AEC Magazine March / April 2021

BUGA FIBRE PAVILION, UNIVERSITY OF STUTTGART, INSTITUTE OF COMPUTATIONAL DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION. IMAGE COURTESY OF KUKA GROUP

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

FROM BIM TO DfMA The inevitable convergence of AEC and manufacturing

Unreal everywhere

Enscape 3.0 review

Nvidia RTX A6000

Fuelling the rise of the real-time engine

Real-time viz breaks free

Profesional graphics on steroids

March / April 2021 >> Vol.113 p01_AEC_MARCHAPRIL21_Cover.indd 1

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

WELLINGTON CITY IMAGE COURTESY OF BUILDMEDIA

editorial

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MANAGING EDITOR GREG CORKE greg@x3dmedia.com

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Industry news 7

An Epic investment 42

In a period like no other in the AEC industry, we’ve just seen a huge wave of acquisitions. From Autodesk to Unity we share our thoughts, plus lots, lots more

The success of Unreal Engine in the gaming sector continues to help fund the expansion of the real-time engine within AEC

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Design for constructability 20 Are today’s design-centric BIM solutions the right tools for digital construction / fabrication and is architecture the right discipline to take this on?

A parametric future 24 Tal Friedman explores the rise of AI and robotics and the fall of BIM

The drive to DfMA 28 Everybody’s talking about Design for Manufacturing and Assembly, but few firms are actually doing it. We look at Autodesk’s efforts and future vision

Strucsoft - linking Revit to fabrication 32

Testfit.io: optimised building modelling 48 In CAD, the computer hardly aids the design, but TestFit has a different take on design optimisation

Three trends for BIM 53 What disruptive technologies will drive the industry’s toolsets in 2021?

Oasys MassMotion 56 With the ongoing pandemic, social distancing looks set to remain important for months to come. Crowd simulation software has really come in to its own

A problem shared... 58 An optimised cloud-based digital construction workflow is helping ECC Group keep its largest projects on track, improve site productivity and lots more

Revit predominantly occupies the design & documentation space of BIM. Strucsoft extends its capabilities to fabrication

5G in construction 60

PLM meets AEC 36

By delivering real-time data, 5G can help construction firms deploy innovations on site such as IoT and mixed reality

The role that Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), a process that’s so important for many manufacturing firms, could play in the evolving AEC industry

Enscape 3.0 review 38 With usability now driving development, the popular real time viz tool has finally broken the shackles of the BIM plug-in that originally brought it success

Nvidia RTX A6000 62 One of the most eagerly anticipated workstation GPUs in recent years has arrived, and it’s been well worth the wait

Scan 3XS review 62 Threadripper CPU meets Nvidia RTX A6000 GPU in this workstation beast March / April 2021

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24/03/2021 11:05

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News

Unity acquires VisualLive to boost mixed reality capabilities in construction nity is expanding its capabilities in augmented reality and mixed reality for construction with the acquisition of Arizona-based VisualLive.

The company’s AR/MR software, which includes HoloLive for HoloLens, will augment the capabilities of Unity’s AEC-focused real-time 3D software, Unity Reflect.

According to Julien Faure, GM of verticals at Unity, the acquisition will allow Unity to better connect the field with the design office, bringing BIM data via AR/MR to drive better quality assurance and project tracking. “This will fundamentally change how design reviews, construction planning, field inspections, and facilities management are conducted,” he said.

Saeed Eslami, CEO and founder of VisualLive added, “VisualLive has excelled in creating a software solution that works on multiple devices to enable field workers to overlay CAD/BIM models onto the jobsite in AR within a few minutes to review the design, validate against the existing conditions, verify install completion, create reports, and collaborate with the rest of the team in real time. Together with Unity, we can expand the platform’s capabilities and scale globally.”

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■ unity.com/unity-reflect ■ visuallive.com

AEC Magazine’s thoughts on Unity’s VisualLive acquisition This is an interesting move from Unity, as it looks to play catch up with companies like Bentley Systems and Trimble, who already have established solutions for mixed reality in construction.

The Unity real-time engine might already have built-in capabilities for mixed reality, and there were plans to add HoloLens support to Unity Reflect. However, Unity’s

AEC offering lacks the construction-focused functionality of its peers.

And while we expect VisualLive will continue as a product its own right for the time being, we imagine the longer term plan is to bolster the construction-focused MR capabilities of Unity Reflect.

VisualLive has plug-ins for Revit and Navisworks, but Unity is unlikely to use these directly. While it may draw

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on VisualLive’s knowledge in file optimisation for HoloLens, Unity Reflect already has very tight integration with Revit and Navisworks thanks to its partnership with Autodesk.

The main value of the acquisition will likely come from established workflows for planning, inspection, constructability, design/ review, design validation, and facility management.

The VisualLive software includes functionality for the automatic placement of BIM models in their real-world context, plus QA/QC for construction verification, complete with tools for capturing and reporting on issues.

Of course, Unity will also get access to VisualLive’s AEC customer base, which is reported to be over 1,500 strong.

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24/03/2021 09:45

News

MSC Software partners with Ingeciber to boost simulation

BIM plug-in targets DfMA for architecture

SC Software has partnered with Ingeciber on a new software tool for advanced analysis in construction. ‘CivilFEM powered by Marc’ is designed to make it easier for civil engineers to apply nonlinear Finite Element Analysis (FEA) to major infrastructure projects without having to be a simulation ‘expert’.

Engineers use Ingeciber’s CivilFEM’s interface to create the analysis model then apply MSC Software’s Marc nonlinear solver to assess the feasibility, safety and durability of new structures and the materials used to build them.

‘CivilFEM powered by Marc’ can be used on a variety of structures including foundations, tunnels, mines, power plants and skyscrapers. The software covers general construction, forensic structural

consortium of UK firms and universities is working on a BIM software plug-in that will automatically generate Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DfMA) concept designs based on key parameters from a project brief, such as material choice or building use.

The Automatic DfMA Design Generator (ADAGE) plug-in will use a variety of technologies to achieve these goals, including Internet of Things (IoT), Blockchain, cloud computing, artificial intelligence algorithms (AIA) and big data analytics.

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analysis, seismic design, geotechnics, soilstructure interaction, and rock and soil mechanic analyses. It can simulate the impact of various scenarios, including earthquakes that affect the integrity of structures, extreme loading, long-term degradation and wear.

According to MSC Software, the partnership also opens new avenues for joint solution development, including modelling the effect of wind flow on structures such as skyscrapers, using Cradle CFD. MSC Software’s Marc is commonly used in the automotive, aerospace, marine, naval, defence and consumer white goods industries.

CivilFEM also offers an integration with Ansys, a simulation software which is also popular in these sectors. CivilFEM for Ansys incorporates more than 400 civil specific features.

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■ myadage.co.uk

Tekla 2021 structural BIM tools launch

the architect in mind.

First introduced as a technology preview on Windows in July 2020 for Archicad 24, the latest update makes PARAM-O available for users on macOS as well.

According to Graphisoft, large architectural practices will appreciate that they can develop custom, reusable, manufacturer-specific object libraries that comply with their own offices’ design and documentation standards.

“The nodes make it so easy to work in PARAM-O,” said Peter Koncz, BIM Manager at Leroy Street Studio in New York. “Because we carefully design every project down to the smallest detail, we need to build a lot of custom components.

Creating reusable parametric objects without writing code has made this process quick and easy for us.”

PARAM-O is available in Archicad 24 Update 3, which can be downloaded now.

rimble has introduced 2021 versions of its Tekla tools for constructible BIM, structural engineering and steel fabrication management. This includes Tekla Structures, Tekla Structural Designer, Tekla Tedds and Tekla Power Fab. The big news for Tekla Structures 2021 is the introduction of three subscription options: ‘Carbon’ for viewing models and collaborating with project stakeholders; ‘Graphite’ for creating constructible, intelligent BIM and structural documentation; and ‘Diamond’ for design, detailing and fabrication.

New features include simplified change management, with enhanced clash detection and cloning tools; better usability with in-product guidance; faster, more accurate modelling, with drawing and object handling improvements; and extensions for various modelling tasks.

■ graphisoft.com

■ tekla.com/2021

■ civilfem.com

Archicad gets parametric object design tool rchitects can now create building component libraries parametrically inside Graphisoft Archicad 24 without having to write a single line of GDL code or script.

With PARAM-O, a new parametric object design tool built into the BIM software, users can create custom objects and building elements using an ‘easy-touse’ graphical interface developed with

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24/03/2021 09:45

How we interact with the built environment is constantly changing Increasing urban population, greater reuse of buildings to combat climate change, and shocks such as the Covid-19 pandemic require rapid design changes to plan reopening strategies and test resilience.

Oasys MassMotion puts people at the heart of the design process.

Analyse crowd movement, rapidly test design changes and simulate operations to reduce risk and improve confidence in designs.

Coming soon: enhanced visual presentation with new avatars and flythrough cameras, flexible Billboard object to represent crowding and times, plus easier automation leveraging MassMotion’s powerful Software Development Kit. CREATE You can import CAD/BIM geometry with ease or build from scratch with inbuilt modelling tools.

SIMULATE Simulate complex scenarios such as queues, security checks, evacuations and route closures.

ANALYSE Diagnose potential capacity, flow and congestion problems early with verified evidence.

REVISE Scenario testing - fix issues early, saving design time and money during planning phases.

Request your free trial from oasys-software.com

oasys-software.com/massmotion-aec Oasys Software

@Oasys_Software

TheOasysSoftware

+44(0) 207 755 4515

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Unreal Engine to get reality capture boost as Epic Games acquires photogrammetry firm nreal Engine is to get new reality modelling capabilities, following the acquisition by Epic Games of Slovakian photogrammetry software developer, Capturing Reality. The company’s RealityCapture software can be used to reconstruct objects and scenes of ‘any size’ from images or laser scans.

By integrating the software into the Unreal Engine ecosystem it will be easier for developers – and AEC firms – to upload a collection of photographs and create photorealistic 3D models.

According to Epic Games, the software can yield 3D scans with ‘unparalleled accuracy and mesh quality at speeds many times faster than competing software’.

Epic Games has stated that the Capturing Reality team will continue to grow and work closely with the Unreal Engine team to make the technology ‘more accessible and affordable’.

In fact, in true Epic Games fashion, pricing for all new and existing customers will be immediately reduced. An unlimited, perpetual enterprise licence is available for $3,750 (down from €15,000) and pay per use credits start at $10.

In addition, the company has stated that RealityCapture will continue to be supported outside of Unreal Engine.

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■ unrealengine.com ■ capturingreality.com

AEC Magazine’s thoughts on Epic’s Capturing Reality acquisition Unreal Engine is already connected with CAD and BIM models through Datasmith and last year got native support for point clouds (importing, visualising, and editing).

Now users will be able to bring in 3D reality capture data derived directly from photographs without having to go through third-party software for processing.

This could be useful for a

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variety of applications – not just for design viz, but also for capturing constantly changing site conditions or even entire cities. With the right software partners, it could help smooth the path for Unreal Engine to be used for emerging workflows in AEC such as construction verification and digital twins.

Unreal Engine’s ace card is its large model performance.

With point clouds, for

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example, the software uses a dynamic Level of Detail (LoD) system and a ‘point budget’ approach so users can maintain ‘steady performance levels regardless of how dense the overall point cloud is’. We expect this same approach will apply to meshes derived from photogrammetry.

This will compare favourably against handling point clouds in BIM applications, which typically

suffer from performance issues with large data sets.

Of course, the big attraction of photogrammetry to AEC firms is the cost and speed of data acquisition. With the RealityCapture software, photos can be taken via drones, smart phones or from cameras attached to cranes, excavators or hard hats, which can make it more accessible than laser scanning and / or SLAM.

www.AECmag.com

24/03/2021 09:45

News

Vectorworks partners with Epic Games for new release

Autodesk boosts construction utodesk Build, a new project and site management solution and part of Autodesk Construction Cloud, is now available to users globally.

Initially announced at Autodesk University 2020, Autodesk Build unifies features from BIM 360 and PlanGrid. It is designed to provide construction teams with a ‘single solution’ for project management, quality, safety, cost and closeout by connecting data, workflows and teams in a single environment.

Autodesk Takeoff is another new cloud-based service which performs 2D and 3D quantification from Autodesk’s ‘common data environment’.

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ectorworks has teamed up with Epic Games to develop an optimised workflow from Vectorworks 2021 Service Pack 3 into Twinmotion and Unreal Engine.

According to Vectorworks, its developers have utilised the Datasmith SDK (software development kit) to ‘ensure greater fidelity of the model export’ to these real-time rendering applications.

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Vectorworks is one of the last major CAD/BIM tools to get tight integration with Epic’s real-time viz tools. Direct link plugins for Twinmotion and Datasmith export plug-ins for Unreal Engine have been available for ArchiCAD, Revit, SketchUp Pro and Rhino for some time.

Meanwhile, turn to page 42 to learn more about Epic Games’ software partnerships.

■ vectorworks.net ■ unrealengine.com

BIM consultant posts YouTube Revit rant evit BIM consultant, Gavin Crump has released a vlog complaining how incompatibility between Autodesk Revit releases impacts projects and the general lack of updates Crump trades by the name of Aussie BIMGuru and runs a community BIM vlog covering all things to do with Revit.

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Aurecon acquires BIM consultancy

control cloud connects with Unreal, where pre-optimised assets are dynamically loaded directly into a ‘running game’ giving users the ability to log-in via their 3D Repo credentials and ‘seamlessly retrieve’ any of their assets on the fly.

This is made possible through a persistent storage layer rather than parsing and baking assets into a new game .exe each time an asset revision is created.

lobal engineering and design firm Aurecon has acquired BIM and digital engineering consultancy, Digital Node, which is headed up by ‘Women In BIM’ founder and AEC Magazine contributor Rebecca de Cicco.

Digital Node provides strategic and technical solutions to support the built environment in its digital transformation with extensive project delivery experience.

De Cicco is an internationally recognised BIM subject matter expert with experience in delivering, educating and supporting clients in developing strategies around their digital future. At Aurecon, she will take up the position of principal for digital operations.

■ 3drepo.com

■ digital-node.com

He usually shares tips and tricks and how to get the most out of the software, which he confesses he is a massive fan of.

However, in his latest post he highlights incompatibility problems between Revit releases and how this impacts multi-year projects, together with issues on lack of development. View the video at tinyurl.com/RevitRant

Unreal used on digital twin platform D Repo is working on a new digital twin streaming solution that will allow AEC users to share and dynamically view massive 3D engineering models straight from the cloud using Epic Games Unreal Engine.

The development of the ‘infinitely scalable’ 3D rendering and data delivery platform is being funded by an Epic MegaGrant from Epic Games.

Via open APIs, the 3D Repo version

■ construction.autodesk.com

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24/03/2021 09:45

ROUND UP From PIM to BIM

V-Ray 5 for Revit blurs realtime / photoreal boundaries

Project Information Management (PIM) software specialist Newforma is expanding its BIM capabilities through the acquisition of Quebecbased BIM One, which owns BIM One Consulting and the cloud-based BIM collaboration platform BIM Track ■ newforma.com ■ bimone.com

Allplan: Revit import Allplan now has enhanced interoperability so models and data from various disciplines can be brought together easier. Allplan 2021 features enhanced support for IFC, direct import of several 3D CAD/BIM formats including of Revit files ■ allplan.com/workflows/interoperability

Free BIM viewer Dalux has added new collaboration and commenting features to its free BIM Viewer, Dalux BIM Viewer+.

