AEC Magazine Autodesk University Special Edition November 2017

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Building Information Modelling (BIM) technology for Architecture, Engineering and Construction

Special edition Autodesk University

Autodesk FormIt Workstations for Revit Clone wars: from DWG to BIM From Revit to VR

Studio style

Project Quantum

Immerse yourself in your design

Exploring tech at Studio Libeskind

Where next for BIM?

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Project Quantum: the future of BIM? 4 In an exclusive interview, Martyn Day speaks to Autodesk chief software architect Jim Awe about the company’s vision of the next generation of BIM tools.

From Revit to VR 12

the World Trade Centre site, to explore the role that technology plays in the practice’s world-renowned architecture.

Autodesk FormIt 28 Sketch, collaborate, analyse, and share early-stage design concepts with this enhanced architectural modelling tool.

Greg Corke gets hands-on with three Virtual Reality (VR) applications that work seamlessly with Revit, weighing up their capabilities and assessing how well they combine with the HTC Vive and workstation GPUs.

The clone wars 30

Interview: the new Autodesk CEO 20

Leica BLK360 32

Martyn Day caught up with Andrew Anagnost to hear his vision for Autodesk, including subscription, enterprise licensing and the future of Revit.

Studio style 22 Greg Corke visited Studio Libeskind’s New York offices, a stone’s throw from

AutoCAD’s popularity and high cost spawned a copycat DWG clone industry.

Now the clone developers are aiming for verticalised BIM capabilities.

Leica Geosystems’ new scanner is not only beautifully styled but can be used by anyone, not just surveyors.

Tiny workstations 34 We review two new generation workstations - the HP Z2 Mini and Lenovo ThinkStation P320 Tiny - small in size, but with plenty of grunt for Revit and other BIM tools.

A note from the editors Welcome to a very special edition of AEC Magazine that we’ve put together especially for Autodesk University, one of our favourite events in the AEC technology calendar.

Inside, you’ll some of our best features from the last 12 months, focusing on hot topics like VR, laser scanning, conceptual design, collaboration and workstation tech. This is just a small taste of what we cover in each issue so, if you like what you read, please take out a free subscription at aecmag.com/subscriptions. Alternatively, sign up at booth A218 at Autodesk University in Las Vegas from November 14-16.

In 2018 expect to see lots on Artificial Intelligence (AI), Mixed Reality (MR), Augmented Reality (AR), generative design, reality modelling and digital fabrication, as well as all our core BIM technology coverage. Enjoy!

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Autodesk University 2017 special edition

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Feature

Project Quantum the future of BIM? In an exclusive interview, Martyn Day speaks to Autodesk chief software architect Jim Awe about the company’s vision of the next generation of BIM tools.

R

evit turns 17 years old this year.

Its heritage dates back still further, to an older system called Sonata. This makes it a senior citizen in the software world. On the plus side, it enjoys a significant pedigree. On the negative side, most software companies feel that most code has, at best, a tenyear lifespan.

So it’s no surprise that, for years, there have been hints that Autodesk was working on a successor to Revit, perhaps cloudbased, to match the company’s vision of software as a service and the web delivery of all its products.

With the arrival of Autodesk Fusion in 2012, the company took a fresh approach to product design for the manufacturing market – cloud-based with a new user interface, powerful new constraints-solving and, importantly, a platform-independent approach, in a sharp break from delivering only Windows-based applications. The aim was to replace Inventor, and more specifically, to take aim at the market-leading SolidWorks application owned by Dassault Systèmes, a company that was by then also hinting at a nextgeneration solution.

When software companies move to a new generation of applications, there are in general two ways to go. First, they can start afresh and not burden themselves with the constraints of supporting previous methodologies (see, for example, Autodesk Fusion.) The benefit of this approach is that the vendor is liberated from older applications and can freely begin introducing cutting-edge tools and processes. Customers of earlier products, however, may not be so happy.

Second, they can maintain the front end and rework all aspects of the code in the background (as seen with Bentley MicroStation). This is like changing a tyre at 90 miles an hour and means replacing components as and when possible, while cloning operations and processes.

But when it comes to the next generation www.AECmag.com

of BIM tools, it seems that there are new options open to software developers with the deployment of web infrastructure – a ‘third way’ to go in this challenge.

Looking at the development of Fusion, we initially wondered if Revit would get the same treatment as Fusion, albeit in very different market conditions. In manufacturing, where Fusion is targeted, Autodesk was the underdog. In AEC, Revit has been in full flow, with mass adoption across all of Autodesk’s core geographies.

Looking for answers, I spoke with Autodesk CEO Carl Bass back in 2015. At that time, he told me that work was underway to renew the Revit code and that it would probably be Fusion-like – but with all the work the company had done to componentise core software services (DWG, document management, rendering, point cloud and so on) in the cloud, this would take a lot less time than we might guess. In other words, much of the work had already been done.

Fast-forward to 2016 Then came further clues, during an Autodesk University 2016 keynote given

by Autodesk’s senior vice president of products Amar Hanspal. On stage, he started to talk about an exciting project, admitting that the question of whether he should discuss the early-stage project on stage at all had been the topic of hot debate internally at the company.

Its code name, he revealed, was Project Quantum. According to Hanspal, it was about “evolving the way BIM works, in the era of the cloud, by providing a common data environment.” Its aim, he continued, was to tackle issues that arise because AEC is a federated process, with data stored in many silos, often unconnected and often unavailable when needed.

Project Quantum, he said, would connect ‘workspaces’, by breaking down the monolithic nature of typical AEC solutions, enabling data and logic to be any-

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Feature where on the network and available, on which displays their own view of the research effort to try and figure out how demand, in the right application for the world; while Uber has a central system we can implement some of these new task at hand. These workspaces would be displaying a bird’s-eye view of its control concepts, given the change in the technolbased on professional definitions, ena- and communications network. The beau- ogy landscape.” bling architects, structural engineers, ty is that nobody explicitly sends data The implications for Revit MEP professionals, fabricators and con- around the system,” he said.

Awe added that, by delivering special- While high-level strategising to solve some tractors access to the tools they need.

In this respect, Project Quantum repre- ised, targeted applications, instead of huge, of the AEC industry’s horrific data jams sents a fundamental shift of mindset at monolithic programmes, Autodesk can sounds great in principle, Awe’s words still Autodesk in developing products for avoid trying to serve too many people with left me pondering what all this means for AEC and was not what we were expect- applications overloaded with functionality. Revit, given its status as probably the biging to hear. On the face of it, it’s not about In the BIM world, collaborative workflows gest data monolith in the BIM process. rewriting or regenerating Revit, but is a and sharing are still way too cumbersome.

While Revit has always been developed “We want apps that offer the right level as one application, for most of its history, much broader vision that aims to tackle of knowledge for the task and can share three versions have been sold, for archicollaboration and workflow.

On stage at Autodesk University 2016, that information seamlessly in the sys- tecture, structural and MEP. The funcHanspal presented, as an example, the tem,” he said. “Today, there’s a lot of man- tions from these three disciplines have modification of a curtain wall. He demon- ual effort and a lot of noise. There is a lot since been rolled into one product. Now, strated an architect updating their model of oversharing of information that no one it seems as if the Quantum vision of the in a workspace, while showing how an really needs or cares about!” future might lead back, once again, to difTo get to this view of the process, ferent tools and views for different disciengineer had a different workspace with more relevant tools for their role in the Autodesk has chosen to ponder high-level plines. task and a fabricator had yet another strategies. Awe commented, “The key conSo what did Awe have to say about Revit? workspace, containing design drawings sideration is how to get data to flow “Revit is still a major player in the ecosysof the curtain wall. In other words, three smoothly in two directions throughout the tem. It’s just we have trouble getting Revit different professionals, with three differ- ecosystem. In one direction, you have the to cover the entire landscape. Consider site ent workspaces, containing different continuum of design / make / use as you design: we are never going to put all the views and tools — but all relating to the consider a system from concept to fabrica- Infraworks features into Revit or vice same project. versa. There is just a limit as to In this way, Quantum isn’t what one application can do withreally a design tool as such, but The Quantum approach is a completely in an ecosystem. an enabling platform, a common “Revit will still be a major fresh look, not just at underlying point player, although it will morph a data environment, almost a tools, but also the process of joining up little bit to work within that ecocloud-based Babel fish.

For those of you who, like me, system. Revit may give up the digital design-to-fabrication were originally hoping for a capabilities of certain building long-overdue, next-generation elements to another app, but replacement of Revit, capable of modelling tion. In the other direction, you have all Revit will still be a major player in a larger models, faster, all this may come as the major systems of the building that Quantum world. This is not a replacesomething of a disappointment. have to coordinate with each other ment for Revit and it’s not Revit in a However, the Quantum approach is the (Structure, Facade, Site, MEP, etc.). We browser.” result of a completely fresh look, not just don’t need one giant database for all the One of the reasons Revit has suffered is at underlying point tools, but also at the data if we have interconnectedness down to the architecture of its database process of joining up digital design-to- between databases. If you look at Google and its tendency to bloat. In my past confabrication. Revit will benefit from this Maps for instance, it presents the data as if versations with Autodesk, a source has approach and it’s one we believe will ena- it’s all in one place, but it isn’t, it’s from dif- admitted that, since Revit was acquired ble rapid future development. ferent services from all over the network.” and not developed in-house, this has been In order to get a bigger picture of the A holistic approach to managing pro- somewhat out of Autodesk’s control. Had implications of Quantum, AEC jects is perhaps not new, as demonstrated the company had a choice, Revit’s architecMagazine talked with Jim Awe, chief by extranet product such as Primavera ture might have looked very different — software architect at Autodesk and also and many others. However, as Autodesk and that’s just the case for desktops. When to Jim Lynch, vice president of the com- also creates the core authoring applica- it comes to a cloud-based, next-generation pany’s building products group. tions, the company feels it is well-placed world, it’s just not fit for purpose. to offer levels of integration and connec“That’s true,” Awe acknowledged. He So what is Quantum? tivity not seen before, if it can break free then showed me a demo of one of Quantum’s core capabilities. In a single Jim Awe, an Autodesk veteran, first set from its own product silos.

Awe explained, “We have this incredi- screen, there were four distinct applicaout to explain the methodology behind Quantum. “The simplest way to try and ble portfolio of products that Autodesk tion views displayed, one of which was understand what we’re trying to accom- has built or acquired over the years, and Revit. Every time model data was added plish is an analogy with Uber. We’re try- we haven’t been able to utilise all the IP into Revit, it appeared instantly in the ing to have a data-centric approach to a as much as we would have liked, because three other applications. So Quantum enaprocess. Uber has its data displayed functionality is isolated in apps which bles information-sharing with other envisimultaneously in many different places: don’t talk to each other in a file-based, ronments in real time. This is not a case, the customer has their mobile app to call desktop world. The cloud changes that by the way, of translating the Revit file and the driver; the driver also has an app dramatically. Project Quantum is a heavy then propagating it. Instead, Revit con-

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Feature stantly ‘transmits’ geometry and property set data, via Quantum, to other applications that are tuned in, without laborious file-based data exchange.

“The opportunity here is for Revit to handle large chunks of the modelling still, but communicate in real-time with other applications, and users who may be watching or participating in the design process,” said Awe. “As we now have multiple applications coordinated, we could have for instance, FormIt which has a different database and a different way of working, but it can watch out for Revit’s property set data, which is part of Project Quantum.

“The beauty of the system is that we don’t have to take the data away and translate it into some other format. Export a file, move the file somewhere else, it really does knock down the interoperability barriers of collaboration.

Revit survives intact In other words, with Quantum, Revit survives intact and evolves at the dawn of Autodesk’s next-generation BIM solution. However, there are indicators as to how Revit will morph in the future with Quantum capabilities.

One of Revit’s Achilles’ heels is the size to which models grow and the performance issues that this growth can trigger.

In many ways, this is caused by customers building ever-larger and more detailed models — plus a fair bit of bad practice when it comes to failing to break models down. However, it’s also true that Revit requires the most RAM, fastest SSDs and processors of any of the BIM systems that AEC Magazine reviews.

Quantum is set to bring new life to Revit by taking the load off the local database. Awe explained that, by using mixed geometric representation, combining hybrid full-detail and dumb components, Autodesk has achieved pretty large reductions in local file sizes. Sending whole models anywhere, meanwhile, will no longer be required.

“If you’re in an application that requires a high level of detail — for instance, if the data is for fabricating the panels and components — what actually gets sent back to Revit is not at the same level of detail.

Revit would receive a display mesh that’s the right size and looks about right, which can be displayed in context for the architect to see how it looks.

“If the architect did want to see the panel in all its manufactured glory, then they could double-click the panel and see the manufacturer’s information. If you try to model every single part in Revit to a fabrication level of detail, you will 8

undoubtedly slow it down as it’s overwhelmed with data.”

Taking the load off Revit will be a major boost for all users and, on its own, may well be a driving force for firms that build big, multi-storey buildings. The Quantum idea is that there would be a small number of large applications generating design content, with a large number of web-based applications taking these outputs and performing tasks, such as rendering, analysis, takeoffs and so on.

At the moment, a whole model needs to be loaded and then filtered in a subtractive and protracted process; through Quantum, the filtering can happen before anything is loaded. And should you want to see everything, you can load it all in a coordinated view, like Navisworks.

One of the benefits of writing Autodesk Fusion from scratch was that Autodesk could finally offer applications outside of Windows. As Fusion can run purely in a browser, it can run on anything, even an iPad — but Autodesk has also delivered a Mac-native version, a long-held wish for Revit customers.

Unfortunately, Revit is staying as it is, a desktop Windows application — and that means only available on Windows.

However, all new Quantum applications developed have been web-based, so should work on any system.

Looking into the distance, I assume that, as Quantum grows, Revit will have more capabilities taken from it and rewritten for the cloud, lightening the local load and democratising Revit’s capabilities to extend to all parties in a project. This is probably the smartest way to create a new generation of Revit, while maintaining a popular application.

Suddenly, Revit has a development path that actually promises more than the incremental updates that we have seen released each year.

Despite Awe’s vision of task-specific views of data, Revit will not be going back to being three separate products for architecture, structural and MEP. It also means that while Revit will be updated, it will not evolve to own more direct manufacturing capabilities or to have more civils / topology capabilities. These will now appear in Quantum and data will be available, on demand, in a variety of granular options.

Where a number of Revit users are connected via Quantum, other designers’ edits will obviously be seen in real time.

