real-time 3D fly-throughs and visualisation, unveiled its latest plug-in used to develop customised 3D visualisation interfaces and integrate 3D real time display in GIS applications. www.spaceyes.com

3DTVSolutions 3D formed a big part of this year’s show, with this company’s glasses-free monitors grabbing a lot of attention, as well as its specially developed plug-ins for architectural and visualisation software, including Autodesk 3ds Max. www.3dtvsolutions.com

Noomeo Noomeo was one of several new companies at the show this year. Although not ideal for large-scale building and construction work, its newly developed ultra-portable 3D scanner has several dedicated industrial applications based on a photographic technology that allows total autonomy of movement. www.noomeo.eu

Nvidia/Mental Images The shared stand between the graphics card giant and the maker of photorealistic rendering technology was awash with visitors wearing Nvidia’s 3D glasses to check out 3D design on the assembled monitors.

However, what caught our eye was the abilities of iRay for interactive rendering, the seamless working of its cloud computing power, and the technology to have interactive renders beamed to an iPhone via a new application Nvidia is developing. www.nvidia.com/www.mentalimages.com

Lumiscaphe A new release of the 3D visualisation software developer’s Patchwork product was on show. Version four offers full 64-bit integration, HDRi format as support for HDR environments, and a group of new rendering modes for different textures and surfaces. www.lumiscaphe.com MARCH/APRIL 2010 AEC MAGAZINE

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The managed development of a Revit model

A Revit family component is a functional element that must communicate the design intent, occupy a realistic space within the building. Paul Woddy looks at how to get the best out of Building Information Modelling software.

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sers and project managers involved with Building Information Modelling (BIM) software need to find comfortable middle ground between the desire to take full advantage of the benefits afforded by detailed, data-rich 3D models of components, and the need to produce contractually adequate deliverables.

Understanding what is required or available from BIM is often overlooked in the panic to produce accurate building models, with libraries of components that are badly specified and subsequently neglect key objectives and advantages.

A Revit family component is, for the most part, not created to be hung on the wall of the Victoria and Albert Museum. It is a functional element that must communicate the design intent, occupy a realistic space within the building and provide enough meta-data to drive the specification, cost analysis, procurement and construction/installation processes.

What is often misunderstood is that this requirement can often be delivered by a simple three-dimensional cube; certainly at an early, concept stage of the project.

Hardware demands of using BIM are an important factor for consideration in larger projects, but many of the associated issues can be avoided by managing the model creation with scale in mind. If a design for a 500,000 metre square hospital starts with an anatomically accurate door with 3D hinges and a bespoke, artistic handle, then I can safely predict failure of the model.

In Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing (MEP) particularly, a propensity to provide accurate models of pumps and fan units, complete with grilles, switches and mesh covers will lead to the conclusion that Revit can only handle the smallest of buildings before the refresh rate of the average PC is counted in days, not seconds. And yet, this approach is almost systemic in some practices.

It is recommended that building models progress through each stage with the appropriate level of detail and specification.

Taking charge On numerous occasions, I have advised that a component QA role is assigned to a team adopting Revit and the response has been to identify an individual within the practice on the basis of their previous background in product design or similar field. My emphatic advice in each case has been to keep that individual as far away from the process as is possible and at all costs, do not put them in charge.

“Understanding what is required or available from BIM is often overlooked in the panic to produce accurate building models, with libraries of components that are badly specified and subsequently neglect key objectives and advantages.�

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It is recommended that building models progress through each stage with the appropriate level of detail and specification. If developed properly, the models produced in the early design stages of a project can be more readily progressed through to production without time-consuming and costly redevelopment or unnecessarily complicated splitting of the model into workable pieces.

In practice, this translates into a template that provides only conceptual examples of each element type. Default walls should be designated as internal or external, possibly with a couple of thickness variations for each, but we should not be using a cavity wall with 50mm insulation and a blockwork core unless a conscious decision has been made to do so.

My recommended template offers concept walls as described, and then a Concept Roof, Concept Floor, Concept Door, Concept Window, etc. All the materials are set to Concept White or Concept Glass (which is a copy of Concept White with added transparency). Default components such as the door and window are the simplest that they can possible be while still being identifiable.