Users can now create, track and manage comments in the web-based viewer, mobile or desktop application (Android, iPhone, iPad or Windows) ■ dalux.com/bim-viewer

Revit data quality DAQS.IO is a cloud service designed to help AEC companies improve and verify data quality in Revit models. It also gives project managers insight into the status of project models and allows BIM Managers to explore cross-project trends and statistics ■ daqs.io

GBuilder targets UK GBuilder has completed a €2M financing round to help expansion in the UK and DACH regions. The Finnish firm’s BIM-compatible software is aimed at residential and commercial developers and digitises the customer journey, material selections and modification, visualisation, inspection, and communication processes ■ gbuilder.com

Flood risk modelling Newcastle University is using computer modelling to assess the flood risk of individual properties using LiDAR data and aerial photography.

The project will use AI to extract information from other datasets, including old reports and flood asset registers, and bring this together with real time weather and traffic sensors ■ bluesky-world.com/metrovista

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haos has introduced V-Ray Vision, a real-time visualisation capability built into V-Ray 5 for Revit.

The new feature allows architects to get immediate feedback on their designs, before moving on to full photorealism with V-Ray’s final renderer. The ‘always-

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on’ viewer updates in real-time, offering a high-quality representation of a Revit model as architects work, with a view to helping users work through new ideas and client feedback from start to finish.

V-Ray 5 for Revit also marks the launch of new 3D content library Chaos Cosmos.

■ chaosgroup.com/vray/revit

TestFit integrates with Tomasetti Asterisk enerative building / site configuration software developer TestFit has formed a partnership with structural engineering firm Thornton Tomasetti to improve data sharing.

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The firms have developed an API connecting TestFit’s design and visualisation platform with Thornton Tomasetti’s Asterisk structural optioneering tool.

Tomasetti’s Asterisk is developed by the firm’s

CORE studio. It uses computational geometry and artificial intelligence based on Tomasetti’s extensive structural engineering experience.

Meanwhile, for more on Testfit see page 48.

■ core.thorntontomasetti.com

IoT used to track construction equipment ouygues Construction Matériel is implementing an Internet of Things (IoT) asset tracking solution for Smart Construction developed by Omniscient.

This solution connects twenty thousand items of equipment for remote realtime management and optimisation using an IoT

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network from Bouygues Telecom, the expertise of Objenious and intelligent sensors from Actility.

Bouygues Construction Matériel is in charge of managing the group’s entire fleet of equipment and must ensure that each site is equipped with compliant equipment, in good working order, and made available on time across all

construction sites in France.

Omniscient designed a turnkey solution using multi-technology trackers from Abeeway, a subsidiary of Actility that specialises in ultra-low power geolocation solutions, and Omniscient’s site operations optimisation platform for data collection and analysis.

■ bouygues-construction.com

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24/03/2021 09:45

News

Autodesk acquires water infrastructure modelling firm, Innovyze for $1 billion n its first acquisition of the year, Autodesk has spent $1 billion cash on Portland, Oregon based developer Innovyze. The 35 year-old software company is a specialist in smart water infrastructure modelling, simulation, and predictive analyses technologies.

According to Autodesk, this acquisition helps it “provide end-to-end solutions for design, construction, and now, operations of water infrastructure, enabling them to accelerate sustainable outcomes and help communities build resilience for the future.”

Innovyze’s modelling, simulation, and predictive analyses solutions are designed to enable sustainable water distribution networks, water collection systems, water and wastewater treatment plants, and flood protection systems. Further, Innovyze’s solutions centralise infrastructure asset visibility to optimise capital and operational expenses.

Autodesk stated that “combining Innovyze’s portfolio with its own design

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and analysis solutions, including Autodesk Civil 3D, Autodesk InfraWorks, and the Autodesk Construction Cloud, offers civil engineers, water utility companies and water experts the ability to better respond to issues and to improve planning.”

“Nearly nine trillion gallons of water are lost each year worldwide due to prolonged leaks and pipe breaks, but we cannot manage or fix what we cannot see,” said Amy Bunszel, executive VP, AEC design solutions, Autodesk. “Innovyze’s portfolio of operational analytics, distribution modelling, and asset management solutions provides the insight needed to identify this and other potential problems before they become a crisis.”

“For thirty-five years Innovyze has been a hidden part of the daily lives of millions of people around the world, helping to deliver fresh, clean water, managing sewage and flooding in our communities, and turning wastewater into safe water,” said Colby Manwaring, CEO of Innovyze.

■ innovyze.com

AEC Magazine’s thoughts on the Innovyze acquisition By any measurement, this is the biggest deal so far under CEO Andrew Anagnost.

Since 2017 Autodesk had already spent $2.4 billion acquiring firms and technologies predominantly for its Construction Cloud play. Innovyze appears to be a much more strategic purchase, with regards to entering deeper into the civils space, specifically targeting water.

In Autodesk’s justification slide deck, it states that Innovyze lets it better address the $1.7bn market — mainly due to the fact that Innovyze is the largest pure-play global water infrastructure software provider with regulatory

stamp of approval. The company has 240 employees and is conveniently located in Portland, Oregon, which is also the home of Autodesk’s mechanical CAD division.

To date, Autodesk’s presence in infrastructure and plant has tended to be less than market dominating.

Autodesk feels it has the building space, but has tough competition in transport roads, plant, rail and water, against players such as Hexagon, Trimble and Bentley Systems.

Autodesk’s intentions now go beyond competing in the design offering space, as the company looks to build a compelling, cloud-based,

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digital twin business. This acquisition of Innovyze takes the company’s relevance from design and construction all the way through to operation and decommission.

While Autodesk has the potential to democratise digital twins in the building space, its lack of dominance in the infrastructure market is an issue.

Autodesk’s digital twin technologies are also still embryonic, with Autodesk Tandem in beta and yet to be released (see page 16). Clearly Autodesk is not going to stop at building digital twins of above-ground installations, but wants to also document what goes on under our feet.

However, to do this it has a fight on its hands with the incumbent competition to win market share.

While Autodesk has now spent $3.4 billion acquiring firms in the last three years, we are not sure how this news will be received by Revit customers who have been complaining of lack of development and increased cost of ownership. While Autodesk has promised to re-double its efforts on delivering a broader threeyear roadmap for Revit, it seems to prefer to spend much more money on acquiring firms for its construction cloud and now digital twin / civil engineering play.

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24/03/2021 09:45

ROUND UP Women in BIM

Esri UK partners with Tetra Tech on indoor mapping

Women in BIM (WIB) has launched a new website to better demonstrate the aims of the global online community, who it is for, and how it is playing an important part in the digitalisation of the global built environment ■ womeninbim.org

Dynamo scripts NonicaTab is a free Revit add-on designed to make it easier to run Autodesk Dynamo scripts. The software creates a Revit toolbar with 12 buttons that can be fully customised with any Dynamo script, such as those designed to automate repetitive tasks ■ nonica.io

Revit modelling book ‘Practical Architectural Modelling with Autodesk Revit’, is a new book co-authored by Nigel Davies, Joseph Frame and Daniel Heselwood of Evolve Consultancy. The book features over 60 worked examples covering the critical aspects of modelling with Revit ■ evolve-consultancy.com

The Wild expands AEC VR/AR collaboration platform The Wild has acquired VR design review and coordination software Prospect by IrisVR. According to The Wild, the move will expand opportunities for team collaboration in VR/AR and help teams catch errors earlier and make decisions faster ■ thewild.com ■ irisvr.com/prospect

Bentley acquires E7 Bentley Systems has acquired E7, an Australia-based specialist in construction delivery software for heavy civil projects. The acquisition will extend the capabilities of Bentley Synchro, the digital construction management software ■ bentley.com ■ e7.site

4M targets UK 4M has partnered with Mintronics to bring its DWG-centric CAD and BIM software to the UK market.

Products include: IDEA Architecture, for 3D & 2D architectural design, rendering, animation, 4D scheduling and 5D costing; AutoCAD alternative 4M CAD; and FineMEP, a suite of building services design software with several different modules ■ 4msa.com ■ mintronics.co.uk

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sri UK has teamed up with global consulting and engineering services company Tetra Tech to offer an ‘end-to-end’ solution for indoor mapping designed to help support facilities management at large offices, campuses, or hospitals.

Offering the ‘complete workflow’, Tetra Tech will provide 3D terrestrial laser scanning, data analytics and CAD to GIS expertise, while Esri UK will offer its GIS system with indoor mapping capabilities, including interactive floorplans, indoor positioning for wayfinding plus real-time people and asset tracking.

Services offered by Tetra Tech include

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all types of fixed and handheld LiDAR scanning, from millimetre precision to larger-scale centimetre resolution, depending on the application.

For customers who have existing CAD or BIM data, Tetra Tech offers data preparation and cleansing services.

Esri UK will be delivering its various software applications for indoor mapping, including ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Indoors.

According to Esri, indoor mapping can integrate and complement existing facilities management software by giving users a geographical visualisation of their estates.

AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro set free MD Ryzen Threadripper Pro processors are now available from global retailers and workstation system builders. Previously the only way to get hold of the high-end workstation CPU was inside a Lenovo ThinkStation P620 which we reviewed in the Jan/Feb 2021 edition.

AMD is making three AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro models widely available – the 64-core 3995WX, 32-core 3975WX, and 16-core 3955WX. The

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12-core 3945WX will remain exclusive to Lenovo.

Several workstation system builders have already announced Threadripper Pro workstations, including Supermicro, Chillblast, Workstation Specialists Scan and Velocity Micro.

The Supermicro SuperWorkstation 5014ATT and Workstation Specialists WS-1640APRO-G4 stand out for their ability to support up to four full-height, doublewidth GPUs, double that

of the Lenovo ThinkStation P620, which has a smaller mid-range chassis.

There have been no Threadripper Pro announcements from HP, Dell or Fujitsu but we expect at least one of these major workstation manufacturers will take on the AMD CPU this year.

■ amd.com

www.AECmag.com

24/03/2021 09:45

News

CAD-focused 11th Gen Intel Core S-series launches but AMD Ryzen 5000 holds firm

ntel has launched its 11th Gen Intel Core S-series desktop processors (code-named Rocket Lake-S). Engineered on the new Cypress Cove architecture, the new CPUs are said to offer a 19% gen-overgen instructions per cycle (IPC) performance improvement.

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All Rocket Lake-S CPUs have 6 or 8 cores. The flagship Intel Core i9-11900K can reach speeds of up to 5.3GHz. On paper, the low core count, high frequency and enhanced IPC should make the 11th Gen Intel Core S-series a good CPU for CAD and BIM software tools, which are mostly single threaded.

However, Intel still faces very strong competition from AMD and its AMD Ryzen 5000 series processors, which are available with high clock speeds and more cores (6, 8, 12 or 16).

The 11th Gen Intel Core S-series is also the first Intel desktop CPU to support the PCIe 4.0 standard, which offers double the bandwidth of PCIe 3.0.

Previously, PCIe 4.0 was only supported by AMD CPUs, including the AMD Ryzen 5000, 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen Threadripper and AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro. Support for PCIe 4.0 means users can take advantage of PCIe 4.0 SSDs for much faster read/write performance when working with large datasets, such as those used in simulation, visualisation and point cloud processing.

It also means data can be loaded into PCIe 4.0 GPUs much quicker. This includes the Nvidia RTX A6000, as reviewed on page 62.

■ intel.com

AEC Magazine’s thoughts on Intel’s new CPU With 8 cores and high clock speeds the 11th Gen Intel Core S-series looks like an ideal CPU for CAD or BIM software. Applications such as AutoCAD and Revit are largely singlethreaded, so frequency is all that matters, and users don’t need a substantial number of cores.

The question is, how will it compare to older generation Intel Core processors and AMD Ryzen 5000 CPUs? Intel’s claims of a 19% genover-gen IPC performance improvement look impressive. It means that, if a 10th Gen and 11th Gen Intel Core CPU ran at the same frequency, the 11th Gen would be 19% faster.

However, respected technology website AnandTech has put these claims under the microscope in its review of the Intel Core i7-11700K. It states that in a core-for-core comparison, Intel is slightly slower and a lot more inefficient than AMD. It remains to be seen how this translates to real world performance in CAD/BIM software, which is something we intend to test soon at AEC Magazine.

It’s also important to note that because the AMD Ryzen 5000 series is available with more than 8 cores, it should have a big performance lead in multi-threaded workflows like ray trace rendering, simulation and point cloud

www.AECmag.com

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processing. More and more architects and engineers are using multiple applications in their workflows, so this could play a big part in any decision making.

The success of the 11th Gen Intel Core S-series in the workstation market will also depend on the workstation manufacturers. Currently, the only way to get hold of an AMD Ryzen 5000-based workstation is through specialist manufacturers like BOXX and Scan. None of the big three – HP, Dell or Lenovo – currently offer AMD Ryzen 5000based workstations, although Lenovo has the ThinkStation P620 with the AMD

Ryzen Threadripper Pro (12 to 64 cores).

Another area where Intel does appear to have an advantage is in terms of supply. AMD Ryzen 5000 CPUs have been hard to come by due to manufacturing delays. Because Intel manufactures its own chips there should be wide availability when the 11th Gen Intel Core S-series officially launches at the end of March.

AMD Ryzen 5000 CPU is giving Intel a serious run for its money

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News

Autodesk Tandem, the BIM-centric digital twin platform, enters public beta

utodesk has announced the availability of the public beta of Autodesk Tandem, its digital twin solution to enable ‘ready-to-go’ operations to help owners get the most out of their investment.

Autodesk Tandem is a digital twin platform that allows a building project to start digital and stay digital, from design to build to operations, and ‘transforms rich data into business intelligence’.

Autodesk Tandem harnesses the BIM data created throughout the project lifecycle which is essential for creating a true digital twin of the asset.

According to Autodesk, at the project’s completion, the project team can deliver

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a comprehensive digital handover to owners of easily accessible and insightful data, accelerating operational readiness and empowering better business decisions.

Without a digital twin at handover, mounds of disorganised data in varying formats end up buried in electronic folders, rendering useless a treasure trove of valuable data insight. For an owner, that’s a lost opportunity and money that cannot be recovered.

Autodesk Tandem aims to unlock the treasure by freeing, organising, and standardising data from design and construction, creating a simple, intuitive digital replica of all the components,

systems, and spaces in a facility.

Marin Pastar, global technology leader of vertical information modelling at Jacobs, a leading design, construction, and consulting firm, was a contributor to the development of Autodesk Tandem beta .

With approximately 80 percent of a facility’s total lifecycle cost realised during operations, Pastar says AEC professionals have an enormous opportunity to add value by helping owners reduce costs through tools like digital twins.

“Our ability to affect and reduce total cost of ownership drops drastically the farther we progress from design to construction to completion,” said Pastar.

“If we consider what an owner will need at handover from the start, we can ensure proper management of assets based on their business goals and processes. We have an obligation to maximize our clients’ investment.”

Brian Melton, chief technologist of Black & Veatch, a globally renowned engineering and construction company, sees Autodesk Tandem and digital twins as part of the broader digital transformation, where every system becomes more and more connected as data is generated. In that future, systems learn from one another, share insights, and optimise performance in real-time.

■ autodesk.com/solutions/digital-twin

AEC Magazine’s thoughts on Autodesk Tandem Autodesk, as the volume BIM leader, is in a strong position to commoditise the digital twin market.

With an inexorable drive to provide its solutions and services via the cloud, the core framework for digital twins seems to be yet another possible byproduct of Autodesk’s BIM, civil modelling and digital twin services.

In its current guise, Autodesk Tandem is initially targeted at repurposing 16

customers’ existing design data vs incorporating the as-built condition. Laser scans and real-time sensor feedback support are in the pipeline but not yet included.