Here, Autodesk is looking at ways for participants to lock geometry and set private workspaces so the process of collaborative design does not become too chaotic. Awe suggests a comparison to the way

Autodesk University 2017 special edition

Github works: sometimes it may be appropriate to lock to a version of someone else’s work and update later.

Rapid development It will also be much easier for Autodesk’s AEC team to add new functionality into Quantum than it would be to a traditional monolithic application, said Jim Lynch.

For example, Autodesk developers took an open source analysis package and had it working within a day. Adding the equivalent application to a large codebase, such as Revit or AutoCAD, by contrast, would have taken months, as it would need to be integrated to the database and then the graphics system. With Quantum, this is a trivial issue. And in the future, it suggests that Autodesk can acquire applications and point solutions and rapidly deploy them to users of the Quantum ecosystem.

Awe added, “We had a group of developers experiment with the system, without much of an introduction, and they created a Minecraft-style modelling application, where multiple people were collaborating simultaneously to produce the designs. Each user had an independent view of the information, while a central screen offered an aggregated view, like Navisworks. This gives us enormous flexibility in how we can build applications, move the data around, what kind of independent specialist views we can create, versus what we can do now, which is give everybody the same tool, with the same model, and force them to filter it down an appropriate view.”

Quantum applications So with Quantum providing this ecosystem of sharing applications, I asked, what would an actual product that sits on top of all this look like?

“We still have a long way to go,” Awe replied. “The friction in the industry as it stands, is that you have a design-heavy tool such as Revit, which coordinates all the systems, all the verticals, and then you throw the data over a wall to the people who have to make and fabricate it.

The data is not at the right level of detail or the right composition, so engineers have to rebuild it from scratch and throw away most of the data.

“Quantum takes us in a new direction where a specific system, such as a curtain wall, can be designed from concept to fabrication. And then we can take those individual systems and stitch them together around their interface points.

For instance, how the curtain wall attaches to the structure and how the building footprint impacts the site. The applicawww.AECmag.com

tions have to agree on certain interface points throughout the process. If you like, it’s a contract between the systems and between the levels of detail.”

This makes sense, as Revit isn’t an application designed to drive cutting machinery, and nor should it be solved in a single application. Adding the detail required for fabrication would have a negative impact on the size of the model database and there are better, manufacturing-specific CAD systems out there.

By agreeing these interface points between systems, at different levels of detail, in different formats, Quantum enables the selection of the right tool for the right job, while still maintaining a linked ecosystem.

The key seems to be these interface points between the systems. This means geometry and data doesn’t have to be exported or translated and each party can keep the levels of detail separate and do that in whatever tool they need to do it in.

Awe explained that, while modelling, if interface points change, this could automatically update the design in another system or raise a flag to the designer to indicate a change has been made.

This is a massive benefit over what happens now, where an architect will give continually lob over a hefty Revit model with each revision, leaving other project participants having to figure out what’s changed. For fabricators, this is just noise in the process and wastes their time.

Quantum parametrics?

While Quantum is aimed at bypassing existing workflow log-jams, it also brings with it new potential problems.

In the world of Revit, Dynamo, Grasshopper, ArchiCAD and GC, we have lots of parametric systems driving geometry. In an interlinked world, how would Quantum deal with conflicting and automatic drivers?

“We do imagine that there will be multiple parametric systems, and our goal is to make them collaborative, not competitive,” said Awe. “Having all the disciplines intertwined into the same model and editor can be unnecessarily restrictive.

“We imagine a Quantum ecosystem to be more decoupled, giving each discipline the freedom to choose the tool of their choice for modelling their specific part of the building. So, as an example: the façade designer may use Dynamo or Grasshopper as their main authoring tool; the architect may use something like Revit; and the structural engineer may use a brand-new, web-based authoring tool. Each one is responsible for the parametrics of their own system and there www.AECmag.com

should not be any conflict. But of course, what happens when those systems have to coordinate? Our theory is that having them interact and communicate via the interface points that we discussed earlier is beneficial in several ways.

“It decouples segments of the model, which allows the method of authoring and the level of detail to vary depending on the need. Just as I could mix Dynamo scripts and Revit parametric constraints, I could also mix conceptual level of detail for one system with fabrication-level of detail for another. This is much more flexible than having to do the entire model in one level of detail and then trying to throw it over the wall to the next person, or to attempt putting multiple levels of detail into the same model.

“It allows for the ‘natural’ boundaries of professional discipline to be represented in workflows. As a structural engineer, I can do my work in my own chosen tool. When I am done working things out, I submit my work back into the system, which triggers an update of the interface points I agreed on with the architect. The architect then gets a controlled event that they can react to. They can easily see what changed and make the decision to accept as-is, or start some negotiation or redesign based on the proposed change.

So, in this case, the parametric systems aren’t competing for control of the reaction to those changes. They are informing each other in a more rational, controlled way that respects the normal boundaries of those two professions. This same dynamic would hold for interactions between architect and site engineer, architect and façade engineer, and so on.

“We feel confident in this interaction among the major systems that have heavy fabrication / make requirements.

However, it will get a little trickier depending on how fine-grained and spe-

cialised each of the tools gets. Will there be a ‘stairway authoring tool’ for nonstandard stairs? What about panellised walls? We imagine that Revit will continue to play a major role in the BIM process and then reach out to the Quantum ecosystem when there is a complex system in the building that has heavy Design/ Make/Use lifecycle considerations. We might run into some ‘competing parametrics’ in some of those smaller systems, but our goal is to overcome that the same way we do for the larger systems, maybe with a few subtle nuances.”

Sharing data and the cloud Autodesk has made no qualms about its cloud-based vision of the future of design tools. At the ‘sneak-peak’ at Autodesk University, it quickly became apparent that Quantum was essentially an always-on system. If a designer were to decouple and go offline, how could that work be added back into the mix, when multiple changes might continue to be made? Synchronising project data online and offline is a challenge, so does this mean you need to be always online with Quantum?

“I’d be lying if I said we had it all figured out”, explained Awe. “Many of the applications we have been working on and have demonstrated are web-only applications, so would not be available if you didn’t have a web connection. I’ve been in this industry a long time and collaboration and interoperability have always huge barriers to realising the the full benefits of BIM. Quantum’s capabilities make a lot of those issues go away.

Now, we have some new problems to solve, but we think we have made considerable progress in tackling long-established painpoints.

“We are just getting started on implementation,” he continued, “and to date, we have separated the data out by disci-

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Feature are talking about an ecosystem of products and services that will evolve over time, it’s difficult to give specifics beyond general trends and theories that we think may be likely.

“Second, the breakthroughs that we are very excited about are the ones that have been holding back the industry and the full potential of BIM for many years: collaboration and interoperability of data and tools.

Final thoughts on Quantum “Leveraging cloud technologies allows Quantum is a lot to take in. The first for those promising breakthroughs, but thing to note is that there is no next-gen- it also introduces some new, but exciting, eration Revit and that Revit is Windows- challenges that we are eager to work based for the foreseeable future. As it through. So, while we don’t have all the develops, Quantum will take a lot of the answers just yet, we are confident that it weight off Revit by removing the data- is a promising direction and we are base millstone around its neck. Over investing in it accordingly.”

While the technology is one thing, it time, it’s likely to see some of its functionality dissolve into Quantum-based, will be interesting to see how customers on-demand web applications, further feel about a system that really needs to lightening the load on the desktop. I’d have everyone online to work — should even suggest that, over a longer time that prove to be the end result. It’s possiperiod, we could well see Revit dissolve ble that the benefits may outweigh the into the Quantum framework, becoming limitations, but I’m not convinced how that might play in countries with lessa series of applications. evolved infrastructures.

When the AEC industry moved to BIM, interoperability became Quantum is an ambitious vision and not an issue as we lacked decent Quantum API Obviously, ecosystems need a shipping product – but the potential interchange standards. While Quantum attempts to solve that populating and Autodesk to kill problems that Revit BIM issue, it also makes Autodesk cusaims to have an API available workflows suffer from is significant tomers even more reliant on to provide application and Autodesk products, services and services from the developpricing. ment community, all operatI’ve talked with many enterprise license Quantum will, however, offer some ing around the Design / Make / Use continuum and the concept of ‘Data at the immediate benefits for users with com- customers who have been shocked at the Centre’ (without that data literally resid- pliant applications — namely, dynamic increase in premiums charged for their updates of geometry and data properties, next three-year deal for design tools, sering in one database).

According to Awe: “You can’t do that enabling collaborative working in a new vices and consultancy from Autodesk.

After all, it’s one thing to have your by being a closed system. As we are and exciting way. Autodesk has dodged building out the pieces for prototype the bullet of making a humongous online authoring tool based on one company’s workflows, we always make it work for at database and solved the problem of try- technology, but it’s a much more signifileast two cases: first, one of our tools, like ing to expand Revit into areas in which it cant proposition to hand over your comRevit; and second, a generic stand-in was never ever intended to play (such as plete process to that vendor. For competitool, like Excel or standard JSON data civils and fabrication), and which quite tive third parties, this would also be seen as potentially playing into Autodesk’s frankly would break it. that any JavaScript app could produce.

By breaking down the development stated ambition to ‘own the platform’.

“As an example, for the façade applicaFor now, from what I have seen, there is tion to get its interface points, we would work into smaller modules and enabling make a modification to Revit that can rapid deployment of new tools using the a touch of genius to creating a new, ‘third serve those changes up to a neutral sche- cloud, Autodesk can quickly flesh out its way’ to reinvigorate a mature product, ma. We would also make an Excel ver- AEC offering and rapidly integrate its providing a platform to renew its capabilsion of those points that can feed into manufacturing solutions. For third-par- ities, while solving serious pain points for that neutral schema. So, in short, there ty developers, this also opens new possi- customers and developers and, at the are no assumptions about reading / writ- bilities and potentially enables design same time, bringing powerful capabilities ing directly to Autodesk tools, and that firms to integrate disparate arrays of to team collaboration.

In conclusion, Awe closed off our chat gives us the flexibility to insert anything solutions from different vendors.

Quantum is a very ambitious vision by saying, “For now, we are heads down, into that same spot in the workflow.”

The development team also said that and it’s not a shipping product — but and working to develop a platform ecothis API would be available to competi- the potential to kill some of the prob- system that we consider the future of a tors, as they recognise that AEC firms lems that Revit BIM workflows suffer Design / Make / Use workflows for the now run multiple tools to complete their from is significant. As Awe put it: “It’s AEC industry.” projects. I was shown many ‘orchestra- still early in the process and because we ■ autodesk.com pline, so that each company or team has their own pile of data that they own, but the interface points are shared by the two (or more) parties that have agreed to collaborate around those shared points.

They can push resolved sets of geometry for others to use for coordination and visualisation, but they have agreed to share those as well. They don’t have to give up any of their native data used by whatever tool they use to author.

“But, as I’m sure you can guess, it gets tricky pretty fast when you consider all the possible workflows. So, lots of work still to do here. We are fresh off of considering the realities of ‘ownership of data’ with the BIM360 Docs project, so we understand most of the issues. One thing that is different is that we are reducing the amount of information that must be shared in order to collaborate and we hope that will have a positive effect. But, the bottom line is that it’s still early and we will need to work with customers to help us figure out what they are comfortable with. There are new opportunities over file-based systems for sure, but there’s also some uncharted territory.”

tion graphs’ of target customers’ toolsets.

This could potentially have big benefits for companies like Bentley, which has a huge suite of analysis tools, and popular point solutions, such as McNeel Rhino.

The big question will be, will these vendors want to play in Autodesk’s ecosystem? I suspect that customers will make that decision for them, by choosing to adopt (or not) a Quantum-based system.

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Review

From Revit to VR Greg Corke gets hands-on with three Virtual Reality (VR) applications that work seamlessly with Autodesk Revit, weighing up their capabilities and assessing how well they combine with the HTC Vive and workstation GPUs.

V

irtual Reality (VR) is one of the most exciting technologies to hit the AEC market in years. Architects, engineers and clients alike can experience a realistic virtual prototype of a building long before it is built.

A fully immersive VR experience gives you a sense of scale, depth and spatial awareness that simply cannot be matched by a rendering, walkthrough or physicalscale model. The feeling of presence – of

existing inside the 3D model – is quite incredible. Users have the freedom to explore a building at their own pace, to understand how it will feel and function.

Walking across rooms, teleporting through doors, peering around corners – it’s all possible with a fully tracked roomscale experience.

The impact on the design process can be huge – but only if VR can be used at the precise moments where it adds most value.

It’s fine to wait days or weeks for an

Autodesk (Revit) Live 1.6 Autodesk LIVE has many different components – a Revit plug-in, a cloud service that creates .LVMD files and a standalone Autodesk LIVE Editor that reads/writes .LVMD files.

There’s also a free viewer, Autodesk LIVE viewer, which is available for Windows or the iPad. This reads .LIVE files published by the Autodesk LIVE editor. The VR capability is only available on Windows.

To prepare a model, simply create a 3D view in Revit, then go to the Revit add-ins tab and click the ‘Go LIVE’ button. The software then does some pre-flight checks on the model and alerts you to any aspects that need your attention. This includes textures that can’t be found, section boxes that you might want to turn off and levels of detail that you might want to enable so that you can see all the model geometry.

Missing textures need be re-mapped manually. If they aren’t, the objects will just appear plain white. All other issues can be sorted out at the click of a button without leaving the dialogue box.

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Hitting ‘Go’ will upload your file to the cloud for processing. As Revit files often stretch to hundreds of MBs, upload speed is important but, when on a decent connection, it is processing time that takes up the bulk of the process. On average, with 0.5Mb/sec upload, we found our 100MB to 200MB Revit test files took around 15 mins to upload, process and download the resulting .LVMD file to our desktop workstation.

Larger files can take a lot longer. Also, depending on how busy the Autodesk LIVE servers are, you can end up in a queue, which can add a significant timelag. .LVMD files can be opened in the Autodesk LIVE Editor, a real-time desktop game engine design viz environment that also has a VR capability. For this article, we’ll start off by looking at what can be done on the standard desktop application and then share our experiences of VR. For navigation, use the mouse to orbit around a building or select a 3D viewpoint inherited from Revit.

Alternatively, with ‘tap and

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go’, click on any location and the software will walk you there, automatically navigating stairs and doors. You can set the view height so it’s possible to see what an adult, toddler or wheelchair user might experience when interacting with the space.

Models can be viewed in different display styles, including a clay type render mode, which is useful for early-stage design, when the focus is on form and volumes. The default fully rendered setting shows you fully baked materials and ‘realistic’ RPC content, including people and trees. Overall, the render quality is very good.