The entire model should be constructed using this principle and kept free of unnecessary detail and extraneous information at the early stages, in which case, the scale of project that can be modelled is considerable. It becomes a collection of placeholders in the correct locations at a nominal size, to aid the development of the general design layout. They are correctly categorised and interrelated where relevant.

As the design progresses towards production, detail can be added by replacement of the components with more detailed examples, specific to a manufacturer or at least to an informed design decision. This can be done by individual element or across the entire project, eventually supplanting all remaining concept components. This should be done while keeping one eye on the workability of the project model, but as this usually coincides with the need for multiple team members to access the model simultaneously, it can be broken down as required into discrete work packages or zoned according to the project BIM strategy.

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performance. It is recommended that a copy of the main model be stored as a record of the work at the completion of each stage or milestone. This also allows the model to be cleared (purged) of any component definitions from earlier stages that have been replaced with more detailed equivalents.

This may all sound obvious, but a successful modelling approach is down to mind-set, and the principles lend themselves to the most elemental and simplistic objects. Treat every component as if you have to array a thousand of them and still be able to spin the model around.

removable panels. As this unit is almost always hidden behind a ceiling or inside a plant room, I do not see much point in developing the modelled geometry beyond this stage. If it should be taken to a Grade 3 element, then 3D model lines will suffice to provide extra information to distinguish the actual manufactured component.

This varies slightly from the AIA advice in the US, which advocates five grades (LOD 100 to LOD 500) for much the same reasons as described here, with a preference to keep the geometry simple.

We diverge only when it comes to the subject of meta-data, which is seen as an optional extra instead of being central to BIM philosophy.

Graded element Making a distinction between the 2D and 3D requirement of the element can also be important to this process, as is the use of 3D linework (Model Lines) to simplify or replace geometry.

In this example, the plan view of the chair is identical across the grades, allowing for accurate placement and space allocation. The Grade 1 component is sufficiently modelled to indicate a chair and is generic in terms of manufacturer information and technical data. The same 3D representation could be used for almost all chairs.

The Grade 2 chair contains all relevant metasdata and technical information, and is sufficiently modelled to identify the type of chair and the materials. I would strongly argue that in most cases, this grade of component should be sufficient, as it delivers on every level except the detailed, realistic 3D picture.

Conclusion

The Grade 3 component is a special case. If scheduled or interrogated by annotation, it appears to be identical to the Grade 2 version, and only differs in 3D representation. It is to be used only when a 3D view at a sufficient scale deems the detail necessary due to the object proximity to the camera.

As mentioned, in MEP this principle can be especially relevant, where a Grade 2 Air Handling Unit is based on the correct overall dimensions and contains all the required connection and technical data without the need for vents, buttons, fans or

Some of you may be wondering if the product design student is not the best member of my team specifying the building component library, who is?

My answer: The document manager.

For me, BIM is all about controlling information.

It is the data attached to the model that will ultimately see this technology make a real difference to the construction industry; not the drawing production, the 3D modelling or even the coordination aspects.

All of these are vital but not revolutionary in the long run. Data is the key, and someone capable of collating, managing and realising the importance of data is the best person for the job of creating or at least specifying the components.

Making a distinction between the 2D and 3D requirement of the element can also be important to this process as is the use of 3D linework (Model Lines) to simplify or replace geometry.

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CFdesignComputational for Revit Fluid Dynamics goes mainstream

Using Windows 7 After coming to terms with some teething problems in Microsoft’s new operating system, Rob Jamieson is already looking forward to full CAD software support for Windows 7 and realises it will be hard to return to Vista or XP.

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hen I first wrote about Windows Vista, I excitedly predicted that 64-bit would free up

a certified one and, as the graphics chip in my mobile workstation did not have a dedicated Windows 7 driver,

While I was testing (OK, I was having lunch) Windows did an update and forced a restart. Word

CAD software. Unfortunately, it did not quite

I opted for a Vista one. This installed and worked

recovered my documents, but some CAD software did

happen that way. In general, there were problems with getting some of the CAD software to work effectively on the new platform and in some cases there were performance/usability issues as well.