This puts Autodesk behind competitors like Bentley Systems, but for the whole segment it’s early days and we are sure Autodesk is providing the necessary resources and development to the team to rapidly expand the capabilities.

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BIM customers will help drive exploration of this new business model for AEC firms. It will be interesting to see if digital twin development can make sense for small projects, other than the known key market of process plant, universities and firms with huge property portfolios.

With the drive to deliver digital twins, Autodesk recognises that data needs to flow between all constituent applications and is claiming a focus on being more of an

industry open player with regards to Autodesk Tandem.

It is a founding member of the Digital Twin Consortium and has signed up to the Open Design Alliance (ODA) to access its IFC toolkit (which also, by the way, saves Autodesk development dollars on its own IFC efforts). It will be interesting to see if competitive digital twin developers get access to Autodesk’s cloud APIs and Forge to access users’ Revit data.

www.AECmag.com

24/03/2021 09:45

News

Bentley Systems to acquire Seequent for $1.05 billion to take digital twins undergound

entley Systems is to acquire Seequent, a specialist in geological and geophysical modelling and analysis software, in a complicated deal worth $1.05 billion, made up of cash and shares.

The acquisition will help expand Bentley’s infrastructure digital twin offering, for better planning, delivery, operation, and maintenance of infrastructure assets, as well as mines.

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3D earth modelling and geoscience data management, GeoStudio for geotechnical slope stability and de-formation modelling, and Leapfrog for 3D geological modelling and visualisation.

Leapfrog appears to have particular relevance to infrastructure projects. The software is designed to replace traditional 2D subsurface modelling and simulation processes. According to Bentley, the usage of the software, often in conjunction with Bentley’s software offerings, has been growing consistently in civil infrastructure sectors.

Bentley has stated that its complementary geotechnical engineering software portfolio, including Plaxis, gINT, and OpenGround, The company’s current offerings enable will be integrated in due course to support digital twins to incorporate what’s ‘open digital workflows’ from borehole and constructed “near surface,” including drillhole data to geological models and foundations, drainage facilities, buried geotechnical analysis applications. utilities, tunnels, and subsea structures.

Headquartered in Christchurch, New The addition of Seequent will now make Zealand, Seequent has more than 430 staff it possible for infrastructure digital twins to in 16 office locations, serving geologists, reach “full subsurface depths”, augmenting hydrogeologists, geophysicists, environmental resilience against flood, geotechnical engineers, and civil engineers seismic, climate, and water security threats. in over 100 countries.

Seequent’s products include Geosoft for ■ bentley.com ■ seequent.com

AEC Magazine’s thoughts on the Seequent acquisition The AEC industry has gone acquisition crazy this year and there seems to be two core drivers: adding revenue and fleshing out digital twin strategies.

Bentley Systems has always been a dominant infrastructure player – roads, rail, power and water – and in recent years has bet the farm on digital twins being the next big thing.

The kind of clients that Bentley tends to serve have probably most to gain from digital twins, having either expensive country-wide or global assets that need maintaining and monitoring.

The acquisition of Seequent builds on its underground 18

modelling capabilities and strengthens Bentley’s position in mining and emerging countries. With Autodesk’s recent acquisition of water infrastructure software firm Innovyze (page 13), the gold rush for the digital twin market seems to be, perhaps fittingly, happening all underground.

The huge challenge for Bentley will be how to integrate Seequent’s technology into its already diverse stack. Bentley’s open approach to digital twins should serve it well here and some Seequent tools already link with Bentley’s OpenGround platform for geotechnical data

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management, but the integration of analysis technologies is no easy task.

Bentley is still figuring out how to properly integrate its structural analysis tools with the geotechnical analysis software it acquired from Plaxis in 2018. The idea of an integrated analysis application that can handle both linear structures and non-linear soils at the same time is compelling. Now it has a whole new suite of analysis tools to consider.

As Bentley is now a listed company it has given up its option to not report its detailed financial performance (although historically the company

CEO, Greg Bentley, frequently did). Only a tiny proportion of stock is currently available, and we expect the company to go back to the market and raise some rather large sums over the next few years, funding more acquisitions of this size, as well as strategic investments in start-ups and additional R&D. Buying established developers like Seequent with stable incomes and profitability makes sense, as this will also help drive Bentley growth and return shareholder value.

For now the industry is underground, and as the saying goes, ‘where there’s muck there’s brass’.

www.AECmag.com

24/03/2021 09:45

Opinion

Design for constructability If digital construction is the future, we need to understand modern fabrication methods. Richard Harpham ponders if today’s design-centric BIM solutions are the right tools and, indeed, if architecture is the right discipline to take this on?

It looks like the industry needs a new process

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ere we go again… I think we only hope, especially if you opt to brand can all identify with sitting it with Artificial Intelligence (AI), through investor decks or Machine Learning (ML) or ‘integrated keynote presentations that supply chain’ next to it. It all feels a bit still start with that McKinsey flat produc- like 16th century medicine… whatever the tivity diagram, statements on how frag- ailment, a course of leaches will fix that! mented the construction industry is, the When we actually lift the hood on preever-shrinking pool of talent and the rise fabrication, it is clear we don’t get to skip in cost of labour and materiall the steps other indusals. It seems that we still tries had to make to benefit feel the need to point this from mass customisation out as a precursor to high- Design is the key and integrated delivery of light the use of machinery, products. We still need to to unlocking automation and robotics define and execute our conefficiency, not that we consistently sell as struction differently. That robots and the solution to bring the is not a technology probmanufacturing lem. If you are struggling industry forward.

For us though, it’s no lonautomation. So to write that PowerPoint to ger about identifying the to your executive actually, yes, we present problems or highlighting team on how your firm can do need that ‘Modern Methods of evolve to ‘industrialised Construction’ would better architects, but construction’, you will the manufacturing process already know that it’s not the role of the and will save the day. It’s buying software. architect is being about not about robots and Let me give an example. redefined machinery, nor standardiA recent study at Stanford sation of elements to found that the utilisation of achieve economies of scale usable space for executing and mass production. It is about software any activity across a construction projand collaboration and not just BIM ect’s duration can average out at 3.2%.

(Building Information Modelling). It is Let’s put that in perspective. That means about focusing on the before and not just for 96.8% of the time NOTHING is hapthe during. pening in each and every square foot of Prefabrication itself shouldn’t be the real-estate on the ‘construction factory

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floor’. Imagine the factory manager at Tesla telling Mr Musk that each square foot of his factory is only being utilised to make something 3 or 4% of the time.

Identifying these types of opportunities, where technology has already proven to overcome issues in other industries may be a better starting point. If the whole life of the build encompasses the whole process as if it were in a single factory, then creating a building production plan that can be systematically tuned for increased productivity, may be possible.

So, we are now talking about the process of how we can better build somewww.AECmag.com

23/03/2021 07:18

thing, not just the technology that will change how we build. Even though industrial scale building prefabrication has existed for more than a century, construction companies have only now moved beyond thinking of it as a low-cost solution for repetitive structures, towards opportunities for higher quality, more predictable, mass-customised applications.

Now all we need to do is figure out how to not mess that up by insisting on using 100-year-old contract structures and 20+ year old design and collaboration technologies to deliver it! www.AECmag.com

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Industrial methods

ETH Zurich has been exploring the desired outcomes. modern methods of robotic So, what should IndustrialFor many, Design for assembly. The DFAB house is the ised Construction really Manufacture and Assembly culmination of many research mean? What has to happen projects to produce a functioning (DfMA) has become the defdigital fabricated structure before, during and after the inition of this opportunity.

Image courtesy of ETH Zurich production of a building to In software, DfMA is a hot better leverage industrial buzz term at the moment methods? but from the very fact that general conIt’s clear, we spend most of our time tractors are taking the lead in DfMA we focusing on the During (manufacturing, have to assume that something is maybe construction methodology), but we are so fundamentally flawed here. We might often missing the Before. The design is the argue that if it isn’t DfMA in the archikey and essential part to it all; if we do not tect’s office, then the architect’s work isn’t do a better job of designing for construc- a buildable design… it is design intent. tability, then we will never achieve any of This might de-position the current

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Opinion

UK residential design and build practice, Facit Homes, has developed its own design to onsite fabrication system. Models are created in Revit and converted to Gcode. Custom panels are cut on site by a CNC router and assembled into box sections and placed Image courtesy of Facit Homes

design-centric BIM solutions from being at the core of the design for constructability process. If we need to understand how to construct a building during design, what technologies do we need to achieve that? And is architecture the right discipline to take that on?

loading and all the other outcomes we want to deliver from building production.

At the very root of manufacturing is ‘design’, not design intent. In manufacturing, the product is not the replicable physical item, but the process and the IP. The very makeup of how it is built.

What we have discovered is that the Process vs design current ‘model-centric’ approach is solely In this magazine’s May 2019 article on focused to provide a mere graphical repdigital fabrication resentation which (tinyurl.com/Dfab-AEC), just isn’t enough. We Martyn Day asserted need more considerthat, “there are few ation of the construcRichard Harpham architects who fully tability. Less focus has experienced understand the digital on drawings and most of the highs fabrication limitamore on the process and lows of bringing disruptive techtions of building faband the actual design nology to developrication systems. of the object and how ers, designers and Design for it is built. We have contractors. As an Manufacture and spent so much effort early hire at startAssembly (DfMA) is a and time focused on up, Revit Inc. , he then spent nine years at separate discipline the 3D digital twin Autodesk bringing Revit and a ‘new’ concept called BIM to the US market, as well as within itself and generation and loadleading global marketing for AutoCAD and requires a holistic ing the BIM content all Autodesk AEC products. More recently view of what is possithat we have missed at Katerra, he led software strategy to supble, what’s available an opportunity to port transformational changes in how we and the cost implicaown and commodidesign, engineer, and deliver buildings. tions of early design tise the process. The decisions such as proreal value is in the cesses, material use and serviceability.” process, not the static object.

Combining this with the impact of conThe legacy of the era and evolution of tract liabilities raises the question: are we BIM may be that we have had too much seeing the inevitable removal of the role focus on the design intent, drawing layof a ‘master-builder architect’? There outs and mitigating the overall responsiwould appear to be many general con- bility for how it is actually built. Rather tractors that already are operating from than tackling the problem at its roots, we this assumption. But this seems in con- have focused on the during (MMC and flict with concept of design for construc- robotics) and after (digital twin) without tability, manufacturing, assembly, carbon identifying the value of the before (DfMA).

About the author

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Design is the key to unlocking efficiency, not robots and manufacturing automation. So actually, yes, we do need architects, but the role of the architect is being redefined. The same will be true of the technologies needed.

In Phil Bernstein’s book, ‘Architecture Design Data’, he states, “The newer technologies appearing in the second digital turn are less transactional and more profound, in that we are now reaching a time where the tools are rapidly approaching the real possibility of managing the complexities of making buildings”. He also postulates, “The marketplace will press the AEC industry as a whole to leverage computation to improve the and meet the challenges of 21st century construction,” pointing to how other industries that have already climbed the productivity ladder through digital transformation.

If you take a look at the semiconductor industry, much of the industry’s progress has come from advances in manufacturing – the secret sauce of Moore’s Law. Imagine the possibilities of advanced manufacturing delivering the built environment.

However, we don’t have the liberty of spending years and large amounts of money resolving every detail like the automotive industry or the ‘Master Architect’ once did. We need data flow between stakeholders at all times. We need to do a better job of enabling the design team to make the right decisions and provide/produce the right data We need to leverage software, AI and ML to do so, but the question is… what might this look like? www.AECmag.com

23/03/2021 07:18

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Opinion

Towards a parametric future: on the rise of AI and robotics a The digital transformation has created a disruption in almost every field imaginable. From Google to Amazon, through Uber and Airbnb, it seems like our world is quickly adopting new models of automation and lean digital supply chains. But what does this mean for the buildings we design and tomorrow’s cities?

by Tal Friedman

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www.AECmag.com

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e: s and the fall of B I

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Design for a parametric tower making use of Foldstruct technology for sheet metals combining a hybrid curtain wall facade

www.AECmag.com

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n the AEC world, the digital age has brought with it a complete shift in how we design. In just 30 years we’ve gone from paper to screen, from pencil to mouse, from 2D to 3D and from local to cloud. In fact, it is fair to say that AEC has become a branch of IT and that the planner has become a user.

BIM, parametric design and automation allow planners to sketch out their dream projects and even generate new ones using Artificial Intelligence (AI) at the click of a button. Yes - the digital world tolerates anything we can imagine and it’s literally at our fingertips.

So how does all that look down here on Earth? Has digitising the AEC industry lived up to its promise and created the desired effect in our built environment?

Unfortunately, today’s mainstream construction is a far cry from reaching goals like zero energy, architectural well-being and affordability. Just ask governments and regulators worldwide, who continue to pour billions of dollars into funding programs to help bridge these gaps every year.

Looking at the urban landscape, aside from seemingly budget-less ‘starchitecture’ springing up from time to time on magazine covers, in the last 50 years 99% of buildings have barely seen any change in how they are actually built. Indeed, the planning is all digital, but the product has remained all the same. So, when we speak about building faster, massively and globally, we must first stop and ask: are we so happy with the buildings we are seeing around us that we want to make more and more of them? It’s not enough to talk about IFC standards and cloud collaboration.

With millions of new buildings and renovations worldwide expected in coming years, it’s time to talk about the real potential of digital construction - the one that will actually change how and what we build!

Robots that think like humans instead of humans that think like robots.

It is commonly agreed that robotics and industrial automation hold the key to achieving the goals of the construction industry – those being: time and cost reduction, sustainability and architectural design. It all starts with a mind shift into a new era of designing, not just for humans, but also for the robots that build for them.

For this to happen, automation must be embedded within the planning process from initial stages and allow us to design especially for robotic fabrication. Rather than thinking from the total design and “componentising” shelf-products later on, we must take a reverse approach and design from the inside out and the screw level. Understanding the possibilities and restraints of robotic manufacturing will allow a new era in BIM which goes far beyond geometry documentation.

Looking at the automotive world, robotic industrialisation has brought down the price of a car to one tenth of its relative price back in the 1930s. All of this while improving safety, performance and becoming affordable for all. This was done not only by creating automated assembly lines but, most importantly, by optimising and linking CAD files with the means of manufacturing and machine code. Robotic companies like Kuka and others have reached precision levels and speed that allow drastically lowering costs and improving productivity.

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Opinion 2

Manufacturing ain’t like it used to be: robotic industrialisation has brought down the price of cars considerably 1 1957 - Workers on a Volkswagen Beetle Image courtesy of Austrian National Library 2 2020 - Volkswagen Group orders more than 2,200 new robots for the planned production of electric cars Image courtesy of Volkswagen Group

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In construction, however, relative this ‘domino effect’. But perhaps the most building costs are on a constant rise troubling thing about the current workwhile productivity goes down as it gets flow is that it does not help us talk to the harder and harder to find skilled on-site factory floor in design stages and leaves workers in Western countries. Can we way too many blind spots and unknowns. adapt those same mechanisms that It is a mere graphic representation, not worked for the automotive world for con- very different in essence from ink on paper. struction? Yes and no!

3D mass modelAs opposed to the ling, BIM, structural automotive world analysis, shop drawwhere a car is manuings, electricity, Tal Friedman is an factured tens or even HVAC, rendering, architect and conhundreds of thougraphics, tendering struction-tech entrepreneur active sands of times, the and many more topin automated algobuilding world is all ics are simultanerithm-based designabout customisation ously addressed, to-fabrication. His and adaptation. In each requiring their work explores new fact, no two buildings own specialists for possibilities for transforming the built environment are completely alike. operation.