Autodesk LIVE also includes tools to explore daylighting. Simply move time and date sliders and shadows adjust in real time. Revit lights can be set to turn on automatically at night.

One of the most powerful capabilities of Autodesk LIVE is the ability to view the underlying BIM data within the model. Simply click on any object and the data appears in a dialogue box.

Moving into VR is easy.

Simply click the VR button in the bottom right hand corner of the screen, put on the VR headset and you’ll see a bird’s-eye view of the model

expert to produce a polished VR experience for communicating proposals to the client or the team. But for VR to truly influence design, it is the user of the CAD/BIM software that must have full control over when to enter the virtual environment. This gives them the opportunity to explore alternatives, evaluate the impact of modifications and detect errors early. Discovering issues weeks after a design has progressed can create delays and ramp up costs.

– the so-called Mini Map. The model is placed on a hoop, which the user can grab, spin and pull closer to the face to inspect from any angle. It’s a really good way to get an overall view of the project and to quickly zoom in on details. It’s possible to return to the Mini Map at any time, simply by pressing the Vive’s trackpad, which can be really useful for getting your bearings.

Most of the navigation in VR is done by teleporting.

Simply use the HTC Vive trigger controller to point and click. In a flash, the model fades in and out and you’ll find yourself in the new location. Depending on the size of your room-scale set-up, you can also walk short distances.

Doors open simply by looking at the them. This adds to the realism and your understanding of the building, but can be a little annoying if you simply want to see the detail of a door – a glass door, for example, which you can see through anyway.

Unfortunately, most of the functionality from the Autodesk LIVE game engine experience is currently not available in VR. You can’t interrogate the model, nor change the time of day in real

time without pressing ESC, taking off your headset and swapping VR controllers for a mouse. Autodesk LIVE VR is currently very much a navigation and viewing experience – albeit a very good one. However, it’s likely that Autodesk will add more functionality to VR as it works out the best way for users to access more advanced capabilities.

The visual experience in Autodesk LIVE is very good.

This can be further enhanced with Autodesk Stingray, the underlying game engine technology on which Autodesk LIVE is built.

Autodesk LIVE models taken into Stingray can also be turned into fully interactive experiences (think light switches, running taps, TVs or adding mechanisms to flip between different design configurations). This level of customisation is complex and requires a design viz specialist or game developer. Moving forward, it’s likely that the Autodesk LIVE Editor will inherit some of Stingray’s capabilities, while maintaining the user-friendly interface.

In terms of workstation hardware, Autodesk LIVE VR has pretty high-end requirements, with the recommended spec being an

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Prospect Basic, for simple navigation; This presents a huge opportunity for tions and GPUs. Each application works on the premise and a paid-for version, Prospect Pro, software developers to create push-button workflows to move quickly from that whatever you have in Revit – model, which adds more functionality and costs CAD/BIM to VR. Such tools not only sun settings, lighting, materials and $200 per person, per month.

Enscape is a real-time rendering plugbring in the model geometry but also entourage – is automatically transferred materials and lighting, so nothing needs into VR, simply by pressing a button, or in, providing a live link from Revit to a a few buttons. This makes all three appli- desktop 3D game engine that can also be to be done post-import. used for VR. It can take minutes (even Many of the current developments cen- cations well suited to non-expert users.

Prospect from New York-based IrisVR under a minute) to go from Revit to VR tre on Autodesk Revit, with a number of and, uniquely, any change applications now supporting made in Revit, automatically both the Oculus Rift and HTC updates in Enscape. The softVive Head Mounted Displays The relatively low GPU requirements ware places a big emphasis on (HMDs). It is these two HMDs that currently give the most and free version make IrisVR Prospect visual fidelity. Prices start at per year. immersive VR experience. The exceedingly attractive to smaller AEC $449Autodesk Live is a cloud Samsung Gear VR and Google firms with tight budgets service and application that Cardboard deliver a more basic turns Revit models into a fully VR experience without positionnavigable desktop game engine al head tracking. can be used to create fully navigable VR experience where users can also enter VR VR software environments in minutes (even under a at the click of a button. Files are uploaded For the purpose of this article, we tried minute) using a Revit plug-in. It also to the cloud using the Autodesk LIVE out three of the main ‘Revit to VR’ appli- works with other CAD/BIM tools, Revit plug-in. Once processed, the game cations using Revit 2017. All of the tools including SketchUp and Rhino. The soft- engine experience is downloaded to the work with both the Oculus Rift and ware places a big emphasis on perfor- desktop. This process takes around 10 to HTC Vive, but we only tested with an mance rather than visual fidelity. It 15 mins with small to medium-sized modHTC Vive, using two different worksta- comes in two versions – a free version, els. Autodesk LIVE experiences can also

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The Mini Map includes a hoop, which the user can grab and spin to inspect the model

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080.

In terms of professional GPUs, all of our test scenes ran fine in VR mode on the high-end Nvidia Quadro P6000. We would also expect the Quadro P5000 to give a decent experience, but we didn’t test this.

The AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 worked fine in desktop display mode, but in VR, we found it to be underpowered. Even with relatively simple models, the scene jumped around in front of our eyes, which made it disorientating and unusable.

The good news is Autodesk is currently looking at ways to

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reduce the hardware requirements so that Autodesk LIVE VR will also run on less powerful GPUs. The company told AEC Magazine that this could be achieved by tuning down some software capabilities. This would mean that the visuals would not be so compelling, but at least the experience would be fluid.

In summary, Autodesk LIVE offers a simple workflow from Revit to VR, good navigation and high-quality visuals with realistic materials. The big downside is the time it takes to enter VR. While 15+ minutes might not seem that long in the grand

Teleporting in Autodesk LIVE

scheme of things, it does put a big barrier in place for true iterative design workflows.

Predictably, Autodesk is aiming to bring this time down. Currently, a simple change to the Revit model would mean a completely new upload, but Autodesk is exploring new methods so only deltas (changes) need to be uploaded and processed. It is also looking to reduce processing time by developing more computeintensive algorithms (think multiple CPU cores or highend GPUs for light baking) to better harness the scalability of the cloud.

Autodesk LIVE is available on a 30-day free trial, which allows ten jobs to be processed. A subscription costs $30 per month for unlimited use of the cloud and the app, but this is an introductory offer so is likely to change.

■ autodesk.com/live

Update - Nov 2017 Since this article was written, Autodesk LIVE has been rebranded to Autodesk Revit Live. There have also been a couple of main features added.

First up is Level of Detail geometry generation and

material instancing, which Autodesk says results in a 20% performance improvement for users when working with large models [e.g. a hospital complex] and VR. Autodesk Revit Live now also suggests a recommended optimisation setting based on your hardware.

The second is that Revit Live now suports Revit LT as well as full-blown Revit.

Autodesk is gearing up for a new release any day now, so expect a raft of new features in what we presume will be Autodesk Revit Live 2.0.

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Review

Exploring surface finishes in Enscape

Enscape 1.8.3.3 Enscape is a real-time visualisation tool designed to work specifically with Revit. The software can be used on a standard display or in VR. It offers a push-button workflow from Revit to VR and, uniquely, a live link between the two applications.

Once a link is established, any changes made in Revit – be it geometry, materials, layers or lighting – will automatically appear in Enscape seconds later. With other Revit to VR applications, the entire RVT file must be processed again.

This excellent feature makes Enscape incredibly well-suited to iterative workflows. Make a change in Revit, then, in less than the time it takes to put on your HMD, assess those changes in VR. Should you so desire, live updates can be paused.

Enscape’s unique workflow is possible because of the way the software works.

Rather than exporting geometry from Revit, it only sends graphics information to Enscape, which is then rebuilt as proxies.

The software is installed as a plug-in inside Revit and is

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given its own tab. To enter VR, simply click the ‘VR’ Button, pick a predefined Revit view from the pulldown list, then hit run. In less than a minute, you’ll be able to see your Revit model in VR. The best way to enter VR is usually from a bird’s-eye view, as this gives a good overall picture of the project.

However, this initial view must be set up properly in Revit. Enscape has a maximum teleport distance, so be careful not to be too far way.

If you are, the only way to get closer to the building is to fly there using the Vive’s trackpad controls (the left controller moves you left and right, the right controller moves you up and down) and this can take some time.

You also need to ensure your model has some surrounding terrain.

Once you are close enough, navigation is intuitive. You can teleport through doors –

both solid and transparent – which is great, but you can’t teleport through certain types of windows. This can be annoying if you quickly want to jump outside to view the exterior of a building. To get around this, Enscape lets you fly through any solid object – windows, walls and all. Flying is very useful for viewing buildings from above, from any angle. However, it did make us feel a bit sick

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when viewing the model on a monitor, so the wearer can momentarily lift the HMD, but it’s a bit of a fudge.

If you want to capture certain elements of your building to jog your memory or for basic design review, you can also take screenshots with a custom keyboard hot key. This is pretty tricky with a standing, room-scale experience (think one leg, big toes, small keys). Ours is the voice of experience as we used this exact method to produce the screen shots for this review.

For more control, you will need to take off the HMD and use a mouse in Revit. Through the Enscape settings dialogue box, users have full control over contrast, colour saturation and colour temperature, which is great for getting the desired look.

There’s a papermodel mode, which strips out all materials but retains light and shadows. This is useful when you might not have correct materials assigned or simply want to dumb down the view to emphasise form. A polysty-

Enscape is an excellent choice for Revit to VR, offering a seamless workflow with near instant updates

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and, at times, gave us vertigo.

Enscape offers limited functionality inside the VR environment.

You can change the time of day using the grip buttons on the side of the Vive controller.

Shadows will change in real time and lights will come on at night. Unfortunately, Enscape does not display a clock in VR, so the wearer of the HMD cannot assess lighting at specific times of the day. A clock is visible

rol mode gives the effect of your building being made from Styrofoam. Both modes can be turned on at the same time. Line thickness can also be changed to enhance the edges of objects.

To bring scenes to life, Enscape can automatically replace planar ArchVision RPC models in Revit with more realistic 3D entourage.

This includes 3D people and trees with individual leaves.

The software can also directly support all types of RPC content, including premium human models from RPC content partner AXYZ. Render quality, in general, is excellent. The software supports Global Illumination, simulating how light bounces off objects onto other surfaces.

This can be turned on and off.

Enscape offers plenty of scope to take visual realism to the next level, by tweaking lighting and materials or adding custom Entourage. Phil Read from Enscape reseller Read | Thomas, who supported us during this review, has some great tips on self-illuminating objects, material bump maps, reflectivity and transparency (linkedin.com/today/ author/readphil).

Enscape offers more than just high-quality visuals. To deliver an even more realistic

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be enhanced with Autodesk Stingray.

Prices start at $30 per month, although this is an introductory offer.

VR headsets Entry-level smartphone VR headsets such as Google Cardboard can deliver impressive results (see Graphisoft BIMx VR review - tinyurl.com/AEC-BIMx), but for a fully immersive, navigable room-scale VR experience, you will need an Oculus Rift or HTC Vive. Both HMDs are tethered to a 3D workstation via a long cable.

Room Scale, as the name suggests, means the VR experience takes place in a space the size of a typical room. For architecture, this can be a big plus, as users can explore virtual buildings on foot, taking small steps, with larger distances covered by teleporting. While room-scale VR is great for presentations and design review, a seated experience often works better when using VR as a design aid.

This is simply because of the ease which with one can flip between Revit and VR. The Oculus Rift started out life as a seated/standing experience, where the user

could only move small distances and navigation was performed with a gamepad.

This type of experience still comes with the base package, but the Facebook-owned HMD now offers two optional hand-tracking Touch controllers and additional VR tracking sensors for a full room-scale experience. A total of three sensors are recommended. One comes with the standard headset, another with the Touch controllers and a third can be bought separately The HTC Vive offers both a room-scale VR experience and a standing/seated experience, in spaces up to 5m x 5m. The HMD comes with two wireless controllers, each with four control buttons (touchpad and menu on the front, trigger on the back, and grip on the side). The kit includes two tracking base stations.

HTC also offers a Business Edition of the Vive, which includes dedicated phone support and better peripherals, including a 5m (16-foot) headset extension kit, and four face cushions, which are particularly useful if the HMD will be shared among many people. (Faces often get sweaty in VR). In the future it will also come with Vive

More VR tools for Revit Revizto is a standalone real-time viz tool with a focus on collaboration, co-ordination and issue resolution. It works with Autodesk Revit, ArchiCAD, SketchUp, AutoCAD Civil 3D, Navisworks and AutoCAD, and also supports FBX, IFC, BCF and PDF file formats. Revizto runs on PC, Mac, iOS and Android, as well as supporting the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.

■ revizto.com LumenRT from Bentley Systems is a game engine design viz application that plugs directly into Autodesk Revit, ArchiCAD, Bentley MicroStation, Sketchup and others.

It can also import models from many more applications. Users then bring the model to life by adding entourage, including realistic trees, people, water, wind and moving vehicles. LumenRT can currently create VR panoramas and also has support for the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift.

■ LumenRT.com

Trees are very detailed to add realism

Enscape includes 3D mannequins experience, it allows you embed sound sources within your Revit model. Here WAV files are added to Revit Family Components, such as a stereo playing music or birdsong from a tree. The volume of the sound increases as you get nearer and it also responds to the acoustic qualities of the objects within the space, which really adds to the realism.

With all its visual quality, Enscape has pretty high GPU requirements, with the developers recommending at least an Nvidia GTX 980 or Quadro M6000 GPU. The software performed

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very well with our Nvidia Quadro P6000. It did not work with the AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100.

In summary, Enscape is an excellent choice for Revit to VR, offering a seamless workflow with near-instant updates. This is great for architects or engineers who want to jump between Revit and VR to assess different options or for presentations where clients can immediately see the results of their feedback. Enscape also has the added benefit of offering a desktop game engine experience using a standard 2D display. And models can be

distributed as a fully contained .EXE, which can be viewed without any additional software.

The visual quality is excellent, encouraging exploration of materials and finishes, as well as form, fixtures and fittings.

However, some of this is lost in VR, simply because of the display resolution of the HTC Vive and other HMDs (you can still see the pixels).

It would be great to see more control given to the wearer of the HMD for things like mark-up, but with Revit driving the application in real time, this is less of an issue.

Enscape is available on a free 14-day trial. Prices start at $449 per year.

■ enscape3d.com ■ readthomas.com

Update - Nov 2017 Since this article was written, there have been a number of features added to Enscape.