Now Windows 7 is shipping and Vista seems like

without an issue, so now it was time to do some testing.

not, and my minor edits were lost. Not good.

I have always thought control should be with the user, and not with the operating system to decide to

First impressions

do a forced restart.

Bootup time in Windows 7 is quick and I went straight

such a long time ago, but will Microsoft deliver with this new operating system? Over the past few weeks

to do some simple web browsing and this felt quicker too. I quite like the translucent Window frames, Aero

New technology

I have been dipping my toes in to see what it is like.

There is an awful lot to Windows 7, and I will need to

peak and snap features. The taskbar is neater with bigger icons that are easier to read. The taskbar is not full of junk and only displays what you really need. But

Windows 7 continues to update some technologies that started with Vista. Some elements of WinFS (Windows Future Storage), a data storage and

spend more time with it to get a proper feel, but here are my initial experiences.

The install I decided to install Windows 7 on an old workstation laptop to see how it would cope. I had a choice to install on my existing partition, and perform an upgrade of Windows XP, or start afresh. As I had backed up all the data I needed, I formatted the drive to start from scratch. It took a little while to go through the install screens but once finished I was pleasantly surprised that Windows 7 had installed most of the device drivers I needed.

I then installed some anti virus software and went online to do a Windows update. This added a few more device drivers, for things like the laptop’s fingerprint scanner, which impressed me.

The OS installed a basic graphics driver, but not

I guess what you really want to know is if, and how,

Rob Jamieson is a marketing manager at AMD.

management system based on relational databases,

CAD software worked with it?

I have access to trial versions of Autodesk software, so I tried these first. Inventor 2009 had a license

are in there. This can be experienced in the enhanced search functions and the file system also feels quicker in use. Considering all the increases in our

problem and would not start. Inventor 2010 worked

file sizes since 2001 when XP was launched, this can only be a good thing.

and I loaded up and viewed a few assemblies with no problems. I loaded a larger assembly and it warned I was running out of RAM and then locked up. I was on a

In Windows 7, Direct X gets a big update to version 11 and a number of CAD software programs use this 3D engine. DX 10 was adopted but most implementations did not offer much performance over

32-bit version of Windows 7 with 2GB memory so I can forgive it a little. That said Windows was using a lot of

DX 9 with Vista. I could write a whole article on DX 11 but here are a few highlights.

The first is the tesselator, which can simplify the

RAM. The resource monitor is better than XP’s but I was not sure it was reporting everything properly.

OpenGL for 3D graphics is implemented as it was via Vista — if you install a professional graphics card a full OpenGL kernel is installed. I tested multiple OpenGL applications at the same time as some using DX. I am not sure the full performance was there, but it is still early days.

Windows 7 provides

mesh of a model to increase performance, and can be

clearer icons, a

calculated by the GPU. In addition to graphics, there are also applications for CAD/CAE and the technology could be utilised in stress analysis software.

neater taskbar and a cool 3D stack of Windows.

Another feature of DX 11 is direct compute. This means a GPU can be used for more than just graphic calculations, including physics or thermo fluids simulation. Transparencies are supported in a better way through hardware and this will be very useful in CAD. Eyefinity is part of ATI’s DX 11 implementation and means a single GPU can support up to six monitors (OK, shameless plug over). While DX 11 is at the heart of Windows 7 it will also be available for Windows Vista.

Of course, all of this underlying technology needs to be supported by your CAD software to reap the opportunities of Windows 7 and it is still early days. My advice would be maybe do not implement Windows 7 until your software developer certifies it.

This will most likely be through a new release or, at the very least, a service pack. Overall, I like the usability of Windows 7 and as I write this article in Microsoft Word on the new Operating System I think going back to Vista, never mind XP, is going to be hard.

Rob Jamieson is a marketing manager at AMD. This article is his own opinion and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. robert.jamieson@amd.com

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Merging talent and tools A motorway upgrade project in Australia employs a range of software platforms to improve road infrastructure and attract the best specialists available.