About the author

From SaaS to DaaS

through innovative use of materials and creating new typologies for architecture and structural purposes. (foldstruct.com) Tal has also presented at NXT BLD (nxtbld.com/videos/tal-friedman)

Maybe we need to think differently and consider moving from Software as a Service to Design as a Service? Despite the big promise of BIM, today’s AEC world is suffering from an over complication of software. Often requiring a BIM specialist just to run, it is no surprise that only around 20% of firms harness full usage of BIM at all scales while the rest are picking up the bits with ‘hybrid’ solutions.

According to internal studies at Foldstruct, there are on average 15 different software tools that planning teams will use throughout the project lifecycle. With very limited interoperability and hundreds of design loops, it is not hard to see why it so difficult to build ‘outside the box’.

We have identified an exponential rise in costs in almost all sectors of AEC due to 26

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Construction 4.0

The days of software as a ‘blank page’ platform are soon to be gone. The fact is that over 5 million architects and engineers worldwide are looking for tools to help them design and build better buildings.

They are not impressed with vaulted cloud packages, smart subscription models and closed APIs. To put it simply, they are looking for the shortest path to get from an initial concept to an optimised building. We have to break free of the old supply chains and think of the leanest possible process to see the building as a unified product.

There are many ways of doing this and they all require an open-ended approach and multidisciplinary collaboration. At Foldstruct, we try to

combine design, performance optimisation and digital fabrication in a one-stop shop. Using smart algorithms to capture the DNA of the fabrication system and building the designated tools with which designers can plan without them having to go into detail.

Tomorrow’s BIM is not a blank page but rather an adaptable, dynamic template. It requires opening the platform and inviting any software, hardware or service along that can add value to the process.

I believe that the boundaries will quickly blur between software producers, system suppliers and fabricators and that business models in AEC will become value-based and not subscription-based.

I envisage a world of expert systems which create optimised, fabricationready facades or AI which ‘lightweights’ buildings to make savings on foundation work, perhaps a system which can deliver a design in different materials making structural modifications with Kuka KR Iontec robot Image courtesy of each option. If Kuka Group we can capture and codify production knowledge, these services could be used within the design of a building or in post rationalisation.

Given that the most expensive material in construction is knowledge, we are living in exciting times where that knowledge can be replicated by algorithms to spread across industries at the click of a button. It is now in our hands as an industry to collaborate and bring construction to the next level. www.AECmag.com

24/03/2021 10:50

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Feature

Autodesk’s drive to DfMA Everybody’s talking about Design for Manufacturing and Assembly. While very few firms are actually doing it, the concept is attracting advanced BIM users, fabricators and software firms to try it out. Martyn Day looks at Autodesk’s efforts and future vision

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hen it comes down to dig- rally fed into the digitisation of producitisation, it might seem tion, where volume of production is key. that manufacturing has 3D models didn’t kill 2D drawing as a nearly always been ahead valid communication format but the 1:1 of building and construction. However, scale product definition model typically this is not strictly true. In the late 70s drives the process. and 80s, while high-end manufacturing We have become used to being surwas starting to rapidly adopt 3D model- rounded by beautifully engineered prodling, high-end architecture firms were ucts. From cars and aeroplanes to Apple also using mini-computer-based 3D mod- devices, we have become a society that is elling programs such as aware of engineering design RUCAPS, Sonata and GDS. and assembly. Anyone who is The future looked to be 3D for I’ve come to into cars will know how all design systems.

Nissan, Volkswagen, Audi, feel that With the advent of Renault, Peugeot and many today’s BIM others share common platPC-based desktop 2D CAD in systems are forms for their cars, saving the late 80s, for some reason development of 3D modelling development time and money already software for manufacturing allowing competition on feeding space- but exploded with small to-meditheir differentials which they age data into add on top. um-size engineering firms quickly adopting Pro/ a stone age BIM barriers Engineer, Unigraphics and process SDRC I-DEAS and then BIM was not evenly spread in Solidworks. Unfortunately, its adoption and took a long the AEC industry opted for the dark ages, time to infiltrate traditional 2D practices. mainly regressing to desktop 2D CAD or We had Graphisoft ArchiCAD, then three making low detail 3D models to make 2D attempts from Autodesk - AutoCAD AEC drawings. (a UK variant), Architectural Desktop Meanwhile manufacturing went on to (ADT) (acquired from Softdesk) and then drive the development of G-code, com- Autodesk bought the developer of Revit, puter numerical control (CNC), 3D print- Autodesk’s first AEC design code-base ing and robotic assembly and manufac- free from AutoCAD. ture, as well as driving quality, tolerance Meanwhile, Bentley Systems had controls and supply chain management.

MicroStation-based TriForma and there In the manufacturing space, 3D mod- was SketchUp, pre-Google/Trimble, to elling of products and assemblies natu- popularise 3D. All these systems were

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primarily designed to model buildings and output drawings, the lingua franca of the AEC industry - because construction, by and large, was (and still is) a manual process and the contractual system firms operate in is based on drawings as a key deliverable.

By moving to a BIM / model-centric approach to design, unfortunately the AEC industry cannot easily segue into a digital fabrication future as easily as manufacturing has. Firstly, BIM models are not detailed enough for manufacturing and all BIM systems available today were developed for drawing production.

Then there’s the process itself; Boeing owns the plane design and assembly and will use sub-contractors to create parts.

It’s top down, while AEC projects have structures that are typically flatter, more nebulous, are siloed and go through many more phases.

A digital fabrication change in AEC will also require substantial changes in workflow, process and the upskilling of production knowledge. On the face of it, this will be a considerable challenge for the industry to digest, as it will impact everything from the tools to the very fabric of the building.

I’ve come to feel that today’s BIM systems are already feeding space-age data into a stone age process, but the underwhelming expectation of the contracted output (2D), often questions the effort required to produce the input. Many of those that have taken the trouble to get to www.AECmag.com

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ZHA’s sustainable timber designs for Roatán Próspera, a modular housing project for an island near Honduras, are assembled off-site in a ‘kit of parts’, enabling up to 15,000 variations

Level 2 BIM are undoubtedly producing COBie files that will sit on a USB stick gathering dust in a drawer. However, my pet issue, is how today’s BIM tools will impede the industry in its efforts to digitise building manufacturing. It’s like putting a fish on a bicycle.

Process The AEC industry is perfectly aware that it is re-designing the wheel time and time again. With every building being a prototype and a one off, it’s hard to see the benefit of pre-manufacture. And while many firms will point out that modular can lead to non-descript rectangular buildings, star practices like Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) have embraced prefabrication and modularisation for their clients.

The global firm’s sustainable timber designs for Roatán Próspera, a modular housing project for an island near Honduras, are assembled off-site in a ‘kit of parts’, enabling up to 15,000 variations.

As a practice, ZHA is perfectly capable of modelling buildings and building components and creating the G-code to drive the machines at its remote fabricator.

To embrace modular design, and get the

The world’s first fully 3D CAD modelled aircraft was the Boeing 777. The design was started in 1990, the first aircraft was assembled in 1993, and it entered service in 1995. Boeing used Catia from Dassault Systèmes to create a 2D and 3D

www.AECmag.com

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most from prefabrication, designers need to think about how the building is constructed from very early on in the process.

In fact, designers need to be fully aware of just how these components are produced and the limitations of each process. It helps if designers and fabricators speak the same language. And, after realising the people, skills and knowledge problem comes the software tools problem, BIM models are rarely detailed enough to direct manufacture from, and fabricators are using solid modelling tools specifically designed for engineering fabrication and assembly. AEC and engineering tools were developed in separate silos for different audiences and deliverables.

Autodesk on DfMA Out of all the major AEC software firms that we cover, Autodesk has been the only developer to highlight digital fabrication in the construction market as being one of its key research and development goals.

It has the benefit of being a software company which caters to both mechanical engineers (through Inventor and Fusion 360) and building professionals. With decades of experience in manufacturing,

Autodesk can see how that industry has progressed to digital fabrication and apply some of that technology to AEC. Digital construction has been a topic addressed on the main stage of Autodesk University for the last few years. Company CEO Andrew Anagnost has been very vocal about the opportunity in construction to radically improve productivity and outcomes by changing the way buildings are designed, made and assembled.

Under his tenure, Autodesk has even made strategic investments in offsite / prefabricated construction firms (FactoryOS factoryos.com) to help understand their challenges and also carry out R&D in defining digital processes and best practices.

Looking at the Autodesk product suite, the first challenge is one of integration.

While Autodesk owns both Revit and Inventor, they historically were never developed to play nicely together; they didn’t need to as they had evolved to exist in very different environments and solve very different problems.

The first I came across Autodesk admitting the two products needed to work better together was very early on, during the design phase of the Freedom

digital mock-up of the entire plane, with all the thousands of parts modelled, so they could be virtually tested with simulation software. It was the first Boeing to be built that didn’t need a full physical prototype to iron out the kinks.

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Feature

Tower in New York. Back in the early maintains the logic and process, external 2000s, SOM was at the vanguard, trial- to the applications. AEC Magazine will be ling Revit on a massive national project. visiting the company this summer to have The team started the trial on the base- a deep dive into its bespoke development. ment and quickly decided to try modelSo, I guess what I’m saying here is that ling the whole building in, the then very there is no single system you can buy to formative, Revit. On top of the building have a ‘DfMA’ process. At the moment it’s was a mast containing a television anten- down to those who have the time, money na which was modelled in high detail in and effort to define their own processes Inventor which then proved to be a prob- and develop an in-house system, using lem to get into Revit at the time and need- tools that are available today and ed to be worked on.

Application Programming Interfaces When Autodesk came to package up (APIs). However, it is clear that Autodesk its offerings in Suites, some more effort is committed to opening up the space and was put into getting Revit and Inventor to making this process easier. play nicer, but this still left a lot to be This could be seen at virtual Autodesk desired. With Adobe’s common UI and University 2020, where there were a few data fluidity as inspiration, Autodesk’s sessions on Inventor and Revit and it plethora of design tools was always going was obvious that there had been a lot to be a challenge and it more work done to build won’t be until all workflows between them Autodesk products can be than we had seen in a delivered on the cloud, long time. through Forge, that there Amy Marks will be a common data environment and a standAutodesk’s relatively new ard set of user interfaces.

Head of Industrialised While this incompatibilConstruction Strategy & ity is there, it hasn’t comEvangelism, Amy Marks, pletely ruled out Revit as a is an industry veteran source for enabling digital who has owned a number fabrication.

Companies of prefab / modular like Strucsoft (see page 32) firms, Xsite Modular and have developed an impresKullman Buildings. sive array of framing, At virtual Autodesk panel, truss and floor sysUniversity she had a numtem design tools, along ber of video presentations. with CNC post processors While some were reality for Revit workflows. Also, TV style visits to fabricain the UK, Bruce Bell of tors getting to grips with Facit Homes, seen here DfMA, the most useful I think the worst one gave an overview of speaking at NXT BLD ( t i ny u r l . c o m / N X T B L D thing for us is that Autodesk’s Industrialised Bruce), developed his own vision. This we’ve had a ‘cash Construction closely guarded system for presentation wasn’t prefor chaos’ generating G-code from dominantly about pushmentality - we’ve ing product. Instead, it custom parametric Revit families of wood-box parts really started at the base had a disconnect to be cut daily onsite. as an introduction to between the silos level, Berkeley Modular is one what the industry is tryof the different of the new breed of voluing to achieve. metric, offsite manufac- phases from design Marks kicks off her turers of homes in the UK. talk, explaining the to construction It uses Revit and Inventor industry has a language Amy Marks to define and drive its problem - and she is spot Autodesk manufacturing process. on. She breaks down the This would not be possible terminology, the meanhad the company instigatings and the task at hand. ed its own software development and cre- This is a great 101 for those that want to ated custom applications to link the data understand the basic terminology and from BIM to BoM (Bill of Materials). principles, especially about breaking This method uses each application for down designs to assemblies. the elements Berkeley modular needs, but While many see pre-fabrication and

‘‘

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offsite as mainly being about lower costs, Marks identifies silos as a problem and project outcome ‘certainty’ as the goal of DfMA. She says, “We all recognise that there’s a skilled labour gap and we’re all fighting for the little amount of labour that’s on this planet right now. We’ve also been a little slow to digitise within our ecosystem. But I think the worst thing for us is that we’ve had a ‘cash for chaos’ mentality. What do I mean by that? I mean - we’ve had a disconnect between the silos of the different phases from design to construction.

“To operate, and we have to close those gaps, because that’s where waste really lives. The disconnect between design and construction is why we don’t have certainty of cost and schedule prefabrication…. it can eventually drive down costs, and save time for us, but we’re really looking for certainty. If you look at some of the studies that have been done, especially from the Lean Construction Institute, most of the typical projects, and even the best projects are over budget, or they’ve been late.

We have to create certainty. That is the number one thing we’re looking for in industrialised construction.”

Industrialised Construction Autodesk is creating a new cloud platform for Industrialised Construction, which will be a collaborative ecosystem where Autodesk’s product portfolio and products from other vendors will be able to integrate. While the demos given concern Inventor and Revit, the reality is many firms in fabrication are using products like Solidworks to model their parts.

However, Autodesk is in charge of Inventor and Revit development and can work towards them playing better together, in this case through a technology layer in the cloud.

Here, Marks explained the need to standardise design and ‘productise’, “We have to change from a project centric mindset to a product lead mindset. We need to not just take drawings and modularise them and cut them into pieces and parts that we can prefabricate (just) once or maybe like ‘the thing we did last time’. We need to define products so that we can achieve transformational change. We need to have certainty around that product. Just like a generator manufacturer makes a 200 or 250 or 300 horsepower generator, they won’t make you a 247 or a 252.5 horsepower generator. We have to productise.”

In the latter half of her presentation, Marks gives visual examples of Autodesk’s unreleased ‘Integrated www.AECmag.com

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1

Balcony – values from the Autodesk Revit family parameters (1) drive the configuration of Autodesk Inventor assemblies (2)

Construction’ platform. This is particularly fascinating as it shows how the industrialised construction web service, takes in an Autodesk Revit model, allows the production engineer to pick the parts to be manufactured (termed Scope) from the Revit model viewer, enables easy configuration of those components through templates and automates the creation of fabrication-ready Inventor model, drawings and Bill of Materials (BoM) (this was a feature in Inventor 2021).

Marks commented that the drawing often takes longer than the fabrication of the part, automation of shop drawings.

This is a very streamlined process: set inputs, define the job, get automated outputs. However, I assume it’s made easier through ‘productisation’, where an equivalent component is already parametrically modelled in Inventor. This would perhaps not work so well for unique or bespoke manufactured parts.

Watch the talk at tinyurl.com/Autodesk-IC.

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Future cloud Quantum/Forge Over the last four years, Autodesk has occasionally talked about a higher-level approach to digitising the AEC process.

With Project Quantum and Project Plasma, which AEC Magazine has covered in these articles (tinyurl.com/quantum-aec and tinyurl.com/plasma-aec), Autodesk promised a cloud-based system which could act as a data ‘arbitrageur’ between project team members, allowing data to go from low defined architectural models, to fully defined fabrication models.

The core issue was allowing each discipline to model in the appropriate level of detail, with their perhaps being multiple models of, for example, building facades within the system. While the architect defined the basic space and elements, the fabricator, using a different tool, could create a manufacturable version.

The system would allow the architect to view this detailed model too. A model would have interface points, where manufactured elements could be hand off points to engineering applications.