The major emphasis has been on increasing visual quality and realism. Key enhancements are detailed below.

Realistic Lighting: Reflections and indirect lighting are now done using real-time path tracing, which is more faithful to reality.

Realistic grass: Enscape can now draw real geometry grass blades for more realism.

Trees have been reworked to better resemble an architectural rendering look.

Decals such as posters, can now be added to scenes.

Polystyrol Mode has been made more realistic with physically correct subsurface light scattering.

Performance has been improved to better support larger projects and slower workstations.

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Review Enterprise Software, an enterprise-friendly package that does not require users to install the games-focused Steam store.

Importantly, the Business Edition comes with a commercial warranty. If you use the standard consumer version for commercial use, your warranty is null and void.

Setting up the HTC Vive With a little bit of guidance and the right equipment, the HTC Vive is fairly easy to set up. Position the tracking base stations at opposite corners of a room, at a height of 2m, angled down to between 30 degrees and 45 degrees with an unobstructed view of each other. For a permanent or semi-permanent VR room, mount the base stations on the wall. For a portable set-up, use camera tripods.

Ideally, both base stations should be connected to each other using the sync cable, but it’s not essential. Both base stations plug into mains power. They are not connected to the HTC Vive or workstation.

The HTC Vive headset features a long,

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need to pull out the video cable or Windows will boot to the HTC Vive, rather than to your monitor.

Installation is very straightforward

IrisVR Prospect 1.1.0 Out of the three Revit to VR tools featured in this article, Iris VR Prospect is the only one to concentrate solely on VR (there’s no formal desktop experience, although spectators can look at the monitor to see what the wearer of the HMD is seeing). This focus helps make it the most mature in terms of what you can do inside VR, including real-time daylighting, layer management, annotation and screen capture.

IrisVR Prospect also has the added benefit of being able to work with other applications, including SketchUp and Rhino. There are plans to add support for ArchiCAD, MicroStation and Navisworks. This expansion will help extend the focus beyond architecture and into infrastructure.

Having this breadth of functionality calls for a higher price tag of $200 per user, per month. However, there’s also a free version, Prospect Basic, that strips back all the extended functionality, but still includes the core push-button workflow for file conversion and VR viewing. With Prospect Basic, it’s not possi-

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chunky cable that connects to a dedicated link box. The link box then connects to power, and to your workstation via USB 3.0 and a video cable (HDMi if you have a gaming GPU or DisplayPort if you have a pro GPU). When turning on your workstation, y o u may

ble to save projects as native Prospect files (.IVZ). The VR experience always has to start in the CAD or BIM software or with a neutral 3D file.

Models inside IrisVR Prospect appear more clinical than in Autodesk LIVE and Enscape. Textures are less realistic and RPC content is represented by outlines, but the wearer of the VR headset still gets an excellent sense of presence and scale. Materials and outlines can be toggled on and off by hitting M and O on the keyboard. The resulting ‘white model’ gives a schematic feel and is great for conceptual design.

By offering a less visually rich experience and by performing heavy geometry optimisation, Prospect is able to run on more modest workstation hardware. We found that the entry-level VR graphics card, the AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100, delivered an excellent experience with all our test models.

Prospect installs as a plugin inside Revit, which can be accessed via the add-ins tab.

Simply select your 3D view, then click ‘View in VR’. Once your file is ready, click ‘launch’ and you’re straight into VR.

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Most of our files took a minute or less to process.

In VR, you first enter Scale Model Mode, where you’ll see your project on top of a plinth. From this bird’s-eye perspective, the model can be rotated using the HTC Vive trackpad. Lean forward to get a closer view of the building – even stick your head inside.

To view the building at human scale, simply point your cursor at a surface on the model then click the trigger button. You can teleport anywhere where it shows an avatar. To stand outside the building, the Revit model must include some form of surrounding topography.

For navigation, take short steps in your VR ‘room space’, then travel larger distances by teleporting. A circle denotes places where you can teleport. A cross shows where you can’t.

Navigation is pretty easy, although there are some limitations. You can teleport through transparent walls, doors and windows, but not through solid doors or walls.

There are a few ways to get around this. One option is to move close to a door, reach through until your control disappears, then click the trigger to teleport to the other side. Another is to make all doors transparent

and the HTC Vive set-up software guides the user through the process step by step.

Depending on the size of the room and the requirements of the user, the HMD can be set up for a full room-scale experience or a standing experience.

Detailed instructions can be found at tinyurl.com/HTC-Vive-setup

VR workstations and GPUs Virtual Reality demands extremely powerful workstation hardware.

While most modern CAD workstations should satisfy the minimum requirements for CPU, memory (3.30GHz Intel Core i5 4590/8GB RAM or above), and USB 3.0, they will likely fall well short on graphics (GPU).

Both the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive require a GPU capable of sustaining a minimum frame rate of 90 FPS while in VR. Anything below this and the model can jump and the user can experience nausea or motion sickness. This is because what the user sees on the HMD is not what the brain expects to see, based on

in Revit. A third is to turn off all door layers, leaving the model with door frames. The developers are looking at ways to improve this, including X-Ray modes or the ability to select an element in VR, and turn off all similar objects.

One of the Vive’s controllers is used for navigation, the other to hold the tool palette, which includes Home, Screen Capture, Annotation & Callouts, Daylight and Layers. To access tools, simply use the other controller to point and click at the icons.

The home button puts you back where you started, in Scale Model Mode. Screen capture takes a snapshot of where you are looking.

There are very simple annotation tools, which allow you to redline the 3D file with a freehand marker or draw a fixed circle callout at the centre of your view. Once you’ve completed the markups, these can be saved with the screen capture tool. IrisVR admits that these tools are quite basic and will be improved in subsequent releases. In the future, there may be the ability to assign custom text and symbols to objects.

One of the most powerful capabilities of Prospect is the daylighting tool, which allows you to see how light

and shadows change with time or date, based on the geolocation of your Revit model. Simply use your Vive controller to move the appropriate sliders on the tool palette and see the light and shadows update in real time.

The sliders can get a little frustrating if you move your cursor slightly off centre as it then stops scrolling. Some leeway would be great here, just like when you’re in Windows and it still stays engaged even when you move your cursor off the scroll bar. IrisVR told AEC Magazine it will be addressing this in the next release.

Layers can be a powerful way of viewing model data; for example, you can strip back everything to the steel frame, view different design phases, toggle between materials, or explore different furniture arrangements. To get the most out of this feature, users will need to do some work in Revit upfront.

Layers are listed alphabetically, so it can be a bit of a pain if the layer you most frequently want to turn off lands at the end of the list. Renaming layers is the obvious solution, but this could impact company layer conventions. Layers suffer from the same scrolling issue as daylighting.

IrisVR already has lots of

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head movements.

To make things easier for those buying VR workstation hardware, both AMD and Nvidia brand their GPUs ‘VR Ready’. This stamp of approval works well in the games market, as games contain fixed datasets designed to run on specific GPUs. However, just because a professional GPU is labelled ‘VR Ready’, it does not mean it will work with all professional VR applications out of the box.

Performance is both application- and model-dependent and is influenced by the size of the dataset, the complexity of the geometry (number of polygons), how well the application optimises geometry for VR, as well as lighting and textures. Custom Revit objects, particularly those with curves, can eat up GPU resources, especially if there are hundreds of them within your model.

For example, the AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100, a low-cost ($799) professional ‘VR Ready’ GPU, gave us a comfortable experience with IrisVR Prospect out of the box.

But it stuttered with Autodesk LIVE and

didn’t work at all with Enscape. For these more demanding applications, we needed the considerably more expensive Nvidia Quadro P6000 ($6,999). We imagine the Nvidia Quadro P5000 ($2,499) would probably be powerful enough to deliver a good experience in Autodesk LIVE and Enscape, but we didn’t get to try this.

Ideally, you should try before you buy, using your own datasets.

In many cases, a simple graphics card upgrade can turn your desktop CAD workstation into one capable of running VR. However, this depends on the type of workstation you have; all the aforementioned GPUs need an auxiliary power connector and between 150W and 250W of available power. And all of them, bar the AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100, take up two PCIe slots. You need to make sure your CAD workstation can satisfy these demands. You may need to upgrade your Power Supply Unit (PSU) as well.

Of course, there are plenty of pre-configured ‘VR Ready’ desktop workstations.

These are available from HP, Dell, Lenovo,

and Fujitsu, as well as custom system builders like Scan and BOXX. The Armari V25 is a slimline, custom-built VR workstation with a chassis designed to house the HTC Vive’s Link box (see tinyurl.com/ armariV25-AEC for our review).

VR-ready workstations don’t have to come in tower form factors. Dell’s new All-in-One, the Precision 5720, features a 27-inch screen and an integrated AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 GPU. Also coming soon are a whole range of VR-ready mobile workstations, featuring AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100, Nvidia Quadro P4000 and P5000 GPUs. We expect there to be a lot of interest around VR-ready mobile workstations for those wishing to take VR to client offices.

VR is not limited to professional GPUs. There are number of consumerfocused AMD Radeon and Nvidia GeForce GPUs that meet or surpass the minimum requirements for both the HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift.

These GPUs should work perfectly fine with all the Revit to VR applications

Scale Model Mode places your project on top of a plinth

ideas on how to improve the software. It is exploring ways to view metadata, simply by clicking on an object. IrisVR admits that the only way to do this would be to load all the objects individually, which would impact performance, so there is still some work to do here. (One of the reasons Prospect delivers such good performance in VR is because objects are currently grouped to reduce draw calls.)

Collaboration is also going to be a big focus moving forward. Ideas currently being explored include project libraries, an easy way for clients to view IrisVR projects, and shared sessions, where

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Mark-up tools accessed through the toolbar

multiple users can exist in the same project, with each participant represented by an avatar.

In the more immediate future, the next release of Prospect will be able to load in perspective cameras from Revit, to allow users to jump between waypoints at the click of a button. IrisVR sees this as a useful way to quickly get a bird’s-eye view of the project or to guide clients through a building, rather than letting them wander off on their own.

In summary, IrisVR stands out for its expansive toolkit.

The daylighting and layering tools, in particular, are very

impressive. The push-button workflow where models can be processed very quickly makes it well-suited to design iteration workflows. The relatively low GPU requirements and free version will also make it exceedingly attractive to smaller AEC firms with tight budgets. With the prospect of BIM data being exposed and better collaborative tools, we’re really looking forward to seeing how this impressive tool develops.

IrisVR Prospect Pro is available on a free 21-day trial. Licenses cost $200 per user, per month.

Iris VR Prospect Basic is free.

■ IrisVR.com

Update - Nov 2017 Since this article was written, there have been a number of features added to IrisVR Prospect.

Sectioning/modifying models in Scale Model Mode: In Scale Model Mode user can now lift/move the model around space, rotate it, zoom in, and section it

Measuring in VR: A new measuring tool allows users to verify sizes, distances, and clearances in real scale in Virtual Reality.

360° Panorama: A new 360° Capture tool allows users to instantly capture a 360° panorama from within Prospect

Travelling between viewpoints: 3D views from Revit can now create viewpoints within Prospect. These are camera locations that you can use to walk a client/colleague through a project to present the flow of space more effectively.

Multi-user collaboration: Earlier this year, IrisVR previewed a multi-user mode that will allow users anywhere in the world to collaborate on AEC projects in VR. The technology will be available by the end of the year.

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mentioned in this article.

However, they are not certified for Autodesk Revit or other CAD / BIM applications, which will be very important for some firms.

extension to desktop design visualisation, but it will be interesting to see how products like IrisVR Prospect evolve to better support design/review workflows.

VR is great for identifying issues with buildings, but it’s very much a one-way street. The process would benefit greatly from being able to capture this information and feed it back into BIM authoring tools. Technologies such as the BIM Collaboration Format (BCF) or voice recognition could play important roles here.

Autodesk Revit Live image courtesy of Igor Macedo Barros Bahiense

Conclusion It’s still very early days for VR but we are already starting to see the extensive benefits that this exciting technology can bring to architecture and engineering – from functional and aesthetic evaluation of projects to daylighting studies, markup and client communication.

We’re excited to see how these capabilities grow over the coming years.

Applications like Enscape will likely keep their strong focus on using VR as an

Since this article was written in February 2017 all of the tested VR software products have received new features. We have listed some of these features at the end of each review.

Autodesk LIVE has also been rebranded to Autodesk Revit Live.

In addition, Nvidia has released a single slot, professional VR Ready GPU called the Nvidia Quadro P4000. At $999 it is considerably cheaper than the Nvidia Quadro P5000 and P6000. We have tested the Nvidia Quadro P4000 with IrisVR and Autodesk Revit Live and it performs well. Check out our full review at tinyurl.com/P4000-AEC AMD has also released two new dual slot pro VR capable GPUs, the AMD Radeon Vega Frontier Edition ($999) and AMD Radeon Pro WX 9100 ($2,200), both of which are considerably more powerful than the AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100.

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Autodesk’s new CEO Martyn Day caught up with Andrew Anagnost to hear the new Autodesk CEO’s vision for the company, including subscription, enterprise licensing, 3D printing and the future of Revit

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n February, after being at Autodesk Autodesk with two acting co-CEOs, longon and off for over 24 years, compa- time Autodeskers Andrew Anagnost ny CEO, Carl Bass, stepped down. who pretty much ran the move to the Having run Autodesk since 2006, company’s business model and Amar Bass changed the company culture to Hanspal, who was in charge of all prodfocus on product innovation, developing uct development. Meanwhile the board new code streams, addressing new design pondered internal and external candiareas, with a focus on manufacturing. dates for the role.

In June, Autodesk announced that The company’s business model also changed towards delivering services on Anagnost had won the job and on that the cloud with a move from perpetual news Hanspal decided to immediately leave the company. In just a licensing to subscription. few weeks the company had While Bass was planning lost two of its most experito leave his role after 11 enced product development years, he also fell foul to champions but was now free active investors, Sachem of the direct interference of Head Capital and Eminence the active investors.