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lready one of Brisbane’s busiest road networks, the Centenary Highway Interchange was expected to get considerably busier according to demographic projections.

As the two main arterial roads for commuters from Brisbane’s outlying south western suburbs, the capacity of the Ipswich Highway, which goes underneath the equally busy Centenary Highway from Springfield had to be increased. The government’s plan was to provide a free-flowing interchange, improve the existing road geometry/pavements to alleviate long commute times, and increase road safety.

In addition, some portions of the roadway were at relatively low elevations within expected flood levels and the original interchange divided the surrounding community with unattractive landscaping.

The Department of Transport and Mainroads Queensland awarded the contract to the SAFElink Alliance, a consortium of four partners that included global design architects Arup. The project is currently under construction and due for completion in 2010.

At work down under The SAFElink Alliance designed and has partly constructed a significant new piece of road infrastructure. The project includes: • An upgrade of 2.5 km of Centenary Motorway • An upgrade of 5.5 km of Ipswich Motorway from four to six lanes, with provision for a total of eight lanes in future • A new, free-flowing, multilevel interchange system at the intersection of the two motorways • Earthworks and bridgeworks for a new rail line passing through and integrating with the new interchange system • Temporary roads and structures designed and constructed in order to keep traffic flowing

Linked in project design The SAFElink Alliance needed to keep traffic flowing throughout the upgrade as well as meet high sustainability standards. Environmental and community impacts during construction had to be kept to a minimum, with local sports grounds and facilities needing relocation. At the request of contracting agencies, compulsory land acquisitions had to be kept to a minimum while providing for future expansion.

SAFElink Alliance divided the project into three phases. In phase one, target cost estimates were set and benchmarks were established to guide design and construction. Phase two was devoted to design and optioneering, in which the team evaluated and costed many options, trying to capture as much innovation as possible. In phase three, solutions were selected and conventional design and construction began.

“These steps created significant pressure for the design team. Innovative design, process, and procedures were required to successfully achieve all program milestones,” said Andrew Lewis, an associate at Arup.

One challenge that the SAFElink Alliance struggled with was a shortage of skilled design talent. This was overcome with two strategies. First, a decision was made to use MicroStation PowerDraft and Bentley MX as main interchange design tools. Team managers felt that MX, in particular, was relatively intuitive and could be taught quickly to new employees. Also, because these tools are fully interoperable with other design platforms, the SAFElink Alliance was able to make full use of designers who were conversant with AutoCAD. Similarly, when doing specialised work like 3D

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lighting modelling or landscape design, the SAFElink Alliance team could employ the best specialists or consultants available, regardless of what software tools they preferred. The second strategy grew out of the first — because interoperability was not an issue, the SAFElink Alliance could use Bentley ProjectWise collaboration software to co-ordinate the work of teams around the globe.

By accessing skilled engineers wherever and whenever they were available and letting them work with their preferred tools, the SAFElink Alliance successfully overcame talent shortages.

Virtual and physical models Models were used during the optioneering phase to visualise and evaluate features. Ultimately a parametric model built primarily with MicroStation PowerDraft and MX was completed, and the SAFElink Alliance was able to use this to refine materials lists and cost estimates.

The MX model could also be used alongside structural modelling tools like TriForma and with non-Bentley tools used for traffic modelling, 3D lighting design, and urban landscape design. The design team used MicroStation PowerDraft visualisation tools to communicate design decisions to all stakeholders.

As segments neared final design, the electronic model could also be transferred to construction and

The Centenary Highway Interchange merges two of the busiest road networks in Queensland.

Image courtesy of Arup/Safelink Aliance.

survey teams, reducing the number of construction documents that needed to be produced. The use of videos for sight line checks, cross section reviews, and aqua planning analysis also reduced document quantity.

To convey the design to the client, stakeholders, and local community, visualisation videos and animations were produced from the design models. These were also used by television networks to announce the project in the media. A subconsultant, Urban Circus, was employed to further develop the model creating a real-time model for use during the public consultation phase, which allowed virtual walk-throughs of the project as it neared completion.