The trail of this elusive R&D development had gone somewhat cold. CEO Andrew Anagnost told Wall Street analysts back early in 2020 that Plasma had a new name, the data backbone work had been done, and the team would show www.AECmag.com

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something at AU 2020. While there were no obvious announcements, this demonstration of Industrialised Construction platform could certainly be seen to deliver on some of the principles the software architects told us about, although this is very much at a file level with existing desktop products.

Perhaps there has been a change of plan and Autodesk is focusing more on better connectivity between Revit and Inventor and is using its cloud platform to help smooth the data flow between project participants in a DfMA process? But ultimately Autodesk’s destination is the cloud, for both design apps and services and here it would be much easier to implement a common design environment, or at least hide all the hoops that early DfMA firms are having to jump through.

The demonstration given at AU showed how Autodesk planned to leverage the Forge components from its manu-

facturing development to deliver an integrated cloud service.

Conclusion In this edition of AEC Magazine, you’ll find a number of voices from the industry, giving their interpretation and visions for a future fully digitised AEC industry. I feel it’s becoming clear where we want to be; the issue is how do we get there?

The current generation of BIM tools was just the start of the journey. Software, company roles, individual roles, process, data and contracts will all have to change and adapt. Firms that are early in, and individuals who are willing to invest their time understanding the intricacies of offsite production, will be the winners.

AEC Magazine will be running regular coverage of this topic, as well as it being a key discussion issue at our NXT BLD conference.

■ autodesk.com

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Software

Strucsoft - linking Revit to fabrication Revit has predominantly occupied the design / documentation space of BIM. Strucsoft extends its capabilities to driving fabrication through several applications covering timber/steel framing, floors, trusses and CNC fabrication. Martyn Day reports

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ontreal-based Strucsoft certainly falls into the category of developing expert systems. Its flagship applications have typically worked inside Revit, turning low-fidelity models into highlydetailed frame-based designs. Called Metal Wood Framer (MWF), the platform offers, as you would suspect, a structural system for automatically producing wood or metal framed designs.

North American residential is very much based around timber frame, while metal framed construction has been increasingly popular in the last decade.

The drive to ‘mass timber’ has also seen an increase in timber frame to meet low carbon building needs.

Strucsoft predominantly sells to engineering firms, contractors, sub-contractors, design build firms and component manufacturers (off-the shelf building products). With the move to off-site construction, frame-based design is spreading globally as it’s easily digitally cut and fabricated.

nections such as bracing straps and hangers (as well as ceiling, roof layouts frame trusses, soffits and floors) and produces full BoMs (Bill of Materials).

There’s also an MWF module for SIPS (Structural Insulated Panel) including placement and numbering.

While Revit was never intended to drive CNC (Computer Numerical Control) machines, Strucsoft’s MWF CNC module can send wall, floor and truss fabrication information to light gauge roll formers, wall panel machines, as well as automated wood saws.

There is also a module to import from DXF and AutoCAD, as well as popular MCAD tools Solidworks and Autodesk Inventor. Alternatively convert design data to DSTV CNC format, which can drive drills and plasma cutters. Strucsoft also has a free viewer for DSTV files.

While timber frame and, to a degree,

steel frame, are still non-standard construction formats for residential housing, especially in the UK, the move to mass timber and pre-fabricated modular design is already driving increased use of these methodologies into the next generation of construction.

Strucsoft’s latest product is called Onyx, a cloud-based production management tool which manages all the jobs, panel data, shop drawings, CNC code etc.

Designs that started in Revit are taken into the cloud and Revit is no longer required to edit, view, update or sequence.

The aim of Onyx is to manage the whole downstream manufacturing process.

While Strucsoft still relies on Revit for the initial design the move to the cloud liberates it from the limitations of Revit file size and speed and low utilisation of GPU. In many respects Onyx is the next generation platform for the company.

1

Extending Revit Being based in Revit, the advanced flavours of Strucsoft’s framing tools provide a lot of deep fabrication detail, automatically converting Revit components to frames.

With all disciplines included, Strucsoft does clash detection between elements and automates the production of framing components. This benefits co-ordination and saves clients’ money by minimising alterations on site.

The MWF comes pre-loaded with libraries of standard components from manufacturers, accurately models con32

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1 Metal Wood Framer (MWF) generates detailed frame-based designs inside Revit 2 ONYX allows users to upload their framed Revit project to a cloud server for sequencing, scheduling, editing and CNC output

Strucsoft’s view AEC Magazine talked with Byron Starnes, EMEA & VDC director at Strucsoft Solutions.

We asked Starnes what types of companies Strucsoft usually sells to. He explained, “On top of our actual software and the products we offer, we also offer our services for construction, usually principal contractors or, as they say in the US, general contractors, in creating the digital designs for offsite construction - essentially creating framing systems from the architect’s work, producing the fabrication drawings, manufacturing outputs and coordination as well.”

As we are seeing, DfMA (Design for Manufacturing and Assembly) is being picked up by fabricators and modular / offsite firms, not by architects, which creates a problem if there is to be a ‘design’ for manufacture process.

Starnes agreed, “I think it’s a twopronged problem. The architects are kind of out of the loop and, for the manufacturers, their vision is narrow. The best scenario I’ve seen, is where you involve the manufacturing team, the detailing team early on in the coordination process. We can’t expect architects to account for the precision and accuracy that a model built for manufacturing would have. I think that would be unreasonable, except for very, very select circumstances.”

While Strucsoft relies heavily on Revit early in the process, the level of detail and file size creep make it too cumbersome downstream for a manufacturing model. We asked Starnes about the capabilities of the new Onyx system.

“This is our cloud-based solution that we’re developing. It is commercially available now, although it’s still under

2

heavy development. Onyx takes a framed model up into the cloud and from there, you can then start to sequence the steel that that’s going to be rolled, or wood to be cut. You can then start creating your panel bundles, you can assign specific machines to certain parts of the construction process. You can examine each and every connection.

“Onyx allows us to better focus on the process. With MWF, we produce our fabrication drawings, we produce manufacturing outputs. But where does it go from there? How do you control your factory?

What goes where? What steel gets placed? How do you track it when it goes off site? How do you know that panel has been delivered?

“All of this ties into what we do. With Onyx, now we can start to tie those loose ends. Our future is a lot of focus and energy on the cloud, and on our onyx platform, and just a better overall manufacturing solution for our clients.”

Conclusion It’s interesting that from having an initial North American focus, and catering to North American building styles, Strucsoft’s knowledge is actually going to be ideally applicable to offsite digital preconstruction pretty much everywhere.

Strucsoft operates in the grey zone between BIM and fabrication, having to take low detail architectural drawings and produce detailed fabrication models and CNC code. The move to the cloud gives the company the opportunity to connect design and fabrication teams, as well as overcome some of the limitations of our current generation of design tools.

■ strucsoftsolutions.co.uk

www.AECmag.com

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Sponsored content

The power of education Training is very important to help AEC firms get the most out of their CAD or BIM software. But education can also extend to hardware, and by understanding how to match workstations to workflows, firms can increase their productivity yet further

I

t’s fair to say that 2020 was a challenging year for everyone. But, in the words of CAD training specialist Shaun Bryant of CADFMconsultants, it’s been insane. “We’ve been really, really busy,” he says.

Bryant, an Autodesk® Certified Instructor, Autodesk Certified Professional and Autodesk Expert Elite, is extremely active in the world of Autodesk. For many years he’s offered AutoCAD and Revit training through a combination of classroom, on-premise, and online delivery.

But with the Covid-19 pandemic things started to change dramatically in March 2020, as Bryant explains, “I was literally in London training the week before the first UK lockdown, but that was the last bit of classroom, face-to-face training that I did.”

Since then, Bryant has seen a sharp rise in demand for online, including custom training programs, Autodesk Certification and LinkedIn™ Learning, through which he provides a comprehensive set of AutoCAD courses and tips and tricks.

However, like many others in the industry, Bryant is really looking forward to meeting people in person again.

“I don’t think classroom training will ever go away. One of the big topics that came out of [virtual] Autodesk University was how so many people miss that interaction, that networking

where you can sit down and chat face to face and go through all the niggly bits of stuff that you just want to talk about.”

One of those ‘niggly bits’ that regularly crops up is the subject of workstation specifications.

Bryant has seen his fair share of poorly configured machines over the years. This can have a huge impact on productivity, but it’s not always obvious to the user that it’s their hardware that’s holding them back, as he explains.

“One of the things I offer is a hand holding facility, so you might get somebody who’s done their three day Revit course, and then I’ll follow up by coming into their office so I can be on hand to answer questions.

“Sometimes people will say ‘I’ve got this massive Revit model and it just doesn’t work.’ You realise that it’s not their fault, it’s not the software’s fault, it’s just that the hardware isn’t up to spec. They might be using something like integrated graphics and it’s just not handling the Revit model very well.”

Integrated graphics – when the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) is built into the workstation’s CPU – is something that Bryant often sees causing bottlenecks with larger CAD files. He puts their use down to a lack of understanding and, of course, companies trying to save money. But it’s a false economy, he says,

Bryant’s preferred GPU for CAD software like AutoCAD and Revit (pictured) is the AMD Radeon™ PRO WX 3200

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If you’re an architect, you don’t want to be on your laptop waiting for a render to finish and saying, ‘I’ve got nothing to do,’ as you sit there twiddling your thumbs

as he recalls one firm that came in for training and were amazed by how slow their machines were compared to those in the classroom.

“They told me the spec of the machines they use in the office, and it was almost like they’d gone to their local retail store and got the cheapest laptops they could buy - and yet they were running 3D AutoCAD on them. And then they told me ‘that was what our boss told us to get.’

“Of course, with those machines they were struggling from a workflow perspective, so I advised them to talk to their boss and explain it to him from an overall, almost profit and loss kind of perspective, that they’re losing so much time because the machines are so slow and any money they saved on hardware just disappeared into the ether.

“The funny thing is, I kept in touch with one of the guys, and he told me that when he explained it to his boss in this way, he immediately placed an order for six reasonable desktop workstations and that the boss didn’t bat an eyelid when he wrote the cheque.”

To give CAD and BIM software the level of graphics performance it demands, Bryant always recommends using a discrete (or standalone) graphics card.

Bryant’s preferred GPU for CAD software like AutoCAD and Revit is the AMD Radeon™ PRO WX 3200, an affordable sub $200 USD / £200 GBP professional graphics card with 4GB of memory that can power multiple UHD monitors. “It’s almost like a standard piece of kit that you need for CAD,” he says. “It has twice the amount of RAM as the competition at that price1 and includes substantially more TFLOPs2 for faster viewport drawing. You don’t have to spend a lot to get good performance.”

The GPU is tested and certified for AutoCAD, Revit and many other professional applications.

In Bryant’s view, CAD software certification is absolutely essential, recalling one time where he used a non-certified card in AutoCAD and got horrible ghosting and jagged edges when moving a line across the screen.

“Autodesk has done exhaustive testing on those cards,” he says. “They certified those cards with the products you use, whether that be AutoCAD, Revit, 3ds Max, whatever. And if they’ve done all that rigorous testing, it means that they’re happy

17/03/2021 06:55

For generating movies, walkthroughs and rendered views in Unreal Engine, Bryant recomends a high-end Radeon PRO GPU

with it, and they want you to use that particular card with the software.

“And one of the benefits you have with all the Autodesk software is it will alert you if it’s a noncertified card,” he adds.

Beyond CAD While AutoCAD and Revit remain bread and butter applications for many AEC firms, design visualisation and Virtual Reality (VR) are becoming more and more prevalent. But, as Bryant explains, it’s important to understand that, from a hardware perspective, what’s good for CAD isn’t usually powerful enough for these demanding applications.

“I worked with a company a few years back, and they were a spin-off of an architectural firm, but they were purely doing architectural visualisation,” he says. “Weirdly enough, they thought it would be OK to use the same graphics cards they were using for CAD. “The GPU was great for your optimum CAD models, and everything else, but as soon as you start rendering, lighting, materials and so on, plus animation, walkthroughs – all that kind of thing – they said, ‘ah, this is a bit slow, this is a bit jerky’. Also, their RAM wasn’t up to the job. And I said, ‘well, you’re going to have to upgrade your hardware’.”

Bryant himself is already well along this design visualisation path. He uses 3ds Max, Maya, Unreal Engine and Unity and has developed a LinkedIn Learning course that shows architects how to take a Revit model into Unreal Engine to generate movies, walkthroughs and rendered views.

Bryant also uses a system powered by AMD graphics for his CAD and BIM work, but for his more demanding design viz workflows, including VR, he has a powerful 32-core AMD Ryzen Threadripper workstation with a high end AMD Radeon PRO GPU with 8GB of fast onboard memory.

“I’ve tried to run Unreal Engine on my system, and it runs to a point, but you start to see a little bit of lag here and there and especially when you’re doing things like lighting, rendering, and so on. But when you run it on a high end Radeon PRO GPU it’s seamless, everything’s moving in real time.

“The speed it does stuff sometimes, I’m like,

pXX_AEC_MARCHAPRIL21_Advertorial.indd 3

‘OK, I didn’t even blink’. It just eats things for breakfast, it just swallows it up,” he says. “I can do a render in Revit in about two minutes, whereas on the laptop that would take probably up to about 15 to 20 minutes.

“If you’re an architect, you don’t want to be on your laptop waiting for a render to finish and saying, ‘I’ve got nothing to do,’ as you sit there twiddling your thumbs.”

Education, education Bringing the conversation back to education, Bryant believes there’s often a huge knowledge gap about the need for hardware - graphics cards, in particular - to be matched to different workflows. Having too little graphics performance is one thing, but it’s also important not to overspend unnecessarily.

Minimum and recommended specs are a good place to start, says Bryant, and this information can be found on the websites of software developers. AMD also has an online interactive GPU recommendation tool (tinyurl.com/ProGPU-AMD) that provides guidance for its certified applications, including Autodesk Revit®, AutoCAD®, 3ds Max®, Epic Unreal Engine and others.

“You don’t have to have the all-singing, alldancing GPU, unless you are doing the all-singing, all-dancing kind of work - the architectural visualisation, the VR, the AR,” says Bryant.

“Two of the things I love about AMD is, one, their price banding isn’t massively high, and two, they’ve got a fantastically diverse range of graphics cards.

“If you can get users into the tech and educated to a level so they can understand that a Radeon PRO WX 3200 graphic card does this, whereas Radeon PRO VII graphics does that, they can then realise how much they need to spend on that technology, and they might have a residual amount left over for improving other components, or which could go into training.”

Ultimately it all comes back to education. Having the right hardware can have an immediate impact on productivity, but software training is still one of the most important investments any AEC firm can make.

“One of the quotes I always use when I talk about

According to Bryant, the sub $200 1 AMD Radeon PRO WX 3200 GPU is almost like a standard piece of kit that you need for CAD

training, is you’ll go to the powers that be and say, ‘I need a training budget’ and the immediate counter to that is, ‘oh, why are we spending all this money on training when they’re potentially going to leave anyway?’ My argument back is ‘what happens if we don’t train them though and they stay?’

“And you see the management guys, the C level guys say, ‘he’s got a point.’ And it’s true, if you train people and invest in them, they’ll stay anyway. You’re helping them expand, you’re empowering them to be better at what they do.”

Good software performance is a balance of all the hardware components. So make sure you don’t overpay for the GPU. Choose the right tool for the job. © 2021 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. All rights reserved. AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, Radeon, Ryzen, Threadripper, and combinations thereof are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Autodesk, AutoCAD, Revit and 3ds Max are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries.

Other product names used in this publication are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective companies.