Capital, which bought Anagnost is certainly a safe enough stock to join the pair of hands, he has been board of directors and responsible driving the new demanded changes to the business model, and over company’s business to make the decades has held various it more profitable, quicker to roles within Autodesk, reward shareholders – I am super product managing in the something which Autodesk used to be focussed on under excited about manufacturing division, and previous CEO, Carol Bartz. the industrial- he had been Chief Marketing Officer and SVP Bass offered a refreshing isation of of Business Development. change by investing more in construction, Anagnost was one of the product diversity and driving forces attempting to drive value in that presents a original behind the development of its tool suites. The active lot of problems Inventor in the company, investors wanted more profwhich need to Autodesk’s first serious new it now and went on record be solved code stream after AutoCAD, saying they wanted to and prior to joining replace Bass as CEO. Autodesk, he worked at With the transition to subscription creating a ‘trough’ as income Lockheed Aeronautical Systems and changed from big perpetual acquisitions NASA Ames Research Center.

Anagnost inherits a company with a to long term payments, as investors love more regular subscription more than buoyant share price and gets to continue ‘joining fees’, eventually Autodesk share with his model of moving the $2.14 bilprice rose by 70-80% on the prospect of lion company to Subscription and the higher income in the future with new cloud, but he can now obviously control subscription model. A deal was reached all aspects of the company, including with Bass stepping down if the investors product development direction. At also left the board in February. This left Autodesk University in London, AEC

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Magazine had a Skype call with Anagnost to find out a little more of his vision for the company and to hear his views on some key areas.

AEC Magazine: Historically you have come from the manufacturing side of the business, so which of Autodesk’s divisions is your natural passion?

Anagnost: I have a passion for solving really big problems. There’s no doubt about my background being in manufacturing but there are two areas I’m really excited about. One is that I am super excited about construction — and I guess I am cheating a little bit here, as it’s industrialising and we have the opportunity to bring the BIM model into construction. Here I think it’s exciting for our customers and for Autodesk, I think we have a really big value which we can add, as we have a lot of knowledge as how models progressing in manufacturing as models become more important in driving that process.

And the other area that I am excited about is getting us to push button manufacture. I know it sounds whacky at the moment but five years from now we are going to be really close to automate the process of having a really complicated 3D model, pushing a button and getting a part come out the other side from a multipurpose factory. I am super energised about that.

So I am super excited about the industrialisation of construction, that presents a lot of problems which need to be solved and we have these push button manufacturing issues that we are monitoring. So that’s what I’m looking at in the long-term.

In the short-term, I have more customer based objectives. I’m excited about subscriptions and collections; we aren’t there yet, and I’m going to make sure that they get there. www.AECmag.com

Interview AEC Magazine: Autodesk has divested itself of its 3D printer (Ember) and seems to be getting out of hardware, although you still have Pier 9 manufacturing facility, and replicating that in Portland and Boston offices. What’s the view on hardware now?

Anagnost: You remember the rise of desktop publishing? The world changed when Adobe came out with PostScript because what you saw is what you got coming out of the printer. Our goal is to make sure what you see is what you make and it’s much more important and valuable that we played the PostScript role in manufacturing, than play a hardware vendor role. So if we’ve got a dollar to spend we’re going to spend a dollar on the development of PostScript and the new types of automation from manufacturing rather than building hardware.

Ember was a test bed of the technology so we can see how it worked and get experience with that. It was never going to be our mainline business.

ing a small fortune — all of those things will be super valuable. I think when all that is stitched in customers will start to feel differently.

Wall Street kind of co-opted our subscription transition, but that’s not how we started this. Our goal is to become a cloud company, which means our goal is to change the complete value chain with a different set of price points. I think in all the rough-and-tumble of people talking about the “bad” thing we were doing, people had forgotten the good thing we were doing. When Wall Street gets involved and people start paying attention, the maintenance base feels like we’re raising prices but as a whole bunch of customers who [due to their purchasing experience of Autodesk products] think we’ve lowered prices. It’s the whole Yin Yang of all of this. The original goal was to become a cloud company, with cloud price points all the way through our value chain.

suspicious about what’s going on, but these new guys are emailing us saying you just put food on my family’s table.

You probably don’t see both sides of this. I see the difficult side and recognise all the work Autodesk needs to do to solve this and build trust. And then there’s the other side where we created a pool of trust… and if I can bring those two together then it’s a home run for everybody.

AEC Magazine: Will you be a hands-on CEO like Carl Bass was?

Anagnost: I’m pretty deep into everything that this company does, which is a curse and a blessing for people that work here. Carl went deep a lot in product, I’m probably going to go deep in multiple things. Things I am passionate about – construction and push-button manufacturing but also with the sales force and customers. So yes, I’m going to be pretty hands-on.

AEC Magazine: We have yet to meet anyone who signed an ELA Agreement [Enterprise Licence Agreement – lasts for 3 years for biggest Autodesk customers]

AEC Magazine: What’s your vision for route to market and resellers, changes to AEC Magazine: On Autodesk subscripmargins are reducing the number of VARs? tions, there is an issue. Products like Revit have not met the Anagnost: There’s no doubt, expectation of companies it’s already happening. We that have invested in them.

In the pre-construction side, construction will have a larger, smaller Yes, Revit’s a mature prodplanning, 4D and 5D, there’s still a lot of partner channel, there’s no uct so there’s a velocity issue but customers are concerned value to mature in Revit that we haven’t given doubt about that. The numas to the value they are getto the customers yet, and we know what it is ber of channel partners we have has dramatically ting. Having gone from yearbecause they complain about it decreased over the last three ly release to bi-annual the years. When you look at our ‘value’ is also spread out and business three years out and possibly less recognisable.

But at the moment you are asking cus- in the AEC space who is happy and we then five years out, we are going to be tomers to move from perpetual licences have talked to a lot. The price hikes have doing at least 50% of our business to subscription to pay more for some- been so big that they can’t quite believe it. through channel partners. So we are still a thing they were already unhappy with Subscription is asking firms how much channel company five years out – and by they want to pay for their tools. It’s not the way that half our business is bigger the value of. than the size of business we have today. So business as usual. that means there is a huge role for VARs in Anagnost: There are a couple of things we can do. First off, there’s still a long way Anagnost: I agree with you. I don’t think our business. We do not sell word processto go for Revit in two constituencies. If it’s business as usual. I think some cus- ing software. We sell complicated stuff.

The future of our partners falls into you talk to architects there’s still a long tomers are struggling with the pricing, list of features that they would like to see but here’s the dichotomy I have put in three segments. They’re going to be a coland we have made progress with them front of me. Yes, the maintenance base is lections channel, they’re going to be a but there’s a long way to go. And second- struggling with this, asking “what’s consumption channel (which is going to ly, in the pre-construction side, construc- going on?” and “where is the value?” I be an increasing part of our portfolio, tion planning, 4D and 5D, there’s still a lot talk to them and I even call the one-man pushing buttons for one time value add is of value to mature in Revit that we haven’t shops, as well as the big guys, and I say going to be huge), and third they’re going given to the customers yet and we know this consistently: I understand and I to become third-party developers all over want you to give us a year to prove to you again. They’re going to get back to where what it is because they complain about it.

We also have to effectively blend new that we are delivering value, don’t leave they were 30 years ago, customising types of capabilities into the product and us. I have this conversation over and over what we do, but that will be on the Forge a lot of those are going to be cloud-based. again but I have to juxtapose this with platform, not on the desktop. There’s Looking at Collaboration for Revit and the hundreds of thousands of new seats really no future any more for a partner Quantum which is on the same continu- that are coming in from people who have that just sells AutoCAD or LT. It’s not where the business is going. um, when we get some of that stuff work- never bought from us before.

So our existing customers are deeply ■ autodesk.com ing in a mainstream way, without it cost-

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Studio style

Greg Corke visited Studio Libeskind’s New York offices, a stone’s throw from the World Trade Centre site, to explore the role that technology plays in the practice’s world-renowned architecture 22

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B

y his own admission, Daniel Libeskind was a late bloomer.

Having started out in architecture in the late 1960s, he formed his own practice in 1989 when he won a competition to build the Jewish Museum in Berlin. Technology also came late to the table and there was no role for CAD when designing the bold, zig-zagged building. www.AECmag.com

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We use the computer to articulate the shapes we are trying to build. To make something more rational, to try to find the right solution Carla Swickerath, CEO/Principal

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Tampere Central Deck and Arena, Tampere, Finland - an urban scale development on top of existing railway tracks in the heart of the city

At the time, Berlin was still a divided city, so technology trickled in very slowly.

“The building was done completely by hand,” Mr Libeskind explains.

“Trigonometry, logarithms, calculating angles - sine, cosine, tangent. There were more than a thousand windows. Each one had a different shape and they were all calculated by hand.” www.AECmag.com

Following the completion of the project in 2001, exhibition designers asked Libeskind for the model. “I rolled up a bunch of drawings – plan, section and elevation – and I sent it to them and he said, ‘no, no, no, give us the 3D [CAD] model’.

“I said there is no 3D model and there was just a silence, a long silence and a gasp,” he smiles.

Studio Libeskind has come a long way since and CAD and BIM now play a critical role in all of its projects. “We’ve been able to build things that probably would never have been fathomable,” says Carla Swickerath, CEO/Principal.

But Studio Libeskind still relies heavily on traditional techniques. Handcrafted working models adorn every cor-

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Feature ner of its prestigious Manhattan head- Revit is a fantastic program that does team of engineers that actually do a series quarters. Concept models, hand draw- amazing things – but sometimes it’s not of analyses and say, ‘OK, well we need to ings, even simple gestures, continue to be the right application for what we’re doing tweak something this way or that way or else this person at this time of day is really or the right phase to use it.” the creative inspiration for projects.

For design development, for example, going to get sun burn’,” says Mr Ashley.

“It always originates in drawings. I “Some of it is intuitive, also. You’ve got still draw by hand,” says Mr Libeskind. Rhino is often preferred, as the NURBS“You can involve the viewer or client based modelling tool can be both free- to understand that if you create a lens, with ideas much more powerfully just by form and precise at the same time. “Our you could come out with magnifying forms tend to work well with that pro- glasses over ants,” jokes Mr Karim. drawing something in front of them.”

Projects often then move into CAD for cess,” says Ms Swickerath.

“In our office in general, Rhino is prob- Micro machine further exploration. “Depending on the sketch, there are millions of interpreta- ably one of our favourite tools,” adds Studio Libeskind runs its CAD software tions of that sketch, so then we try to principal Michael Ashley. “It’s nice and on workstations and recently adopted think about different possibilities and fast and then we’ll move into Revit when the HP Z2 Mini, a tiny desktop machine those usually start to be generated in a the project is more standard.” that dwarfs standard workstation towers Grasshopper, the generative design [see page 34 for AEC Magazine’s handscomputer,” explains Ms Swickerath.

“I think that’s kind of miraculous,” add-on for Rhino, is used on some pro- on review]. adds Mr Libeskind “because it would jects, but only to solve specific design Despite its diminutive form factor, have taken a very long time to speculate problems rather than as a driver for form. quad core Intel CPU and entry-level “Some elements of the project might be Nvidia Quadro GPU, Studio Libeskind creatively with a pencil and paper.”

Studio Libeskind’s design process is scripted,” explains Mr Karim. “So, tiling has found the HP Z2 Mini to be more nonlinear. In other words, projects can a pavilion where it’s thousands of pieces than capable of supporting its core move from sketches to CAD to physical that need to tessellate in a certain way, design workflows. models and back into hand drawings. we script that.” “[Even with some of our heaviest “We don’t do generating shapes out of users], we haven’t had an issue with any There is no set formula, explains Studio Libeskind partner Yama Karim, adding the computer,” adds Ms Swickerath. “We of the programs that we use, any of the that it’s all about staying complicated geometry, any nimble and using every of the difficult dense models resource, every medium that that we use,” says Ms The computer is a means to an end. I’ve is possible.

Swickerath. “So, for us, it’s Mr Libeskind himself does been like ‘give us more of never been seduced to think that the not use CAD, but admits that these’. We need lots of these computer could solve the problems of most of his buildings could because they are actually not have been built without architecture, because architecture is an art space saving and they are technology, and certainly not quiet and they have a perDaniel Libeskind completed on time or on formance that even surbudget. “I am not a parametprised us. ric designer, I don’t use these “We do a lot of complex tools, just as a service mechanism, but it use the computer to articulate the shapes models that have a lot of input from mulmakes possible the designs which we ini- we are trying to build. To make some- tiple engineers. [The HP Z2 Mini] is yet tiate,” he says. thing more rational, to try to find the to be tripped up.”

“Being able to translate that drawing right solution.”

Mr Ashley adds that the HP Z2 Mini into a [computer] program that allows For design visualisation, the firm could serve the requirements of all 50 one to make it very, very precise, measur- relies on 3ds Max with V-Ray. But the architects at the New York office, adding able, scientifically rational, very accu- modelling and rendering tool is not just that Studio Libeskind would then probarate… that whole matrix of possibilities is used to create stunning visuals and ani- bly need three or four higher-end workto me really the wonder of practicing mations. In one recent project, it was also stations to support more demanding architecture. used to optimise the design of a façade by graphics and rendering workflows.

“And I can hardly conceive, 1990 – it’s simulating light.

“But even so, rendering is often done in not that long ago – to sit down and do a The Libeskind Tower is one of three the cloud, with cloud services, so you building by hand. It’s like going back to a high-rise skyscrapers at CityLife, a new just set the scene and send it off someprimeval time. It’s amazing the progress residential, commercial and business where else to render,” he adds. that has been made.” district in Milan. Its curved glass façade is designed to vertically extend the piaz- Let’s get physical Digital toolkit za it borders, so it becomes a lens into the Despite its reliance on digital workflows, physical models continue to play a critiStudio Libeskind has benefited from a public space.

Studio Libeskind was keen to avoid cal role at all project stages. Models are huge range of CAD tools over the years, from Form Z to AutoCAD. Every project negative aspects of a lens, which could very important to the design process, so potentially fry people on the plaza, so that the team can see how ideas are centres on the 3D model.

“We use Revit, we use Rhino, we use each and every single facade was broken working out. To this end, the practice 3ds Max, we use whatever we need to use down into tiers for a feathering effect to still has a fully equipped model shop at its Manhattan office. and we are often beating them into sub- spread the concentration of light.

“We did some [internal] testing in 3ds “Everything we make in the computer – mission,” says Ms Swickerath. “Because something you need to do in Revit – and Max just to see the light, but we have a great if we’re designing a project, exploring

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options and making things work - we’re building models at the same time, because we always like to stand back and look at it in space, because the computer can be very deceiving,” says Ms Swickerath.

When it comes to physical models, Studio Libeskind takes the same approach as it does for CAD and uses the best tool for the job. Models can be hand crafted with wood, 3D printed or sculpted with paper, scissors and glue.