To meet stringent sustainability requirements, designers paid close attention to the amount and sources of materials used. Innovative design reduced the amount of bridges needed, thereby reducing the amount of material needed. Batching plants, precast yards, and crushers were set up on site to recycle and reuse some existing structures as fill, and other local projects were also used as material sources. This greatly reduced the amount of material hauled in and out of the construction site. The use of ProjectWise as a collaborative tool to co-ordinate the dispersed design team also cut travel, thereby further reducing the project’s carbon footprint.

Addressing all these issues with one upgrade and rehabilitation project called for innovative thinking and project management, even when working with a budget of more than AU$863 million (US$783m).

In the fast lane The project has already significantly reduced accident rates due to improved road geometry, better signage, less distracting urban landscaping, and intelligent transport systems. Improved lighting design, facilitated by advanced 3D modelling techniques, is another contributing factor.

Raised highway levels and more effective drainage have made the interchange and the surrounding neighbourhoods less subject to flooding, and by opening portions of the upgraded interchange in planned phases, commute times have dropped, even during the construction period.

By redesigning from a perspective of connectivity, the surrounding communities are no longer split in two by the interchange. The community also benefits from landscaping, which improves views and buffers motorway sounds, and from better and lighting that is more considerate of the interchange’s neighbours.

By any standard, this was a challenging project. But it was also one in which designers had the opportunity to make life better for commuters and residents. By using specialised talent and tools, that chance was realised. www.bentley.com MARCH/APRIL 2010 AEC MAGAZINE

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Augmenting reality Virtual Reality promised much and delivered little. As a result the ‘virtual’ prefix has become a bit of a millstone for many technologies. With all the hype around Augmented Reality Martyn Day wonders if it will suffer the same fate?

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am old enough to remember all the original hype surrounding Virtual Reality (VR) and have memories of dark rooms, immersive headsets and gloves with enough cables to double as a walking telephone exchange. Virtual it was. Reality? Well perhaps if you lived on a planet entirely filled with flat shaded prismatic shapes. Thankfully I live in Oxford.

The most realistic virtual environments you can currently experience reside in games and that pretty much sums up the kind of person that got the most excited about VR in the first place — fantasists, whose lives are so dull they need a Second Life Avatar or a trip back in time to shoot their fair share of Nazis. While the ultimate VR experiences certainly capture the playfully minded, the key residual for engineers has been the evolution of existing design systems to model ‘virtual products’ in 3D CAD, so they may be tested with simulation and analysis tools. These can also be rendered for product brochures or videos, which saves time and money in removing the reliance on prototypes and ultimately producing higher quality products. All very practical, but not very sci-fi.

Augmented reality With the original vision of VR now deemed passé, there is a new ‘reality’ phrase doing the rounds in technology circles — that of Augmented Reality (AR). AR is defined as a live view of the real world, which is merged with contextual computer-generated information or geometry, all in real-time.

As with VR, the first users of AR were the military, which deployed AR technology in Heads Up Displays (HUDs) for fighter jets and helicopters, projecting the navigation and systems status onto the visors of the pilot’s helmet. In some systems targets can even be assigned by tracking the retina of the pilot’s eyes.

Technology such as this is now creeping into high-end car design with speed and ‘sat nav’ information being projected onto the windscreen. And with tiny laser projector technology, there are even real-time 3D holographic systems coming online.

Applications for AR While you may still be wondering why you would want your reality augmented, unlike VR, AR does actually have an array of convincing real-world commercial applications that are available for use now.

It is already possible to render 3D geometry onto the video view of a mobile phone or link metadata to real world objects.

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Key Augmented Reality Technologies Mobile phones are extremely powerful and come with highresolution cameras, GPS chips, powerful graphics and high-speed data connections. CAD And GIS systems all offer geo-referencing capabilities, allowing digital models to be aligned to real world co-ordinates.

Internet pioneers like Google are mapping the planet (Google Earth, Maps and Streetview), which in turn link to massive databases of digital assets.