Here’s the Legal Bit. If you want additional details, you can find it below for added peace of mind: 1. RPW-254: Based on workstation GPUs priced under $200 USD. Radeon™ PRO WX 3200 graphics with 4GB VRAM vs the NVIDIA® QUADRO® P620 with 2GB VRAM. 2. RPW-255: Based on workstation GPUs priced under $200 USD. Radeon™ PRO WX 3200 graphics with 1.66 TFLOPS vs the NVIDIA® QUADRO® P620 with 1.386 TFLOPS. 1.66 / 1.386 = 20%.

Learn more For more information information about Bryant’s LinkedIn training courses, visit linkedin.com/in/cadfmconsult For more information about AMD professional graphics, visit amd.com/RadeonPRO

17/03/2021 06:55

Opinion

Why digital transformation brings AEC and PLM together Oleg Shilovitsky, CEO of OpenBOM and owner of Beyond PLM, explores the role that Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), a process that’s so important for many manufacturing firms, could play in the evolving AEC industry

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or years of developing Product construction and manufacturing started Lifecycle Management (PLM) to blur. There are a few interesting trajecsystems for startups and compa- tories on both sides. First, in manufacturnies like Autodesk and Dassault ing, companies have started to look more Systèmes, I’ve always been curious about distributed, and the growing number of how the manufacturing and AEC indus- contractors and suppliers create similar try would collide. A few years ago, I problems of data ownership and collabowrote the article PLM vs BIM - Common ration. Second, construction companies or Different (tinyurl.com/BIM-PLM) in have emerged which have started to look which I made some assessments of how very similar to manufacturing compathe trajectory of PLM and BIM can be nies, by developing prefabricated methdeveloped in the future. ods and industrialisation of processes.

Back then, I identified common eleTechnology is the main factor that ments, such as model, visualisation, pro- brings changes in both industries, but the ject management and data sharing, as well construction industry is starting to resemas what makes AEC different – a single ble a type of manufacturing process. You model, terminology, tools and processes. can think about super complex construcNevertheless, contion projects for struction projects buildings, as if you always reminded me were building big of early PLM develships or aeroplanes.

Product Lifecycle opment. The problem Buildings are now Management of silos, discussions smart and include a (PLM) is used by about standardisalot of technologies manufacturing firms to manage tion of data model and equipment.

EXPLAINER the entire lifecycle and the development Prefabricated conof a product from of shared understruction projects concept, through standing between are seriously similar engineering design and manufacture, to project and data to a supply chain of service and disposal. It is widely used in stakeholders. manufacturing comthe automotive, aerospace, heavy machinery, white goods and other industries.

Construction compapanies. A variety of nies were afraid to contractors in the implement PLM building industry technologies, mostly because data owner- working on sub-systems for buildings ship in the AEC process is not very clear are often using the same technologies when compared to how manufacturing and tools used by suppliers in manufaccompanies operate. Every department in a turing projects. manufacturing company is a separate Thinking about the digital transformacompany in construction! tion in construction brought me to the The technologies of PLM and BIM have point when I questioned how existing manalways had different industry contexts ufacturing technologies and digital tools and applications. The separation was too can be used to build a unified digital workobvious – one was focusing on building flow, mixing tools that before were considaeroplanes, complex machinery and ered strictly either AEC or PLM tools. high-tech products, while the other was Before jumping to the software tools, I focusing on buildings and construction want to discuss typical value chains in projects. And it was true… until recently. construction projects.

For the last few years, working on We can learn from the diagram right OpenBOM (openbom.com), I started to see that an entire value chain in construction many projects in which the lines between projects is very fragmented. There are

What is PLM?

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two main reasons for this – company organisations and tools. As such, you can see how general contractors are operating with BIM models, documents and project workflow. At the same time, contractors are using mechanical, electrical, electronic CAD tools in processes managed by PLM and ERP tools. Each suite of design tools comes with their own product data management and collaboration processes. As a result, we can see not only a disconnect between organisations, but also the disconnect between the tools and technologies serving both domains.

This made me think about the opportunity to connect these digital workflows for an entire construction project value chain. What will be the essential functions of these platforms? Will construction platforms expand to manufacturing workflows or PLM tools expand into BIM and construction workflows?

None of these scenarios seems to be a realistic at this point. Each of these tools are too locked into their own bubbles and technological legacy. Existing AEC vendors are interested to expand, but they are very much busy updating and integrating with existing systems. At the same time, existing PLM companies are not rushing to jump into AEC opportunities because of technological reasons – most Product Data Management (PDM) and PLM tools are not fit to work in the environments with multiple organisations.

The status quo creates an opportunity for new types of digital tools. What can be the value of such a tool or platform and how can it be used? The two main challenges on construction projects are (1) to integrate and collaborate across an entire value chain; (2) maximize the use of digital assets and models. Let me talk about both.

Integrate and collaborate across an entire value chain The value chain contains architects, designers, engineers, material suppliers, contractors, maintenance and operation companies. Each of these players is focuswww.AECmag.com

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Construction project value chain Construction Digital Platforms

Architect

Owner operator

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Solidworks Autodesk Inventor

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Maximize the use of digital assets

Data is a new oil. But to take advantage of data, there is a need to build data models capable of reflecting the data needed for integrated processes across the value chain and create mechanisms to bring in the needed data. This would be from 3D models, business data, project information, operational information, sensor information and data from many other places.

The important aspect of adopting digital models is to create a granular and open data framework with tools allowing the information to be shared. The data framework would include digital objects and

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Order

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ing on their own workflow and not consid- provide access to design models, equipering how their work affects others in the ment information, operational parameters. entire value chain. The disconnect creates The digital platform capable of suptons of inefficiencies. What is demanded porting integration and collaboration is to have a better orchestration and con- across the value chain of construction trol over a large portion of value chain, and manufacturing companies would connecting all stakeholders together. enable the creation of integrated conThe opportunity is to create a vertically tracts, integrated product deliveries and integrated value chain, simiexpand from processes that lar to how manufacturing are purely built on projectcompanies do it. These tools based function to integratSome of the would be managing the most visionary ed and connected activities. activities based on the data Cloud technologies, SaaS and advanced and moving the process from applications and new mulcompanies in upstream to downstream, to ti-tenant network-based connect data, process and the construction data platforms can be a new activities. The connected way for construction proindustry are value chain would bring sigjects to connect both existexperimenting ing construction workflows nificant benefits to all players. One of the most imporwith the mix of and manufacturing worktant issues is to move from flows downstream. The construction document-oriented workstep is to create a platforms, PLM important flow to a granular data flow seamless mechanism to and ERP tools connect data from both of – it can improve decision making, sustainability and these worlds together This performance of the projects. data will become a factor to stitch processes together.

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How to mix construction and manufacturing platforms?

This is a really a question that construction firms are facing. There are already a mixed set of tools used by players in the value chain, provided by software vendors. It starts from CAD tools used by architects and engineers (e.g. Autodesk Revit) and tools used by contractors and fabricators (e.g.

Solidworks and Autodesk Inventor). Some of the most visionary and advanced companies in the construction industry are experimenting with the mix of construction

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platforms, PLM and ERP tools. How to make them mix together and what is the value proposition? Here are three steps to make it happen: 1. Go beyond documents and traditional document workflow.

2. Adopt granular product information objects (product relationships and digital assets).

3. Use modern open and multi-tenant cloud-services capable of connecting companies involved in the value chain of construction projects.

Conclusion The construction market has a golden opportunity to adopt manufacturing technologies. Can existing digital manufacturing paradigms and PLM products be used to integrate AEC value chains? Yes, vertical integration is a very powerful process, but many existing PLM single-tenant systems are too old to be used as-is, to be powerhouses for construction projects.

These PLM technologies were built for a single company (top down) paradigm.

What is needed is a new network platform capable of connecting multiple companies and team members together and, at the same time, managing product information on a granular level, connecting silos.

There is an opportunity for modern cloudbased services used in manufacturing to also connect value chain data in construction projects. These tools could bridge the gap and connect construction workflows and platforms used by general contractors in their workflows with downstream processes used by trade contractors and manufacturers. Just my thoughts…

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Software

Enscape 3.0 review With usability now driving its development, the popular real time visualisation tool has finally broken the shackles of the BIM plug-in that originally brought it success

by Greg Corke

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or regular readers of AEC in Revit, be that moving objects or changMagazine, Enscape needs little ing materials, automatically updated in introduction. We’ve been big fans Enscape moments later. of the real-time rendering and At a time when other real-time viz VR software since the 1.8 release when we applications were still grappling with filetested it out for our ‘Revit to VR’ feature. based transfer, this was truly groundBack then, the software was incredibly breaking. Design visualisation really had easy to use, and that’s what made it so become part of the design process. appealing. With very little effort you In the years that followed the product could go from Revit to Enscape and grew massively in terms of capability. It explore the nicely rendered model on a added support for ArchiCAD, Rhino, desktop display and inside VR. SketchUp and Vectorworks. And, as the The Enscape application was essential- visual quality increased dramatically, ly a real-time window into your BIM including support for Nvidia RTX real model. Everything was driven from with- time ray tracing, a much stronger emphain Revit. Simply push a butsis was placed on deliver1 In Enscape 3.0 the video ton on the Revit plug-in and ables. This included videos, editor UI has been revamped seconds later the model high quality stills, 360 pan2 The new Visual settings appeared in Enscape. Most oramas and standalones dialogue in Enscape 3.0 impressively, it maintained a (rendered .EXE file or web). makes it much easier to live link, so any edits made However, as more funcmanage presets

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2 tionality was layered onto the software, the workflow became somewhat fragmented. As most of the functions continued to be driven through Revit, users had to continually swap between applications.

The good news is, with Enscape 3.0 released this week, everything has changed. In a significant re-write of the software, the new version offers users a more fluid and intuitive design experience by reducing the reliance on the plug-in and pushing more functionality into the application itself.

The new UI The first thing you’ll notice about Enscape 3.0 is the brand new user interface. Only critical controls, such as the asset library, have remained inside the CAD/BIM plugin. Everything else has moved to the standalone Enscape application.

Even so, the new interface is incredibly clean. A single toolbar at the top of the window can be toggled on and off. It includes a dozen or so icons for things like visual settings, view management, collaboration, and BIM information – and for generating viz assets such as videos, screenshots and deliverables.

To guide new and old users alike, a context sensitive help window gives tips

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on every selected command. Most of the controls have keyboard shortcuts, handily highlighted by tool tips.

improved. Previously, this was done inside the CAD/BIM application, so the workflow was fragmented. Now it’s handled directly inside Enscape. Views can be modified in Enscape, regardless of where they were originally created (CAD/BIM or Enscape).

More impressively, individual 3D views can now be easily linked to custom Visual Settings presets. This could be particularly useful for client presentations, making it easy to switch between views and ren-

Video editing

The video editor UI has been revamped and it’s now easier to add keyframes at the beginning or end of a path, or anyVisual settings / view management where in between.

The Visual Settings dialogue, which conFor each keyframe, you can punch in trols the look and feel of the scene, is now values for focal point, field of view or found inside Enscape itself. It’s also had time of day, so you can create some nice an overhaul, specifically in terms of how video animations or time lapses with presets are managed. transitions from day to night.

Through a single dialogue box, users It’s also now possible to view these have control over render style, render keyed in values on the timeline itself, quality, camera projection, rather than just on the field of view, depth of field camera path, which gives By moving many of the commands into the and various Photoshopa much better overall style adjustments. There Enscape environment and reducing the reliance view of the video during are also effects such as on the CAD/BIM plug-ins, Enscape has delivered production. motion blur, vignette and Once you’re happy with a much more user friendly and efficient tool bloom, as well as atmothe results, simply hit sphere for fog, illuminaexport, choose resolution, tion and wind (which conand frames per seconds, trols the animation of grass and trees). der styles at the click of a button. all from within the same video editor.

Once you’ve had a good play around With batch rendering you can then Previously these settings had to be with the settings and are happy with the render all of the views you have set up. defined in advance in a separate dialogue results, you can save it as a preset.

Clicking the new ‘safe frame’ button box.

In previous releases, presets had to be shows you the exact frame that’s going to loaded in individually. Now they can be be rendered according to pre-defined set- Materials and 3D assets picked from a list inside Enscape, so you tings for resolution / aspect ratio. For data consistency, all materials and 3D can quickly cycle through the options and Previously, you’d have had to do a quick assets continue to be applied within the see them instantly applied to the scene. test render to check it was framing the BIM authoring tool. In Revit, for examView management has also been shot correctly. ple, you use the Revit Material Editor to

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Software 3

3 Enscape creates a live link to the CAD/BIM application. In Enscape 3.0 the options within the plug-in are significantly reduced 4 The exact same view mirrored in Enscape, rendered in real time

define the appearance of surfaces. To increase realism you can work with custom textures, bump maps and displacement maps, as well as video textures.

Enscape also comes with a large collection of 3D assets including furniture, lighting, vegetation, people and vehicles, all of which can be accessed via the plug-in.

Assets are created in house by Enscape, some of which are adapted from Evermotion assets, but optimised for real-time rendering. In Enscape 3.0 there are several new assets for specific regions and cultures. You can also create custom assets from OBJ or FBX files – either download from a library like TurboSquid or model yourself.

In Revit, Revit families can be linked to an Enscape asset. So, in your plan view for example, when you’re printing or scheduling, the Revit family will show up, but it’ll still display as a high quality asset in Enscape.

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BIM workflows When we first looked at Enscape, you could only bring across geometry and materials from Revit – not BIM information. This changed last year, when users of both Revit and ArchiCAD could finally take advantage of the “I” in BIM. Enscape 3.0 doesn’t add any new BIM the design application project file and can functionality per se, but it’s worth spend- also be exported as a BIM Collaboration ing a little time here to explain what it Format (BCF) file. However, to really beef can do, as the software starts to blur the up the capabilities for team collaboration, boundaries between real time visualisa- Enscape also offers an integration with tion and design review. the cloud-based issue tracking platform Since Enscape 2.7 objects BIM Track. Once synced to can be selected in Enscape BIM Track, issues can be and their associated BIM The video editor managed, added to RFIs, information displayed, such assigned to specific users UI has been as dimensions, manufacturand tracked for full revamped and accountability. er details, or prices. This is great for team meetings and it’s now easier to Users can access all the client presentations, as issue data through BIM add keyframes object data can be viewed Track’s web viewer as at the beginning well as Revit, Navisworks, immediately without having to reference back to the BIM or end of a path, Tekla Structures, Solibri authoring tool. or anywhere in or AutoCAD. Enscape 2.8 built on this, between Conclusion adding basic issue management capabilities. To create For a product that’s taken an issue simply right click in the Enscape six years to go from version 1 to version 3, window. This places an Issue Marker, to Enscape 3.0 doesn’t deliver the headline which you can add comments and a grabbing features that one might have thumbnail for a quick visual reference. expected. But Enscape, as a company, Issues automatically become part of isn’t like most software developers.

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Since the release of Enscape 2.0 in 2017, there have been a series of point releases, delivering hugely significant updates. In that time we’ve seen the introduction of BIM information and BIM collaboration, as well as huge advancements in visual quality and realism, including support for Nvidia RTX real time ray tracing.

But what Enscape 3.0 brings to the table shouldn’t be underestimated. By moving many of the commands into the Enscape environment and reducing the reliance on the CAD/BIM plug-ins, Enscape has delivered a much more user friendly and efficient tool. Having to continually move between applications broke the workflow and the feeling of immersion within the scene.

However, the Enscape community is known to be very demanding. And while some might initially feel underwhelmed by the new release, once the new workflow benefits have been experienced, we expect a positive reception. We’re already looking forward to version 3.1.