“Sometimes, if it’s a presentation model of a complex piece, we’ll get some pieces made [3D printed] and build it together and make it part of our hand-crafted model,” explains Ms Swickerath.

“Sometimes, it’s a study thing, where you can do 3D models quickly. It [3D printing] is just one more tool in our kit.”

Traditional methods are not to be underestimated, says Mr Libeskind, adding that the practice sometimes makes huge models – large enough to stick your head inside. “I remember we did a model for the staircase at the Denver Art Museum, which was almost as big as this room,” he says, indicating the small meeting room in which he’s speaking. “It was just a very small part of it. It was a very complex shape but we couldn’t explain it [with just drawings and CAD models].”

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All together now At Studio Libeskind, projects are seen through from beginning to end, with success hinging on close collaboration with its partners. With projects taking place all over the world, there is much to learn when working with local firms.

“We aren’t dogmatic, like ‘Here’s a design, take it or leave it,” explains Ms Swickerath. “It’s like, ‘Here’s the big idea. It’s complicated, it’s interesting, let’s make it work.’ Then we take the input [from our partners].

“We have this great collaboration with everybody that we work with that allows us to build these buildings.”

The 3D model forms the lynchpin to this

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1 2 The Libeskind Tower (the middle tower) is one of three high-rise skyscrapers at CityLife, a new residential, commercial and business district in Milan. The building was designed in CAD and light simulation was used to avoid the ‘death ray’ effect from the curved glass façade 3 Daniel Libeskind collaborating with Studio Libeskind principal Michael Ashley

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Feature

4 Names Monument, Amsterdam, Netherlands — physical model of the Holocaust memorial, which is slated to break ground in early 2018

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5 6 World Trade Center Master Plan, New York, New York, USA

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peculiar, very particular - not just the process, and data is regularly shared with we want built,” she says.

Mr Libeskind thinks the 3D model has square metres, the square footage, but partners. “We communicate with our clients, our engineers, all of our consultants. also helped change the dynamic when aesthetic questions, functional questions.

They are able to put their information into working with clients. “Clients are more [A 3D model] makes the work more interengaged because they can see more,” he active, it makes the work, I think, more our models and work very quickly.

“We work with our engineers about says. “It used to be that you presented a intelligent, because more people are aware of what is going on. structure - how to make it There is less opacity, becommore efficient, how to make it ing more transparent and I cheaper.

We use Revit, we use Rhino, we use 3ds think more democratic.”

Ms Swickerath explains how Max, we use whatever we need to use and But Mr Libeskind also Studio Libeskind has great confidence in its models and we are often beating them into submission acknowledges the limitations of technology. “The computer also shares its data with conCarla Swickerath, CEO/Principal is a means to an end,” he says. tractors. “It’s a tool to help “I’ve never been seduced to them do their job better,” she think that the computer could says. “We try to make that collaboration so that they can see the model drawing or a [physical] model. The client solve the problems of architecture, because was relatively innocent, not really fully architecture is an art. and understand things better.”

“Design originates in creativity, in inno“We always feel the better we commu- understanding everything. But, with a nicate, especially when things are diffi- 3D model, for example, a client can see vation. It doesn’t originate with a tool. In cult to understand with one drawing or everything. It’s like an X-ray - you can fact, probably, creative design originates with your eyes closed,” he says. one perspective or one model, then the see every flaw.

“There are clients who are very, very ■ libeskind.com more successful we are in getting what

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Review

Autodesk FormIt 2018 Conceptual design has always been the neglected child of the industry, perhaps because SketchUp is seen as all-dominating in this space. But looking at Autodesk FormIt, Martyn Day sees a worthy contender that has come a long way.

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hen Autodesk decided to take up arms against SketchUp, it was owned

by Google and was free.

For a commercial organisation such as Autodesk, while achieving equivalent technology seemed possible, the SketchUp business model meant that FormIt was always going to have to be a low-priced product, if not free. More than that, it would need to offer a plethora of capabilities to tempt architects away from the incumbent.

What seemed like a daunting task has required perseverance on Autodesk’s behalf, in terms of maintaining development and investment – two things which the company has a history of withdrawing from products that prove slow to gain traction, in a ‘fail-fast forward’ style of going to give seamless geometry in Revit. And I’ve heard many BIM managproduct development.

Autodesk’s first foray into conceptual ers complain about architects coming design, Architectural Studio, wasn’t given back with edits in SketchUp, when the much of a chance. But having not reviewed detail modelling is already well down FormIt since 2013, our first look at FormIt the road in Revit. Autodesk has really grabbed this opportunity and 2018 shows that it has evolved FormIt is now much more considerably, to offer a seriousFormIt is, tightly integrated into a Revit ly impressive suite of tools.

BIM process, wasting little of FormIt started life as an iPad above all, time spent creating early application. It’s now available fun. Once the the model geometry and being on Windows, Mac, iOS, modelling there to work on geometry Android and in the web browsthroughout the process. er, so pretty much anywhere, skills have The free version of FormIt for around $25 a month. On the been offers basic 3D modelling iPad, it works with the Apple mastered, it tools, native Revit compatibilPencil as well as with could ity, support for geographic Autodesk Sketchbook Pro and Autodesk Graphic. It comes in actually be locations, mobile and via web three flavours: free, Pro, and used as a lot browser. It’s a good introduction into FormIt modelling FormIt Pro as web version. It’s more than a and models can be imported part of the Architecture massing from SketchUp, but the Pro Engineering & Construction version really does have all Collection, for a hefty annual modeller the good stuff and having subscription. However, those access to the desktop applicawith a Collection subscription get FormIt Pro included for free and access tion enables bigger models. to Energy Analysis with the Insight 360 Pro features analysis engine.

Conceptual design should drive BIM. The Pro version is delivered as a When a conceptual design is in Windows application and can build largSketchUp, the geometry really isn’t er models. Solar Analysis is built-in,

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based on geography; this can be selectively computed for facades in seconds, with a vivid colour scheme giving clear feedback. More precise radiation levels appear dynamically at the end of the tool tip as you move about the model. Glazing studies can be calculated monthly or throughout a full year.

Collaboration is also included; this makes it possible to initiate a collaborative session and invite colleagues or clients into a shared FormIt workspace.

Collaborators do not need to have a Pro licence, but can access it through the web, or via A360 mobile apps. It’s possible to share the camera view, to ensure everyone is looking at the same view. Camera views can be shared between collaborators and there’s a built-in chat capability.

In the past, Autodesk experimented with a separate product called Vasari, which provided a conceptual model space where all sorts of analyses could be carried out on early designs to estimate performance and optimise building orientation, layout, glazing and shading. This tech was acquired from Ecotect and substantially rewritten to be more accurate. Autodesk wired up its own HQ in Boston with sensors to use as a reference test for its software analysis and simulation tools in development.

The company also has Green Building www.AECmag.com

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1 To produce more realistic models, FormIt Pro comes with an extensive materials library 2 In FormIt Pro, Solar Analysis is based on geography and can be selectively computed for facades in seconds 3 FormIt started life as an iPad application, but is now available on Windows, Mac, iOS, Android and in the web browser 4 FormIt links to computational design tool Dynamo and can be used for form generation

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Studio analysis, another acquired technology, but one that has seemed very US-centric. Energy impact is calculated as a bottom-line cost per area.

All this is now in FormIt Pro, together with the Insight 360 engine. The interface for results is really refreshing and easy to understand, in a dashboard-style to allow users to view results and compare options.

A series of widgets are provided to non-destructively alter window-to-wall ratios, orientation, and a whole lot of other things, to help get a feel for a building performance characteristics and get the best results for each design. FormIt Pro is a place to experiment.

To produce more photorealistic models, Pro comes with an extensive materials library, containing hundreds of bitmaps with a preview palette and editing tools.

The end results are pretty good. However, stunning results can also be achieved simply by applying an array of visual style settings, adjusting shadows, surfaces and edges. The environment layers, meanwhile, can be used to control the visibility of lines, objects, groups, or images.

Dynamo In a similar vein to Grasshopper for Rhino, Autodesk products support Dynamo, a visual scripting and computawww.AECmag.com

tional design tool that is highly flexible in its application. By linking Dynamo scripts to FormIt nodes, complex geometry can be generated, shaped and modified without the need for modelling skills. Dynamo is a tool to enable users to rapidly evaluate design options and develop customised parametric content, with the weight of driving full Revit.

FormIt to Revit Autodesk’s aim is to link FormIt and Revit seamlessly for the schematic design and design documentation phases.

Ideally, Autodesk sees FormIt handling the early massing studies, defining floor layers, orientation, building envelope and floor plans. FormIt objects become Revit Mass families, translating to walls, curtain walls, levels and roof geometry when brought through. It’s also possible to bring in geometry from Revit Families into FormIt. These survive round-tripping back into Revit. System Families can also be exported to FormIt using SAT export options.

Models are primarily stored in the cloud in A360, but you can save to a local drive if you prefer. Models start by creating sketches, or importing sketches or by placing primitives. Models are organised in layers, scenes and levels and the user

interface is very clean and straightforward. There’s also an in-context pop-up function for quick access to commonly used tools, as well as an array of keyboard shortcuts.

Models are located in real-world space and satellite images can be imported for context, in real-world scale, with true North. Plans can also be imported and overlaid and oriented with a satellite image grid for reference. Then it’s simple sketch, grab and pull, Boolean operations like union and subtract, snaps and inferences, together with rectangle, arc, splines, circles, array, mirror, sweep, filet and extrude.

Levels can then be added and objects grouped and manipulated. Geometry can have materials and opacity mapped onto them. It’s actually very easy to learn.

Shadows can be set by time of day and day of the year, giving accurate shadowing and solar analysis can be run at any time.

Models are converted to RVT for Revit import through the FormIt Converter.

Through the massing tool, FormIt geometry can then be selected and converted into Revit Mass objects.

Conclusion FormIt is, above all, fun. Once the modelling skills have been mastered, it could actually be used as a lot more than a massing modeller. It’s portable, intuitive, kicks back feedback on the design’s performance and the models live on for fleshing out in Revit. Dynamo brings a whole host of possibilities for computational design, without the overhead of the Revit parametric engine.

FormIt still feels like it was developed outside of Revit, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. The positives are that it’s fast, fluid and modern. The negative is that the geometry will always need format conversion, with some level of manual conversion after import to Revit.

However, in the forthcoming Autodesk Quantum world, we will have to let go of where the data resides, which tool originally created it and in which tool we need to edit it. With a common data environment that melts away format issues, you get what you need.

■ autodesk.com

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The clone wars AutoCAD’s popularity and high cost spawned a copycat DWG clone industry. Now mature, the clone developers are not content with mirroring its functionality but are aiming for verticalised BIM and manufacturing capability, writes Martyn Day.

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long time ago in a galaxy far, an in-house competitor to kill them off, so far away, the Empire devel- Softdesk created a team to make a clone oped this CAD software called AutoCAD, code named IntelliCAD. With complications of the sale, AutoCAD, which swept all professional 2D CAD systems before it, Autodesk was horrified to see what until it ruled the Galaxy with its proprie- Softdesk had been doing in the shadows tary DWG file format. Slowly but surely a but, as Softdesk had previously been in rebellion rose up with the purpose of negotiations to sell IntelliCAD to the inthe US Federal Trade undermining the Empire and all the ene- house team, mies of the Empire chipped in to create Commission got involved and IntelliCAD the Open Design Alliance and IntelliCAD had to be sold separately due to competiTechnical Consortium to reverse engineer tion rules. Autodesk had unwittingly and clone the file format and enable low- unleashed a highly-developed AutoCAD DWG clone onto the market and Visio er-cost, yet compatible drawing tools.

Unlike Luke Skywalker and the Jedi snapped it up for $6.7 million and then also acquired the Marcomp Knights, the DWG rebels Autodirect DWG toolkit to never really managed to beef up development. In make any decisive blows to For very large retaliation Autodesk develthe Empire and have really Autodesk oped Actrix, a Visio clone just nibbled at the edges. customers now to hit back.

While I have been writing Eventually Autodesk about CAD for almost 30 facing significant Actrix and IntelliCAD years, the DWG clone marprice hikes, the under Visio flopped, selling ket rarely caused budgeta lot less than expected, but Autodesk to lose sleep but constraints will the clone DWG developinstead ensured all of ment was kept alive by the Autodesk’s competitors lead some to IntelliCAD Technical had some level of DWG in evaluate Consortium created by and out capability to ease collaboration.

However AutoCAD clones, Visio and funded by eager competitors. they must be doing some- their capabilities, Autodesk thing right as firms such as cost of ownership Earlier, Visio created the OpenDWG Alliance to get the Open Design Alliance and many independent and compatibility help in decoding the DWG format, which eventually AutoCAD clone developers became the Open Design such as Bricsys (formerly Bricsnet) and Graebert are all still in Alliance. This Alliance, with 1,250 memexistence and continuing to invest in bers, now not only reverse engineers DWG, ARX and many aspects of developing AutoCAD clone functionality.

Autodesk’s clone problem originated Autodesk’s proprietary CAD toolkits but though acquisition. In a period when also Bentley’s DGN and now Revit’s BIM Autodesk was acquiring some of its most formats. (It is now a whole ecosystem in successful third-party developers, it itself. CAD journalist Ralph Grabowski is acquired Softdesk, developer of AEC ver- the industry expert in this area and we recommend following upfrontezine.com). tical applications, for about $90 million.

The reaction from Autodesk ranged The company’s owner, Dave Arnold, had been secretly investing in developing his from trying to copyright DWG and rollown CAD tool, so as not to have to rely on ing out a ‘100% pure DWG’ advertising Autodesk’s underlying AutoCAD engine. campaign, to introducing a RealDWG Autodesk had established a practice of toolkit of chosen developers. However, either buying its developers or developing once in 2006 Autodesk sued the Open

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Design Alliance for copyright infringement, as Autodesk had added a copyrighted term into the file format to allow AutoCAD to recognise when a DWG of non-Autodesk origin was being loaded to warn AutoCAD customers that the data may be not a ‘TrueDWG’. The Alliance had to stop cloning that part of DWG. The AutoCAD clone, or ‘workalike’ market has tended to stay off our radar at AEC Magazine, mainly because we have focussed on BIM, as opposed to document production. However, with increased capability and mature products there now seems to be an appetite from clone developers to get into BIM and high end solid modelling (MCAD). This, in is addition to the added twist that Autodesk’s move to Subscription, which increases the cost of ownership over three years and additionally puts perpetual licensing at risk, is driving some very large and previously non-clone-friendly Autodesk customers to re-evaluate the cost of subscription to AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT. Over the past six months I have visited two of the key DWG European clone developers to see how they are adapting to the world of BIM and to attempt to estimate their opportunities in the face of Autodesk customers’ unhappiness at Subscription costs and their changing attitude to AutoCAD and DWG.