Tracking technology has also come on in leaps and bounds. From commercial applications such the iPhone to the ability to capture actors’ movements for Avatar; computers know where you are.

Feature detection from both 2D images and video can compare real word objects to known 3D CAD geometry, making scene recognition plausible.

“Architects could use augmented reality to project building models into the live video of sites.”

Probably the most interesting vision of this has been provided by Google, with its Google Goggles labs experiment. This allows the web to be searched using pictures from camera phones. The software can recognise landmarks, artwork, places, wine labels, logos and connect that with GPS and video information. For example, you could switch on your phone’s camera and point it at the Golden Gate Bridge. The software will recognise the landmark, pull associated information of the structure and display it live on your camera. Future applications include taking a photo of a chess game to get some help with the next move or taking the picture of a leaf to find out what plant it is from.

While this sounds space age, there are applications available now for AR on Apple’s iPhone.

For instance Theodolite provides a live in Theodolite

Engineers could use cameras on mobile devices to recognise installed equipment, and automatically bring up service manuals.

read out to the camera view and can be used to measure heights and elevations. Another application, Le Bar from Stella Artois, will add pub information to the live camera view. There is an application to locate your nearest tube stop, Pocket Universe for live astronomy information and ‘car finder’, which directs you back to your car, should you have remembered to tell your iPhone where you parked it. A lot of these may be considered gimmicks but the technology is still very interesting.

Engineering reality Beyond the many applications for lost tourists, engineering developers are also looking to provide professional applications for AR. No longer will design information need to reside in database silos. Autodesk is already working on linking underground pipework to Google Maps, allowing onsite engineers to use mobile devices to ‘see through’ the ground and locate buried pipework. Architects could use AR to project building models into the live video of sites and engineers could use cameras on mobile devices to recognise installed equipment, and automatically bring up service manuals.

While VR was all about modelling everything, including the virtual world, AR makes much more sense — just overlay the 3D model, or related information to the real world. With the advent of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), all the lifecycle attribute information will also be available online - so parts of assemblies could be identified by photo and disassembly videos relayed or new parts ordered.

This is a true convergence of technologies and capabilities and will make us all look at the Internet in a completely different light. The technology could also be enhanced using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags, linking back to assembly Bill of Materials (BOMs) at head office. The potential for AR usage is nothing less than huge.

Conclusion As with most technologies, the consumer demand for AR will drive companies like Google to further map out the world and build connections and links to rich databases of existing digital products and projects. As masters of the 3D digital landscape and content, engineers, architects, civil engineers and cartographers will, in turn, benefit from this hybrid of Internet, GPS, live video and digital asset information for many different reasons.

Convergence is no longer just an industry mantra, it is a reality.

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Océ ColorWave 300 Océ’s new full colour wide format printer offers production level features in a compact footprint, writes Greg Corke.

I

n Autumn 2009 Océ introduced the PlotWave 300.

This was the company’s first truly compact wide format multi-function printer and was the first in a new generation of machines that will eventually replace its long-standing TDS and TCS families. Now, at the start of 2010, the Dutch company has introduced a colour version, the ColorWave 300.

The ColorWave 300 bears many similarities to the PlotWave 300. It offers concurrent scanning, printing, and copying, features the same intuitive scroll and click control panel, and supports up to two media rolls.

It also provides an optional top document stacker, and can print and scan documents using a USB memory stick. However, the one big difference between the two systems is, of course, the print technology.

Waves of ink While the monochrome PlotWave 300 features Océ’s patented ‘radiant fusing’ print technology, the ColorWave 300 uses a tried and tested colour inkjet engine, which is taken directly from its predecessor, the TCS 500.

The technology is geared up for production-level colour linework, occasional photo output and mixed line and image documents. The quality of linework, text and shading is impressive and while the output of full colour renderings or photographs is not in the same league as photo-quality printers from the likes of Canon and HP, it is still more than adequate for occasional use.

Océ claims A0 print speeds of 41 seconds for black and white and 63 seconds for colour. This is for ‘draft’ linework, but it is certainly no slouch when outputting mixed line and image documents.