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AUGMENTED | VIRTUAL REALITY

courtesy of Daniele Barone

RHINO | UNREAL LIVE LINK

Free 15 days trial on mindeskvr.com Reach us at hello@mindeskvr.com Mindesk is a platform of

Featured in

Work with

An Epic investment Epic Games is a giant in the entertainment sector: over 350 million gamers alone play Fortnite. This success helps fund the development of its real-time Unreal Engine, a platform which has become widely used within AEC, writes Martyn Day

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o date, Unreal Engine has predominantly been seen as a visualisation tool for architectural viz or multi-platform immersive experiences. The concentration on real-time, and ever higher quality output, as well as strategic acquisitions, has placed it in competition with dedicated arch viz rendering engines.

While this is certainly the case, it’s not the whole story. Unreal Engine is also becoming a common development platform as the foundation for new commercial products using its SDK (Software 42

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Development Kit), as well as a platform with which to integrate.

With customers now looking to create their own tools and bespoke BIM workflows (tinyurl.com/bespoke-BIM), Unreal Engine has also become a popular choice as a start point, as it offers a capable stack of visualisation and big data integration tools, unencumbered by the weight of BIM. At events in London prior to the pandemic, several Unreal Engine customers have presented their developments using the engine in their design processes.

These have included the likes of KPF

(lighting analysis), Shop Architects (VR in construction / component assembly), Zaha Hadid Architects (VR), Allford Hall Monaghan Morris (AHMM) (modelling within a city scale), City of Gothenburg (City Modelling), CallisonRTKL (mass VR analysis of shoppers’ movements and eyelines), ÅF Infrastructure (multi-hundred kilometre train track visualisation) Ramirent (Europe’s largest construction rental company) (safety training).

Other customer applications supported

by Unreal Engine are more altruistic, such as Buro Happold’s, collective experiwww.AECmag.com

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WELLINGTON CITY IMAGE COURTESY OF BUILDMEDIA

ment, BHoM (Buildings and Habitats object Model) (bhom.xyz) which aims to provide a single common language between AEC applications.

Instead of creating translators between every possible tool, the idea is to just have to write one single link per application to connect to all the others, such as Grasshopper, Excel, Dynamo and Visual Studio

Acquisitions for AEC Epic’s focus on AEC as a market segment has been a multi-year progression through in-house development, partnerships and acquisition. When Epic acquires, it also has a modus operandi to either make the technology free, free for a long time or drastically reduce the cost to users.

With data portability and repurposing being a constant thorn in the industry’s www.AECmag.com

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side, Epic acquired Datasmith (formerly called Motiva Unreal Scene) from Motiva, to enable optimised and geometrically clean architectural models from Revit, Rhino, SketchUp and others, to be brought into the Unreal Engine environment. Datasmith is now free for all users and is an alternative to Autodesk’s FBX. Epic then acquired ‘Twinmotion’ from Abvent in 2019. Twinmotion is a mature architectural viz tool which comes with a huge library of dynamic vegetation, vehicles, people, street furniture and lights.

This made Unreal Engine a hub for early stage viz by architects, all the way up to high-end real-time virtual environments.

The software also features direct oneclick synchronisation with Revit, Rhino, ArchiCAD and others. Twinmotion currently costs £348 for a perpetual licence.

The latest purchase, Slovakian-based

‘Capturing Realty’ adds photogrammetry to 3D modelling to the Unreal environment (see page 10 of the news). From a collection of photographs of a building, street block or city captured by drone, it will be possible to rapidly create a 3D model showing as-built conditions in Unreal. Reality capture is increasingly popular in AEC projects, from refurbishment to monitoring construction (5D), architecture to civil engineering.

Epic’s appetite for new data formats which benefit from fast visualisation is getting into some very cutting-edge, AECspecific workflows. It has also forged partnerships with key industry players for integrations and deeper development.

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Feature

together for the good of their customers.

Epic has formed tight integrations with Nemetschek’s Graphisoft ArchiCAD and Vectorworks BIM platforms, including Unreal Engine and Twinmotion.

This is in addition to Nemetschek having its own rendering brand (Maxon Cinema4D). Italy-based Acca with its Edificius BIM tool has also used Unreal Engine to create its VRiBIM extension.

McNeel’s Rhinocerous and its Rhino Inside extension is now supported with Unreal Engine. Rhino Inside operates like a data bus between AEC applications. It

allows data to flow between proprietary systems and pop-up inside a wide range of environments. It should be possible to be modelling in Revit or BricsCAD, Blender or ACCA and get that data fed into Unreal Engine via Rhino Inside.

Esri has integrated with Unreal Engine with its ArcGIS ARVR and CityEngine products and has its own ‘game engine’ development team. The company recently demonstrated analysis of wildfires, at a country level, using the particle system in Unreal.

The major CAD developer missing from

this list is, of course, Autodesk. In 2017, Autodesk picked Unity as a specialised partner to address the viz, VR/AR market, co-developing FBX and collaborative workflows with data round-tripping with Revit, Maya and 3ds Max. This move kind of handicapped most of the competition in this area for the timebeing.

It was also an interesting decision at the time, as Autodesk has its own Media and Entertainment division that had a dedicated VR team with products. It was as if Autodesk opted out of real-time. We have heard rumours that Autodesk has now

AECOM

Bentley Systems Synchro

3D Repo is a SaaS platform for BIM coordination in the cloud. The collaborative software, accessible from a browser, allows users to manage 3D model revisions, add comments, perform data validation, clash check, identify model changes, track health and safety, visualise 4D planning and host live collaboration sessions. The company gained its MegaGrant to work on a new cloud-based digital twins service based on Unreal Engine (more on page 11).

To prove MegaGrants go to even the biggest of customers wishing to carry out research and development (R&D), industry infrastructure giant AECOM was included in November 2020 in Epic Games’ MegaGrant list of recipients.

Turning over approximately $13.2 billion last year, the global firm is very active in visualisation and virtual reality (VR) research and usage. No specific project was listed against the grant.

Pennsylvania-based Bentley Systems, the creator of MicroStation, ProjectWise and iTwin cloud services, was included in Epic Games’ November 2020 update on the MegaGrant recipients. This is for work to be done in integrating its Synchro digital construction management platform with Unreal Engine. Synchro tracks cost, sequencing (4D) and field submittals and uses very visual displays to show the state of projects.

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Hassell

Mindesk

Speckle

Global multi-disciplinary architectural, design and urban planning practice Hassell teamed up with structural engineers Eckersley O’Callaghan to enter Nasa’s Martian 3D printed habitat challenge and was shortlisted in the top 10. The design featured a shell structure made of fused Martian soil and 3D printed by robots. The grant will be used to develop a VR experience of the Mars Habitat, currently on display at The Design Museum in London. The project was presented at NXTBLD 2019.

Forget 3D model conversion and export, Mindesk is a live link between designs in Solidworks and Rhino (Grasshopper) to Unreal Engine, supporting a number of immersive headsets. The software offers multi-user VR, with VR-based editing, supporting NURBS and 3D Bézier curves, with a bidirectional link taking the 3D VR sketches back to CAD. For Grasshopper users, sliders can be used to directly edit the script in VR, to evaluate and compare parametric designs.

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IMAGE COURTESY OF KUKA GROUP MINDESK. 3D MODEL COURTESY OF TURBOSQUID AND ARTIST KRISTIJAN ILIC, KASIOPY STUDIOS

3D Repo

bentley.com/synchro

Speckle is a cloud-based collaboration environment designed for CAD and BIM data, to provide ‘seamless data exchange’ of geometry between design and analysis tools. At its heart is an expanding library of connectors which embed in commonly used design tools, allowing geometry to flow without files.

Through its APIs and SDKs users can automate very complex workflows. The grant went towards creating interoperability transport schema for Unreal Engine.

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restarted some in-house VR development.

But partnerships are not all about working with the major vendors. It’s also about teaming up with innovative small firms who are looking to make a difference.

Trezi, for example, is the world’s first immersive platform which connects designers with building product manufacturers in collaborative sessions. This is the Zoom of the VR AEC space. From the reverse angle it also allows AEC product manufacturers to showcase their designs.

Safe Software’s FME creates a space where you can collate assets quickly in

Unreal Engine - point clouds, BIM models, 2D shapefiles, GIS. HOK used FME automate much of the modelling of 130 square miles with 2 million auto-generated buildings from an existing data set, as well as integrate a GIS dataset.

There are many more – see box outs below and on page 46.

Epic MegaGrants Launched in 2019, Epic dedicated $100 million to what it calls MegaGrants, a fund which it endows on valid firms or people looking to develop using the

Cintoo

Cesium

French developer Cintoo has created a cloudbased collaborative, scan & BIM platform to manage and distribute scan data. The Cintoo cloud platform enables virtual coordination, project reviews, issue tracking and progress monitoring on meshed point clouds. The Epic MegaGrant was awarded to expand the use of Cintoo Cloud with Unreal Engine, getting faster streaming and removing the need for creating photo textured models and allowing the integration of BIM geometry.

Cesium is a developer of 3D geospatial solutions, specialising in the cloud-streaming of big geospatial content for global scale terrain and city models. Cesium for Unreal will be the first ‘high precision globe’ in the engine, bringing real-world detail and accuracy to simulated environments. The company is developing this as a free and open source plug-in. There will be an optional subscription for access to global 3D content via the company’s Cesium ion service.

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Unreal Engine. These could come from a wide range of areas: game developers, media + entertainment, tool developers, open source projects and AEC customer / professionals. By November 2020 the company had handed out $60 million in financial support to more than 1,000 developers. Some firms opt to not make their funded developments public.

MegaGrants typically range from about $5,000 to $500,000 and can cover a wide variety of development, from in house projects to full blown new products, using Unreal Engine as their foundation layer.

The biggest MegaGrant to date was substantially larger than the average. Coming in at $1.2 million dollars, it will be paid to open-source modelling tool Blender over a three-year period. For the AEC market this is of special interest, as Blender has seen a rapid rise in usage in the industry especially as a modelling tool for architects – and for a free tool it’s very capable.

Blender has spawned its own opensource BIM tool, called BlenderBIM (blenderbim.org), which has a thriving community of global developers. By funding Blender, Epic has also enabled downstream developments like this to flourish.

As a side note, in July last year Microsoft also gave Blender funding and backing, lending it even more industry credibility.

The MegaGrant program is not just about money, as Epic also encourages hardware providers to join the scheme and offer limited numbers of units for grant winners, such as AMD last year and Magic Leap the year before.

Who is eligible?

Theia Interactive

Tridify

Founded in 2014, Theia Interactive is a longtime Unreal Engine developer, working on immersive and XR environments for AEC, retail, aerospace and automotive. The company won an Epic MegaGrant to help it develop an online meeting room product called ‘Big Room’. The software, which is currently in beta, will provide a virtual design planning room where distributed teams can collaborate on project data. It’s aimed at architects, designers, project managers and contractors.

Finnish developer Tridify has created a browser-based, multi-platform, multi-format BIM publishing and viewing tool. Once data is published and shared, it’s possible to measure, comment, add cutting planes and interrogate the BIM component data. The Epic MegaGrant was given to develop a new IFC format BIM streaming service to improve existing workflows and increase the quality of the viewing experience. Learn more in this AEC Magazine article (tinyurl.com/Tridify).

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tridify.com

Epic is looking to give grants for innovative enterprise projects in visualisation, simulation, design or VR/MR/AR projects for architecture, automotive, manufacturing - specifically non-game industry projects. Also, if you are a commercial software developer creating a tool that integrates with Unreal, or working on opensource tools that benefit the 3D graphics community. By our estimates there’s about $40 million left on the table for projects, apply at unrealengine.com/en-US/megagrants

Epic view We talked with Marc Petit VP, general manager, Unreal Engine at Epic Games on the topic of MegaGrants allocation. On the scale of the grants awarded, Petit explained that “Most grants fall between the $50k to $150k range, which is a lot of “free”, “no strings attached” money. We prefer to give several smaller grants than bigger ones, as the governance around it is so light.”

March / April 2021

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Feature

More places to find Unreal Engine Beyond CAD Vision

Beyond CAD Vision is a visualisation tool for civil engineering projects.

The software is currently in development and is the recipient of an Epic MegaGrant. It is a standalone application for transportation or other civil projects and provides 3D file import, a 3D library and advanced traffic movement, where

a range of tools covering landscape (VizTerra) and deck design, swimming pool design (Pool Studio), outdoor design (VIP3D) and Yard for augmented reality designing and viewing.

■ structurestudios.com

cars accelerate, decelerate and stop at traffic lights. It will also be possible to make still images or video in real time. The software is due out in 2021.

■ beyondcad.com/vision

Project Anywhere was a proof of concept demo for exploring highresolution 3D terrain and building data in real time from ‘any device’.

It’s hosted on Microsoft Azure, powered by Nvidia GPUs and gives an amazingly fast world view, running a cloud-based, highprecision World Geodetic System (WGSS) through Unreal Engine.

It’s both interactive and scalable for real-world simulation.

■ tinyurl.com/ProjectAW-Unreal

Structure Studios formed in 2001 and is a long-time user of Unreal Engine. The company has developed

Modumate is a new design tool designed to bypass traditional CAD

It’s important to remember that these design to prop tech! There are lots of are grants, not loans and do not include innovative uses of Unreal Engine.” any loss of ownership. In qualifying With Unreal Engine adding serious development circumstances it’s also pos- layers of capability, which AEC developsible to use Unreal Engine royalty free. ers can utilise, and with today’s popular The traditional way that software BIM systems often slowing down with companies connect with developers has large models, we asked Petit how he saw been through SDKs (Software the gamification of AEC and Epic’s role Development Kits). The availability of within it. “We’re building a platform so these can be free but it’s become the that you can capture and display the standard that developers join a network word as-is (and as-built) and integrate and pay for membership to your design data in it receive software, support building, infrastructure and the SDK. We asked Petit etc...

With the combination Just being a if the old way of attracting of Unreal Engine, great developers was dead? “SDKs Twinmotion, MegaScans visualisation are still valid, but I do and Reality Capture, we’re believe that the days of makproviding a set of tools to and display ing money with SDKs are the fundamentals of engine is really achieve over,” he replied, “It is a putting the data together wise investment to incentiv- not where Epic and offering high perforise people to develop for plans to remain mance, yet easy-to-use visuyour platform. Just look at alisation in a platform that how the cloud guys seed the is extensible. market, offering free credits for this.”

“We are building a digital twin platAs to the kind of projects that Epic has form that is truly open and accessible funded, Petit explained, “It’s been a wide and that spans multiple industries (e.g. range, we provide seed funding for indie AEC, MFG, GIS). We see our role as enagames, we fund open source projects bling application developers.

(Blender, Godot, AliceVision, Speckle, “There are already many companies Cesium, USD (Pixar’s Universal Scene starting to build solutions for the AEC Description) to name a few. In addition, space on top of Unreal Engine, from many education curricula projects, many Structure Studios (architecture) to tools development projects. We’ve done a Modumate (architecture), to Vision (civlot across the whole spectrum from ils) or something like Project Anywhere

‘‘

’’

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drawings. Buildings are laid out by drawing spaces, as a ‘massing graph’. Then separators, such as walls, floors, roofs, doors windows, stairs and railings are defined from a library. Finishes, trim and cabinets are then added. This promises to be a very rapid form of modelling and the software still provides instant renderings and walk-throughs using Unreal Engine. Users can cut the model anywhere and get accurate DWGs. ■ modumate.com

Modumate

(a world-scale simulation based on Microsoft Azure instance, powered by Nvidia GPU) and a few more who are not public yet.”

With so much money going to so many projects and companies, we wondered how Epic defined success. Petit replied, “We view the Epic MegaGrant program as very successful and for us, success is a vibrant ecosystem where stakeholders feel empowered, supported and achieve their goals with our technology. And we want to do this in a way that is fair and transparent. And if, in the process, we get goodwill, that’s all upside!”