Bricsys Based in Ghent, Belgium, Bricsys is a long-established DWG-based developer with its product BricsCAD (the company was formerly called Bricsnet) which is run by CEO Erik de Keyser. With 135 employees, 90% of them programmers, Bricsys is very much focused on software development and uses an innovative online sales and support system for distribution. With such a mature product, BricsCAD is far from being a straight clone and has diversified to offer more capabilities, while staying true to the AutoCAD ribbon interface. An AutoCAD user would feel very comfortable finding tools and navigating the user-interface. www.AECmag.com

Feature The classic variety of BricsCAD 1 costs €450 for a perpetual licence, €630 with maintenance. BricsCAD Pro with direct 3D modelling, rendering, cloud connectivity and third party apps costs €580 / 760.

BricsCAD Platinum offers constraints, design intent, assembly, deformable modelling, 3D compare and some BIM capability / Sheet metal for €910 / 1,090. By comparison vanilla AutoCAD is £1,506 for one year access on subscription or £186 per month. 2 BricsCAD also runs on Linux, Mac, and Windows and the software replicates most of AutoCAD’s APIs so has access to thousands of third-party applications.

A case in point and an amazing coup for Bricsys is that Intergraph has ported its CloudWorx Plant 2017 to BricsCAD as a low-cost alternative to AutoCAD, while offering the same level of functionality. GT STRUDL CAD is also being ported to enable structural model analysis. With major developers choosing to support an AutoCAD clone as a low-cost without compromise alternative, it’s clear the market is starting to think differently about AutoCAD’s place within vertical markets.

BIM One of the key reasons for visiting Bricsys was because I had heard that the company was developing a BIM tool. It is not new at this game either as it created TriForma in the 1990s, which sat on top of MicroStation.

Bricsys gave me a demo of a new BIM modelling tool, which uses ACIS solids as a base. Instead of libraries of parts, the system works very much like TriForma, with a ‘model, then add intelligence’ approach.

Our demo model was very rectilinear but was amazingly fast, given that everything was modelled in solids. To prove a point the team imported a detailed reinforced concrete model which expanded to over thirty gigabytes. While the graphics struggled, the system stood up and enabled some navigation. From what I saw, it seems very early days with no library and no COBie or standards work.

However, should development continue and with promised RVT (Revit) model access in the pipeline, Bricsys could play a part in Revit workflows.

My only reservation lies with the company’s decision to run everything in the traditional AutoCAD 2D interface and ribbon menu. While offering the benefits of familiarity to AutoCAD users it doesn’t www.AECmag.com

1 Bricsys Bricscad 2 Graebert Ares Commander

lend itself to 3D modelling particularly well compared to all new modelling tools.

I can understand why the company feels that customers who have been left behind in BIM may prefer to model in the familiar AutoCAD environment, but even Autodesk gave up on this concept as new interfaces for 3D work were required. For the record, Bricsys’ CEO vehemently disagrees with my analysis and considers the AutoCAD interface a benefit.

For now, Bricsys is already getting many enquiries from large Autodesk customers concerned about subscription pricing for the tools and looking to save money on their AutoCAD exposure. Appealing to major third-party developers is also a feather in its cap. It will be interesting to see who else other than Intergraph chooses to support its applications.

■ bricsys.com

Graebert GmbH Based in Berlin, Germany, Graebert also has its own AutoCAD clone which it calls Ares. Last year the firm announced that its drafting tool would work on desktop, on mobile and in the cloud on a web browser.

This would mean that you’d have access to your drawings and the ability to draw whatever you want on whatever device.

Graebert is headed up by Wilfred Gräbert, who was the first German distributor of AutoCAD. That relationship soured and it went to court, where the matter was settled. Graebert has spent a considerable amount of time developing

and competing against AutoCAD ever since. However, the company’s most remarkable success has been in providing DWG tools to Autodesk competitors.

Both Onshape and Dassault Systèmes (DS) use Graebert DWG platforms within their mechanical CADfocused portfolios.

DS might be best known for Catia and SolidWorks but its biggest product by volume is Draftsight, a free / pro 2D drafting tool that was developed for SolidWorks to muddy Autodesk’s AutoCAD income by reducing the need for SolidWorks’ customers to maintain AutoCAD licences when migrating to SolidWorks.

What actually happened was that DS managed to get over 1 million users, many of which were architects. DS is still trying to figure out how to increase the income from Draftsight but it’s a nice problem to have.

As far as I could tell Graebert has no obvious plans to go into BIM and compete against Revit but as its program supports LISP and ARX, the company is creating vertical apps to solve issues such as bathroom and kitchen layouts in 3D, similar to Autodesk Architectural Desktop.

Ares Trinity CAD is €250 per year for mobile, web and desktop. A perpetual licence is €795 for mobile, web and desktop. There is also is a network Flex licence option.

■ graebert.com

Perpetual vs subscription Autodesk is going through a business transition. The removal of huge joining fees is great when acquiring the software through subscription, but long-term it means that AutoCAD products are now more expensive over 3-4 years than when users could elect to upgrade when it made sense on their own unique business terms.

For very large Autodesk customers now facing significant Enterprise License Agreement price hikes, the budget-constraints will lead some to evaluate AutoCAD clones, their capabilities, cost of ownership and compatibility.

According to Ralph Grabowski, “A common tactic is to replace most AutoCAD licences with a clone, keeping just a few AutoCAD to ensure compatibility and for some of the functions the clones don’t have.” Forget the cloud as a change agent; subscription is actually changing the way we think about our products, what we buy and for how long.

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Preview

Leica BLK360 preview Sleek lines and ease of use mark the arrival of a new breed of 3D scanner from Leica Geosystems. Stephen Holmes finds a rare case of luxury Swiss design that can be used by architects and others — not just surveyors.

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mall, lightweight, black anodised aluminium, and with just a single button, the Leica Geosystems BLK360 is barely recognisable as a professional-grade 3D scanner.

That button, however, unleashes its inner purpose — once pressed, three minutes later you have a full 3D scan of a room, in a combined laser, photogrammetry and heat-mapped model that is ready to be used instantly in Autodesk ReCap Pro from a partnered iPad. When giving AEC Magazine a demonstration of the new BLK360, Hexagon Geosystems CTO Burkhard Boeckem explained that its purpose is the ‘democratisation of reality capture’: allowing 32

everyone, not just surveyors, to collect scan data, increasing the impact that scan data can have on the design and engineering workflow.

For the creation of the BLK360, Leica created a special group; evolving a competition design (brief: ‘It should not look like a scanner, but a timeless luxury item’) with its own design heritage, such as the Leica T2 theodolite; kitting it out via a trip ‘technology shopping’ through the vast innovation stores of its parent company Hexagon, before miniaturising the entire platform.

From the pin-prick hole in the self-balancing mirror arm for noise cancellation, to the custom-built fold-flat tripod, Leica has gone about this project with a pains-

Autodesk University 2017 special edition

taking eye for detail, with each unit hand assembled at its Heerbrugg headquarters in Switzerland.

It’s an eye-catching product, but it’s not lagging on the performance front.

Leica states that its infrared scanner captures 360,000 points per second within a 60m range, while the HDR imaging is performed by a 15MP threecamera system that is calibrated for full spherical HDR imagery.

According to Leica, this sets up a 3D point accuracy of 6mm at 10m, creeping to 8mm at 20m.

The thermal camera integration is aimed at the AEC market and features a professional unit from infrared expert www.AECmag.com

The BLK360 connects wirelessly to an iPad Pro running Autodesk ReCap Pro

FLIR that is fully calibrated with the rest of the collected data points.

The addition of accurate thermal overlays should prove useful for showing pipes, cables and other embedded fixtures that might not be immediately visible from a surface scan.

However, its biggest asset is its ease of use and it is designed to allow anyone to go out, set it down and collect accurate scan data with little fuss. The scan settings from the single button start can be configured from within the software, should you wish.

The unit is protected by a plexiglass cover mimicking the original T2 theodolite design, but otherwise its rotating base and optional tripod are the only travel companions it needs. Its 1kg form can easily fit into carry-on luggage or a discreet messenger bag on the London Underground.

There are no cables required and while the scanner alone will store over 100 reality captures, the BLK360 acts as its own WiFi router, sending scans direct to partnered devices (iPad Pro at present, with Android to come soon).

Battery life is good for 40 scans, says Leica, explaining that a single residential www.AECmag.com

house needs around 12 on average.

Inbuilt LED lighting and weather proofing to IP54 standards mean it can be used both indoors and out.

The relationship with Autodesk ReCap Pro serves a dual purpose: not only is the data immediately available to review on the iPad in situ (meaning fewer faulty scans, or details missed), but the data can be then sent anywhere in the world with a few clicks.

Billed by Autodesk as ‘rapid, reliable and robust’ the data is available in Autodesk’s native RCS (individual) and RCP (project) file formats ready for the Autodesk environment, including Revit and 3ds Max, as well as E57, PCG and PTS file formats that can be exported.

Featuring an intuitive user interface and ease-of-use controls, the aim of ReCap Pro is to speed up the capture workflow, meaning more room for verification, with fewer errors.

Asked where this product would fit into his company’s process, Lewis Wenman, lead BIM manager at Bouygues UK, a Beta tester of the BLK360 in London, replied: “I thought this was game changing in the whole workflow.”

“The availability of doing this, the

accessibility, the light weight, the process, it’s just going to change the way we think about utilising point clouds.

“At the moment, it’s deemed quite an expensive and time-consuming process – this changes things completely.”

Then there’s the price; the BLK360 launches at $15,990, including a year’s subscription to Autodesk ReCap Pro with support. Once the investment in an iPad Pro has been made, this is hardly throwaway kit, but it is within the bracket marked ‘attainable’.

By Leica’s own admission, the BLK360 isn’t the furthest it has pushed 3D scanning technology. This is a tool for the single scan jobs like capturing an interior layout, with Leica Geosystems offering better suited tools for projects requiring greater amounts of detailed reality capture.

This product, alongside Bentley’s ContextCapture, Google Tango and DotProduct’s technologies, signals a sea change in the democratisation of reality capture — a revolution of use and availability. For Leica Geosystems, the BLK360 is by far the most beautiful of all its technologies, but it also looks to be one of the most accessible.

■ lasers.leica-geosystems.com

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HP Z2 Mini workstation HP’s impressive micro machine is great for bread and butter 3D CAD but, with rigid specs, buyers need to be confident that workflows won’t change Small Form Factor (SFF) workstations like the HP Z240 SFF are becoming much more prevalent in design and engineering offices. What were once considered entrylevel workstations, with compact chassis of around 100 x 350 x 400mm, are now powerful enough to satisfy the requirements of most 2D and 3D CAD users.

HP has now gone one step further with an even smaller workstation called the Z2 Mini. Similar in stature to the Apple Mac Mini, HP’s beautifully styled machine is small enough to be held in one hand. A mere 58 x 216 x 216mm in size, it can happily sit on a desk, but can also be mounted on the back of a display or under a desk.

There are many advantages to this new mini form factor. First, and most obvious, is it takes up less desk space, which can be a big benefit in a world of rising property prices. HP reckons there has been a 60% space reduction per person in the US over last 10 years. One could argue that you simply get around this by putting your workstation tower under your desk. However, when kept down by your feet they become serious dust magnets and need to be cleaned regularly to keep fan noise in check (clogged fans need to work harder to achieve the same cooling).

Floor standing machines can also create a micro climate under your desk. This can be great in winter to warm frosty toes, but not so much in summer. Even when your office is air conditioned, the environment can become unbalanced. We have heard anecdotes of people wearing jumpers on top and shorts down below.

The second benefit is portability. The HP Z2 Mini is so small and light (it starts at 2.04kg) that you can easily pop it in your bag to take home or to a meeting.

And with an optional built-in Intel 8265 WLAN 802.11ac module you can connect to WiFi wherever you go.

The third is, admittedly, subjective, but we think it looks rather cool. HP has obviously paid a lot of attention to the styling of its mini workstation, but the corner 34

detail is actually derived from Intel Core i3 / i5 / i7 — but a Product spec functional requirements. The custom entry-level ‘mobile’ custom cooling system, which GPU, the Nvidia Quadro M620 ■ Intel Xeon E3-1245 v5 (3.5GHz, 3.9GHz features dedicated fans for (2GB). The machine can support Turbo) (4 Cores) CPU both GPU and CPU, draws in up to 32GB of DDR4 RAM ■ 16GB (2 x 8GB) air from the front two corners across two SODIMMs, which DDR4-2133 non-ECC SDRAM memory and out at the rear two corshould be plenty for most CAD ■ 512GB HP Z Turbo ners. As the vents shouldn’t workflows.

Drive G2 (NVMe SSD) become obstructed for obviDespite the thermal challeng■ Nvidia Quadro M620 GPU (2GB) ous reasons, they are protectes of producing such a small ■ Microsoft Windows ed by the chamfered edges of machine, the Z2 Mini offers 10 Pro 64-Bit the main chassis. A lot of scipretty much the same level of ■ 216mm x 216mm x ence went into this. HP’s CPU performance as one can 58 mm (w) x (d) x (h) workstation team told AEC find in a SFF workstation. Our ■ 3-year (3-3-3) limited warranty and Magazine that, in designing test machine’s top-end Intel service offering the HP Z2 Mini, it did more Xeon E3-1245 v6 (3.7GHz up to includes 3 years of parts, labour and simulation and analysis cool4.1GHz) is only a shade slower on-site repair ing work than on any other than the Intel Xeon E3-1270 v6 ■ £1,219 + VAT product. Computational Fluid (3.8GHz up to 4.2GHz), the hp.com/go/z2mini Dynamics (CFD) was even fastest model available in the used to optimise the individuHP Z240 SFF. al spacing of the cooling fins.