Here, to maximise throughput, the PlotWave 300 utilises a technology called dynamic switching. This automatically manages the speed of the print head as it moves over each part of a drawing, accelerating for linework and slowing down for colour.

To help facilitate longer uninterrupted printing, the Colorwave 300 boasts four 400ml ink cartridges in cyan, magenta, yellow and black. As the ink is held in a reservoir before it hits the print heads, cartridges can be changed in the middle of a print job without affecting output, which is a nice feature.

Paper handling When loading Océ media the system will automatically recognise paper type and adjust print settings accordingly. It will also auto-align the media if it has been loaded slightly skew. With its two paper rolls, media can be changed on the fly, in the middle of a print job, which backs up its production level credentials.

A unique feature of the ColorWave300 is the optional top delivery tray. Available for Spring/Summer 2010, it will enable up to 50 drawings to be stacked

34

HARDWARE REVIEW

at the top of the machine. According to Océ, it will not add any significant bulk to an already compact machine and works by first holding the prints at the back of the machine to dry, then using rollers to straighten the curved media, and finally blowing air between each print to stack them without sticking.

is equally straightforward and it is clear that a lot of attention has been paid to keeping the interface simple for even novice users.

In a networked environment print jobs can be sent directly from AutoCAD or any Windows-based application and multiple drawing files can be submitted using Océ’s browser-based Publisher Express tool. The whole system is managed from a Web browser using Océ Express WebTools and this includes job management, ink and media monitoring, and network configurations.

For more control over document distribution, particularly over multiple networked print devices, Océ offers an optional software called Reprodesk Studio. Features include batch print PDF, document accounting, automatic job distribution to the most suitable printer (e.g. colour or monochrome), and advanced queue management. While a major focus for Reprodesk Studio is about sending documents to print, the software is equally adept at electronic distribution.

Scanning The compact footprint of the ColorWave 300 is made possible by stacking the scanner directly on top of the printer. This is in contrast to Océ’s TDS and TCS range, where the scanner is a separate unit. The slimline scanner uses multi-camera Contact Image Sensor (CIS) technology and like all of Océ’s wide format scanners, Color Image Logic technology. In short, this automatically recognises the type of document, compensates for background noise and adjusts levels accordingly to maximise the quality of text, line and photo prints.

Control For day-to-day operation, the ColorWave 300 can be controlled via a scroll and click control panel, which is attached to the top right hand corner of the machine.

From here one touch scanning and copying is possible using four customisable templates. These control variables such as resolution, file format and save location or whether the document to be scanned as a colour photo or line drawing.

The scroll and click control panel also comes into play when printing from or scanning to a standard USB memory stick. A unique capability for the large format sector, it is straightforward with the system auto-sensing the size of the drawing, then scaling it to fit or auto-rotate to fit the loaded media. Scanning

Conclusion

The ColorWave 300 is very compact and the optional stacker adds little bulk.

The ColorWave 300 is the latest in a new generation of multifunction wide format devices from Océ that are specifically designed for companies where floor space is in short supply. Not only does the scanner and printer have a small footprint, but the optional top delivery tray will stack documents efficiently without adding to its horizontal bulk.

While this new ‘compact’ configuration will not suit everyone, busy print rooms or for those that require optimum scan quality with a single camera full depth scanner have many other options to draw from within the Océ range.

In terms of positioning, the ColorWave 300 can fill multiple roles, each of which depends largely on print volumes. It can certainly reduce the need for colour outsourcing, and work comfortably alongside a volume monochrome printer. In the case of a smaller architectural practice, it can be used as a one-stopshop for production printing.

Demand for large format colour documents continues to grow, and the benefit of mixed line drawings and renderings for better communication of design intent should not be underestimated.

However, the major barrier to adoption continues to be price per print, which is significantly more than output from monochrome printers. With volumes and document types varying greatly from company to company, this can only really be quantified on a case-by-case basis, but by taking a closer look at the cost of this technology and weighing it up against the practical benefits it should soon become clear where this technology can fit into your workflow. www.oce.com AEC MAGAZINE

MARCH/APRIL 2010

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