In use, such subtleties will likely go This attention to detail results in a unnoticed. Indeed, in our multi-threaded remarkably quiet design, which is impres- KeyShot rendering benchmark, the HP Z2 sive for a machine of this size. When idle, Mini was only 9% slower than the Armari the workstation is virtually silent and Magnetar V25 we tested back in February noise levels are still perfectly acceptable 2017 (tinyurl.com/magnetar-AEC), which when the CPU is being pushed to its limits. had an overclocked 4.7GHz Intel Core i7 One minor criticism would be that fan 7700K CPU. speeds are not always consistent. When While the CPU is on par with most rendering a scene in KeyShot, for example, CAD-focused desktop machines, the same we found the fans cycled from can’t be said of the GPU. The Quadro M620 is very much an entry-level 3D GPU. But this doesn’t mean it’s not suitable for 3D CAD or BIM. Indeed, while our benchmark scores show it to be significantly slower than the fastest GPUs you can expect to find in a SFF workstation — the Nvidia Quadro P1000 or AMD Radeon Pro WX 4100, for example — in practice we found it to be a very capable 3D graphics card. However, it is important to acknowledge its limitations.

The bulk of our tests were done at FHD (1,920 x 1,080) resolution. In shaded with edges mode in SolidWorks 2015 we had a perfectly good experience with all our test mod1 els, recording frame rates in excess of 20 FPS. The Z2 Mini even kept pace when RealView was enabled on low to high every 30 secthe PC computer model onds, or so. The noise taken from the SPECapc would actually be less for SolidWorks 2015 benchnoticeable if the fans remained on high for mark. However, the machine did become the duration of the render. Hopefully this sluggish when we switched on Ambient might be remedied in a later BIOS update.

Occlusion, something that wouldn’t happen with a more powerful GPU like the The power inside Radeon Pro WX 4100.

We had a generally good experience in The Z2 Mini features a combination of desktop and mobile technologies. It has a Autodesk Revit, but this came as no surdesktop CPU — Intel Xeon E3-1200 v6 or prise as this ‘BIM’ application is very

Autodesk University 2017 special edition

www.AECmag.com

Review CPU limited, meaning that the performance bottleneck usually comes from the CPU, rather than the GPU. The HP Z2 Mini started to show its limitations in the ‘game engine’ viz application LumenRT, which places a big emphasis on visual quality. Here, frame rates dropped to as little as 5 FPS which really impacted the experience.

At 4K resolution, with four times as many pixels to render, the HP Z2 Mini started to slow down. While it kept pace in Revit and SolidWorks (shaded with edges mode), in the game engines LumenRT and Autodesk LIVE (based on Stingray) it became largely unusable as frame rates dropped to as little as 2 FPS making it almost impossible to move your model into the right position. For such graphics-intensive workflows you really need a higher-end GPU like the Quadro P4000, which is only available in a desktop tower like the HP Z240 Tower.

When designing a machine of this size, the temptation would be to go all in for Solid State Drives (SDDs). However, HP has allowed room for both 2.5-inch HDD/ SSD and an NVMe, M.2 form factor SSD (HP Z Turbo Drive G2). This is a nice design choice as it gives users access to up to 1.5 TB of total storage (when configured with a 512GB HP Z Turbo Drive G2 and 1TB HDD). It also helps bring down the price of entry-level models, configured only with a 2.5-inch drive, though we would never recommend buying a workstation without an SSD. Our test machine came with a single 512GB HP Z Turbo Drive G2. This PCIe NVMe SSD is actually a Samsung SM951, but HP also repackages SSDs from other manufacturers that offer similar perfor-

mance and durability characteristics. The HP Z Turbo Drive G2 is exactly the same SSD you get in most HP workstations and plenty fast enough for standard CAD workflows. Boot up time was impressive — a mere 17 seconds.

The drive itself sits directly under the GPU blower, directly on the motherboard.

Should it fail, you’ll need to remove the entire GPU fan assembly, which should only be done by experienced users. The only components that are easily serviceable are the 2.5-inch drive, which sits on top of the GPU blower, and the memory, which can be found under the CPU fan that flips up on a hinge. Opening up the machine is easy. Simply pull on the cover latch at the rear and the lid pops off. The 200W power supply is external, borrowed from a HP ZBook mobile workstation, we believe.

Despite its compact size, the Z2 Mini is well equipped with ports. There are 2 USB 3.0 and 2 USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C at the rear and 2 USB 3.0 (1 charging) on the side. The ‘always on’ port has the obvious benefit of being able to charge phones and other devices when the machine is off, but also has an added benefit. Once enabled in the BIOS, you can plug in a USB keyboard, then simply press any key to switch on the machine when it is powered down. This is particularly useful when the machine is out of sight. Indeed, while the Z2 Mini will look great on any desk, HP has gone to great lengths to help it be hidden away. To this end, HP has developed an ingenious VESA Mount solution, which encloses the HP Z2 Mini in a metal sleeve that can be mounted behind a display, on a wall or under a desk. The sleeve also doubles as a security device, featuring a Kensington lock slot and pad lock

loop, plus a means of restricting access to the USB ports. Simply rotate the security sleeve by 90 degrees and all the ports get physically blocked off.

Considering the ease with which the Z2 Mini can be attached to a desktop display, one wonders what the future holds for HP’s All-In-One workstation, the HP Z1.

Conclusion Having spent several weeks testing the HP Z2 Mini, we have to say we are very impressed. It delivers pretty much everything one needs for bread and butter 3D CAD work and does so in a beautifully styled micro chassis. With temperatures hitting 26°C in London over the past few days, we’ve also noticed a big difference in comfort when using the 200W Z2 Mini on the desk and a 400W tower on the floor.

Of course, there are tradeoffs in having such a small machine, mostly centring on 3D performance. While the Z2 Mini should be able to handle most mainstream CAD and BIM workflows, it will struggle in more demanding 3D workflows, such as game engine design viz, particularly at 4K resolution. You can also forget about VR, which is an important consideration if you intend to keep this machine for 3-4 years, as is typical for most of our readers. With a standard tower you can always upgrade the GPU, so if your workflows change then you can adapt. This is simply not possible with the Z2 Mini.

In summary, if you want a small, stylish workstation with exceptional portability, then the Z2 Mini ticks all the boxes. It’s perfect for entry-level to mainstream 3D CAD work now, but it could leave you short in the future.

Greg Corke

1 HP Z2 Mini with 24-inch display for scale 2 HP Z2 Mini with HP Z240 SFF for comparison 3 HP Z2 Mini mounted behind a display 4 By rotating the metal sleeve by 90 degrees, IT managers can block off USB ports for security

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Review

Lenovo ThinkStation P320 Tiny In a world of shrinking workstations, Lenovo’s ThinkStation P320 Tiny is the smallest yet. But despite its diminutive form, it still delivers the goods for mainstream 3D CAD and BIM workflows, writes Greg Corke.

Last year, HP redefined the Small Form Factor (SFF) workstation with the introduction of the HP Z2 Mini. With a 216mm x 216mm x 58mm chassis, this machine was dramatically smaller than anything that had come before, but still managed to pack a punch for 3D CAD. Now, Lenovo has gone one step further with the ThinkStation P320 Tiny, a new 3D CAD-focused workstation that is even smaller than the HP Z2 Mini. Incredibly, it takes up half the volume and is only 180mm x 183mm x 36mm in size, weighing a mere 1.3kg. And what’s more, despite this significant shrinkage, it still stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the HP Z2 Mini when it comes to performance. In some graphicscentric workflows, it’s actually faster.

Unlike the HP Z2 Mini, which was built from the ground up to be a workstation, the ThinkStation P320 Tiny has been adapted from Lenovo’s business PC, the ThinkCentre Tiny.

As the chassis is so small, the P320 Tiny keeps thermals in check by offering a choice of low-power Intel ‘Kaby Lake’ CPUs. Our test machine came with the topend model, the Intel Core i7-7700T (4 cores, 8 Threads / 2.90 GHz to 3.80 GHz Turbo), but there are other options, including the Core i5-7500T (4 cores, 4 threads, 2.70 GHz to 3.30 GHz Turbo).

However, the entry-level Core i5 should only really be considered if budgets are exceedingly tight or you’re not interested in ray trace rendering (it does not support HyperThreading).

The Intel Core i7-7700T draws 35W at peak, instead of 70W, which is typical of most high-GHz quad core desktop CPUs. With significantly less power to play 36

two service panels, one on top with, the stock and Turbo Product spec and one underneath. frequencies are lower, but Remove a thumbscrew to this doesn’t impact perfor■ Intel Core i7 7700T CPU (2.9GHz, 3.8GHz slide off the top panel and gain mance as much as one might Turbo) (4 Cores) CPU access to the CPU and GPU for expect (more on this later).

■ 16GB (1 x 16GB) maintenance and cleaning, For graphics, Lenovo has DDR4-2400 memory while memory and SSDs can be amazingly managed to pack ■ 1 x 512GB M.2 NVMe SSD easily accessed from below. in an entry-level profession■ Nvidia Quadro The workstation can be posial desktop GPU, the Nvidia P600 GPU (2GB) tioned in desktop or tower Quadro P600 (2GB). This ■ Microsoft Windows 10 Pro 64-Bit mode (with the help of a stand). low-profile ‘Pascal’ graphics ■ 180mm x 183mm x It can also be secured under card is designed for tradi36mm (w) x (d) x (h) a desk or behind a VESA distional Small Form Factor ■ 3 Year On-site play with custom mounting (SFF) workstations, so to warranty brackets. To keep everything squeeze it into the P320 ■ £999 + VAT tucked away, there’s even a Tiny’s micro chassis has thinkworkstations .com bracket for the external power taken a significant engineersupply. This is one of the beneing effort.

First, the graphics card is fitted to a fits of using the same chassis as the riser board, so it sits parallel to the moth- ThinkCentre Tiny, as there are a number erboard. Second, Lenovo has removed the of ready-made accessories.

If you want to go the whole hog and card’s standard cooler and has instead attached a custom heatsink that connects essentially turn the P320 Tiny into an allvia copper piping to a single system fan, in-one workstation, then there’s also the ThinkCentre Tiny-In-One 23.8” monitor. which is shared with the CPU. The machine features up to 32GB of And with WiFi built-in, you don’t even DDR4 2400MHz SoDIMM memory, need to have a trailing Ethernet cable. which should be plenty for most 3D CAD workflows. Meanwhile, storage is provid- On test ed by one or two M.2 NVMe SSDs, up to When we first started testing the P320 1TB in capacity.

Tiny with a variety of CAD and viz appliOne sacrifice of having such a small cations, the clock speed of the CPU jumped chassis is that there is no room for a 2.5- about quite a lot, cycling from 3.70 GHz all inch Hard Disk Drive (HDD), so those the way down to 0.8 GHz at times. who want lots of Despite this huge variation, we found 3D performance in SolidWorks, Creo and Revit to be reliable and good.

However, in Luxion KeyShot, render times were inconsistent, with the same scene sometimes taking twice as long to render than at other times.

At the start of September 2017, Lenovo released a firmware update that allowed the machine to be optimised for thermal performance, instead of focusing on acoustics. This simple BIOS setting made a massive difference to our test results – not only cutting render times dramatically, but also boosting 3D performance in SolidWorks and 1 Creo (as graphics performance in these applications is heavily influenced by the speed storage for giant CAD data- of the CPU). sets will have to pay a premium for highAs one might expect, fan noise capacity SSDs. However, Lenovo has increased significantly, particularly placed significant efforts into maintain- when all four cores were being haming serviceability, a hallmark of its larger mered in KeyShot, but we didn’t find it ThinkStation models. too distracting on the whole. The most The machine offers tool-free access to surprising observation was that all four

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Review 2 CPU cores appeared to run at 3.50 GHz to 3.60 GHz when rendering, even though we had expected them to slow down to 2.90 GHz, the standard clock speed of the Intel Core i7-7700T).

The end result was that our test scene only took marginally longer to render than it did on the HP Z2 Mini, despite the HP Z2 Mini having the more powerful 73W Intel Xeon E3-1245 v6 CPU (3.70 GHz to 4.10 GHz Turbo).

Continuing the comparisons with HP’s machine, the ThinkStation P320 Tiny actually had the edge in all of our 3D graphics benchmarks. This is thanks to the new Pascal-based Nvidia Quadro P600 GPU, which is more powerful than the Z2 Mini’s Maxwell-based Quadro M620.

Despite the small 3D performance advantage, the P320 Tiny is still very much a workstation for entry-level to mainstream 3D CAD and BIM. It’s not really the HP Z2 Mini in multithreaded ren- are downsides – no 2.5-inch drive, so biggeared up for game engine visualisation or dering workflows but, with the latest ger cost per GB, and it can be quite noisy GPU rendering and definitely not for firmware updates, this was not the case. under heavy loads. However, users do Virtual Reality. In addition, it’s important And, thanks to the Nvidia Quadro P600 have the choice of prioritising acoustics to note that all of our testing was done at GPU, it even has the edge when it comes over performance in the updated BIOS. FHD resolution (1,920 x There are obvious bene1,080) and, as we found with fits to the space-saving the Z2 Mini, there will Considering the thermal challenges of a small chassis but, as with the HP almost certainly be a slowZ2 Mini, you could get chassis, it’s incredible how much down at 4K resolution in stuck if workflows change. performance Lenovo has managed to pack GPU-hungry applications.

There’s no scope for into the ThinkStation P320 Tiny upgrades to handle VR, Conclusion GPU rendering or an increase in model complexiConsidering the thermal ty, so before parting with your hardchallenges of a small chassis, it’s incred- to 3D performance.

We’re big fans of the P320 Tiny. It’s earned cash, you need to be sure that ible how much performance Lenovo has managed to pack into the P320 Tiny. small, deceptively fast, incredibly porta- mainstream 3D CAD and BIM will conWith its low-power Intel CPU, we had ble and excellent value for money (our tinue to be your bread and butter for expected it to significantly lag behind test machine comes in at £999). But there years to come.

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1 ThinkStation P320 Tiny with 27-inch display for scale 2 Ideal for space-constrained offices 3 ThinkStation P320 Tiny alongside HP Z2 Mini 4 One fan is used to cool both CPU and GPU 5 The bottom service panel gives easy access to M.2 NVMe SSDs and memory for upgrades or repair

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ENGINEERED TO GO WHERE OTHERS CAN’T. THE THINKSTATION® P320 TINY COMBINES SIMPLE AND EFFICIENT DESIGN WITH THE PROFESSIONAL POWER OF A WORKSTATION. WHY LENOVO’S TINY WORKSTATION IS THE PERFECT FIT FOR YOUR BUSINESS… The world’s smallest workstation ISV Certified for professional applications Small in size – big on performance 7th generation Intel® processor 32GB of DDR4 memory 2TB of NVMe SSD storage NVIDIA® Quadro® P600 graphics Capable of driving six 4K displays

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