Conclusion Epic is building its own ecosystem. With the ‘gamification’ of the AEC market, it’s clear that the intention is to flesh out Unreal Engine’s modelling capabilities to include more of the standard data formats and capabilities which AEC tools and customers rely on.

Just being a great visualisation and display engine is really not where Epic plans to remain. The core capability to display billions of polys and render in real time, is potentially a great place to start designing in-situ, unencumbered, and now at a city scale and rendered in real time. Performance at this scale with BIM data is beguiling and Unreal Engine 5 is coming out soon too.

■ unrealengine.com/megagrants

www.AECmag.com

24/03/2021 08:49

THEIA-AD.indd 1

23/03/2021 07:22

Testfit.io: optimised building modelling We have all been using Computer Aided Design for decades but, the fact is, the computer has hardly aided in the design so far. The last few years have seen a number of interesting design optimisation tools appear, one of which is Testfit.io

by Martyn Day

A

s an industry we like to label things. The problem comes when marketing gets involved, tailors a label to the capabilities of a product, and it ends up that everyone has a different definition of what those labels mean.

We already have many phrases in common use: generative design, computational design, design optimisation, rulesbased design, algorithmic design, parametric design, data-driven design, AI-based design, the list goes on... There will undoubtedly be more.

The basic fact is the act of design is always a compromise, a trade-off to achieve buildings or infrastructure that works best, conforms to regulation and can be fabricated in a budget.

Unfortunately, the industry has a reputation of delays, budget overruns and sometimes compromised design – there are a slew of reasons for this. BIM has not necessarily been a panacea and, in fact, might contribute to overloading design teams with detail too early on in the process.

With so many competing variables, software developers are now attempting to take some of these burdens off the designer’s shoulders. The areas that every developer has focused on are feasibility and concept design; it’s at this point that fundamental errors can be made and the problem of solving multiple variables is most raw.

There are many formative tools in the space already: Hypar, Digital Blue Foam, Spacemaker.ai (bought by Autodesk), Blox (Gensler internal development), Kreo modular, Blokable, Modelur, Vitruvio, Envelope.city to name but a few.

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This is probably hardly sur- TestFit’s generative design building developers. This has platform can be used prising given the conceptual primarily been because of the to prototype building, phase as being the most overslow adoption of this type of parking, site and urban looked in the workflow. technology by architects, and configurations based on real-world variables Massing rectangles in a BIM the hard fact that the developtool was never much of an ers’ superfast evaluation of upgrade from pen and paper. sites, linked to business metrics like rentWading through this market, one com- able value etc., is easier to justify. pany that has stood out to us is Testfit.io, This bias towards development has based in Texas and headed up by Clifton meant the architectural design communiHarness. As a straight-talking architect, ty is the loser. Testfit.io is very much Harness is building on his vision of a catering to architects and early phase lightning-fast tool that offers a wide design. You don’t need to be able to code range of capabilities to prototype build- to use it and the results are delivered ing, site and urban configurations based graphically in seconds. on real-world variables, solving geomeTestfit.io could be seen as a straightfortry based on competing variables and ward proposition of productivity benefit. constraints such as building codes.

Save time doing the tasks of sheer drudgIn the space, where applications are ery, evaluate multiple design options raptargeting early-stage design, there has idly, and let it assist you in making the been a tendency for most of the software right decisions early on, rather than havdevelopment to be skewed towards ing to alter those designs later. www.AECmag.com

23/03/2021 08:48

Interview

Interview with Clifton Harness, CEO of Testfit.io Martyn Day: Where did Testfit come from?

Clifton Harness: I started out in architecture school, got a BArch at the University of Texas. Before I could, you know, become licensed, I started working in project development, managing architects, doing test fits myself. I then realised that our current system for doing feasibility was quite shit!

I was working till 11 o’clock at night, several days a week. One night I was counting out a parking garage, which involved printing out your whole drawing set and I had to go through and count, and make sure all the numbers were accurate, because the development guys need the numbers, the construction guys need the numbers. Everybody’s basing their real estate deal off of the architect’s numbers. At 11 o’clock at night I was counting these parking stalls and I just sort of stopped and looked at the wall and I asked myself, ‘do I want a career drawing parking stalls?’

I would finish the set and then tabulate everything and put it on my boss’s desk.

He would have gone through and counted everything himself to make sure that my numbers were accurate. He had been doing this for 30 years, he saw no issue with the wasted human effort of counting this crap all day.

So that’s where the innovation is born, out of frustration. I felt like all the architects we worked with were dealing with the same issue, just not having good data.

And nobody trusts each other. It’s a problem. I don’t think we’re here to solve that problem, but maybe we can have more trust with an algorithm that can be consistent. Algorithms tabulate the building the same way every single time. Humans can’t do that, we tried, but we’re a little bit imperfect!

The initial program was a pretty powerful Excel spreadsheet in which I could plan out a building to scale. Then it got to a point where I didn’t understand the math that I had to create to solve the unit mixes and everything automatically, so that’s when I brought Ryan in (Ryan Griege, Testfit.io CTO).

Ryan, my college roommate, was working in game development at the time. I’d call him after work and ask him how I could solve this specific math problem! He eventually replied, ‘You don’t, I’ll build you an app that does it’. He created a little www.AECmag.com

p48_49_50_AEC_MARCHAPRIL21_Testfit.indd 49

terminal application that you’d type in parameters like corridors length, specify the units, hit enter and then it would just do it. It was slow, but it would eventually spit out spreadsheets and a tonne of other things. Then we decided to do create a graphical interface. He built all this software to make me more effective at my job and it just kind of grew from there.

tation. If you have an organising principle, like a dwelling unit, that is a static dimension, that means that construction downstream knows how much rent they can get for that. An architect knows exactly what’s in the construction documents for that. That’s how we’re trying to pick up speed, multifamily units, using a kit of parts approach for documentation.

While everybody’s crazy about the DfMA [design for manufacturing and assembly] there’s enough innovation to be had for design for documentation. It sets projects up for success. For some people, success is the drawing output. For others, it’s the fact they looked at 13 options on a site in 20 minutes, and none of them worked. Everybody’s trying to cram these deals down the pipeline that don’t work and that causes a lot of opportunity costs within architecture.

Martyn Day: How long have you been going now?

Clifton Harness: October of 2017 is when we really got started and then we raised money in January of 2020. We built a successful small business first. I mean, this is probably the difference between us and some of the other start-ups out there, is we had to bootstrap.

We had no idea what the venture world was. We had no idea how to sell software. We had no idea how to build a company. We set out with our minimum viable products and by day 20 made our first sale, day 21 we made our second sale.

Martyn Day: So how much of your development has been from you pushing what you think you can develop to solve vs your customers saying what they need?

Martyn Day: Commercial developers always seem to push the boundaries of what’s viable.

‘‘

An architect, in any market, that undervalues what they think their time is worth, means that everybody else has to compete with that lower threshold

Clifton Harness: The original roadmap that was in my head is basically done, everything that we’re doing now is customer feedback driven. I was just trying to get a building generated with parking counts and stuff, but our customers have taken it to the next level. All their ideas are excellent.

Some wanted to mix in dimensional constraints, which basically meant ripping out all of the unit generation code, fill the whole constrained environment for what we call them ‘kit of parts’ and embed that into the logic. Now people can do their own custom units inside the app.

That’s really probably our most popular feature today; it certainly is the most valuable feature for design for documen-

’’

Clifton Harness: It’s a combination of a couple of things. The developers are trying to achieve profitability in a deal, and they’ve got a lot of levers at their disposal, but the building itself as a deal-making tool is only one of those levers.

They’re going to squeeze the architect to get more.

Even if the architect only has a 10 pound bag, you know, the developers like to fit 16 pounds worth of stuff in there!”

Martyn Day: There are many architectural firms that do this early phase almost for free, just to get the job on the detail stage. The result of successive economy crashes perhaps?

Clifton Harness: I don’t know why they don’t bill for this time. In the US, they essentially will do it for free to get the job.

It’s a race to the bottom. You should have a threshold for what you value your time at.

An architect, in any market, that undervalues what they think their time is March / April 2021

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Interview

worth, means that everybody else has to compete with that lower threshold. And the problem is, that the output of architecture is not heterogeneous, it’s kind of homogeneous in the eyes of developers.

Architecture is a very hard business to be profitable and to compete in. These firms are not going to have the kind of money to develop custom solutions that would be useful for their own company, or afford the expense of a computational designer, maybe $100k a year. If they want to pick up speed and efficiency, using something like [Autodesk] Dynamo, it’s hard and expensive to get implemented.

Martyn Day: Everybody is looking for the technology that will give the industry a productivity boost. There are high hopes for design for manufacturing and assembly, the problem is the architects aren’t engaging with production and the firm is most likely to adopt the software that is already in fabrication or construction.

Clifton Harness: In the US, 0.3% of new multifamily buildings are modular, DfMA, unit ready. That’s not very many buildings - more than it used to be 10 years ago (around 0.1%) but the current issue with innovation that I see isn’t ‘how do we get to DfMA’? It’s how do we get to just generating better construction drawings, more quickly? That’s the practical innovation, it’s not glamorous. I’m not going to raise, whatever Blokable, or one of these guys that gets millions of dollars to ‘radically change how we do housing’.

Unfortunately, the most good that we can do for housing today is to enable architects to make better CDs [contract drawings] more quickly for the traditional construction types.

I’m probably a stick in the mud, when it comes to wanting to hop on the innovation train and challenge the industry.

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Everybody is looking way downstream going to want to be that spider, they’re when we’ve got a dumpster fire right here going to want to be the thing connecting in front of us that we should focus on! everything. We’re seeing developers all How the architect and the contractor, across the country build out their own the developer, the broker, the land seller, contracting company. So what’s the next the city, the bank, the investors - how all Domino to fall? Are they going to grab these people communicate with each architects too? If there’s not an existential other. It’s absolutely archaic. It’s with crisis at the AIA [American Institute of spreadsheets and PDFs and there’s very Architects] over what the future of this little tech-enabled firms in the commodity industry looks like, it’s going to be bad. architecture space.

In order to address that market of pri- Martyn Day: Looking at the market vate development in the United States, today there are many players emerging we can’t just do one building type, we and then you’ve got the mass domination have to do 15 different building types. We of companies like Autodesk, who bought have to do garden apartments, we’ve got Spacemaker.ai Architects’ budgets are to do modular facilities, for hotels modu- tight and the cost of Revit seems to be lar for a long time and hotel ever upward. design. By the way, these can be converted into DfMA Clifton Harness: We welWhile pretty easily. come the challenge. Like everybody’s Then there’s structured everybody says, BIM is a parking, rectangular parking crazy about the mindset, it’s not a software. garages are excellent, DfMA there’s Well, it’s because the softbecause they’re precast. Our ware is so bad that you can’t enough whole country is obsessed make BIM very easy. There innovation to with parking. We had to is yet to be a software that be had for build a more fluid parking will accomplish BIM in my solution for the cast-in-place mind, just right out the box. design for stuff to address crazy shaped that’s where I’m headdocumentation. And sites. I don’t want to have to ed. This is where Testfit is It sets projects headed, and what we’re build out the whole structural engineering component, up for success going to disrupt. We’re but my customers don’t trust going to do it with commodthe garage layouts, because ity buildings. We’re going to they didn’t see the columns. We partnered do it with architects at the centre, we’re with Thornton Tomasetti to get columns going to get as much detail as we can pos(tinyurl.com/testfit-col). sibly get, right from the get go, and build a coalition. We have a laser focus on proMartyn Day: How can architects be viding specific value. more relevant to today’s process?

‘‘

’’

Conclusion

Clifton Harness: I think if architects want to really own the process, they need to look at themselves, like a spider on a web. How do we connect meaningfully with our data?

How do we connect data pipelines meaningfully to our contractor, to our owner, to the developer? How do we actually put ourselves in the centre of this process?

They don’t have construction delivery risk, like the contractor does, they don’t have financial risk like the developer does. And both those groups are going to want to control the risk, they’re

Harness’ Testfit.io has big aspirations and intends to deliver algorithmic design functionality that is usable and delivers value. Find a common problem that eats time and slows evaluation and they will create a solution for it.

Whilst some systems auto generate hundreds or thousands of design options, Testfit cuts to the chase. The system currently evaluates against 160 different variables but still remains lightning fast.

Harness is refreshingly honest and keen to add more building types and test configurations. While the firm has quite a strong US-centric focus regarding building types, Harness has expressed interest in firms opening a dialogue to explore generic design problems. They are certainly up for the challenge.

■ testfit.io

www.AECmag.com

23/03/2021 08:48

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12.03.21 14:58

Data Management for Information Managers

Capture is an information management toolkit that sits on top of the already powerful Twinview platform.

It replaces the manual process of defining, collating, validating and delivering asset information on your project. Whether using a defined schema such as BS1192:4 (COBie) or a custom deliverable, Twinview makes it easy using an intuitive, fully collaborative process.

With built in classification manager, automated rule-set based data validation, AIR automation, query sets and document production, it is a powerful tool for any information manager.

For a platform demo, contact: demo@twinview.com

www.twinview.com

Opinion

Three trends for BIM tools With many feeling that BIM development is stagnating, AEC Magazine asked Bricsys’ BricsCAD BIM product manager, Tiemen Strobbe, what disruptive technologies he thought will drive the industry’s toolsets

T

he construction industry — which encompasses real estate, infrastructure and industrial structures — is one of the largest industries in the global economy. It has a favourable growth outlook driven by global population growth, ongoing urbanisation and increased spending on infrastructure.

However, despite being one of the largest industries in the world, the construction industry has some unfavourable market characteristics:

tion and digitalisation, and low customer satisfaction, as detailed in McKinsey’s 2020 report: The next normal in construction. (tinyurl.com/Con-Normal)

The promise of BIM

towards off-site manufacturing, technological progress in Artificial Intelligence and increased collaboration possibilities.

Design for manufacturing: from projects to products

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is a process for using a shared digital representation of a built asset to ease design, construction, and operation processes to form a reliable basis for decisions.

Although the first BIM applications

Modular construction has the potential to offer a more standardised, consolidated, and integrated construction process.

Modular construction involves producing standardised components of a structure in an off-site factory, and then assembling them on-site.

This approach can speed • A project-based up construction by as Artificial Intelligence has the potential to improve much as 50%, whilst cutbuilding approach and bespoke projects the BIM design process through task automation, ting costs by 20% in the with unique features recognition of design intent and auto-completion of right environment. have a limited degree Whilst the concept of repetitive tasks, to name a few examples of repeatability and modular construction standardisation. has been around for • A highly fragmented many decades, it is curecosystem, in which construction have existed since the 1990s, BIM adop- rently experiencing a new wave of attenrelies on coordination among special- tion rates worldwide have reached just tion due to changing customer percepised groups (including owners, con- 60 to 70 percent in 35 years. tions, and advances in digital design, tractors, architects, and engineers), Nevertheless, the promise of BIM for planning, and production technologies. resulting in limited economies of scale. improving performance across the conIn several countries, including the struction industry is high. We believe United Kingdom, the United States and These market characteristics have that the following emerging disruptions Japan, there is a renewed surge of moducaused the construction industry to his- and future industry dynamics are expect- lar projects, and it is expected that modutorically underperform, typified by lag- ed to accelerate the adoption of BIM and lar construction will increase in popularging productivity growth, slow innova- the digitalisation of the industry: a shift ity in more countries soon.

‘‘

’’

Lagging productivity growth

Slow digititalisation

Low customer satisfaction

Less than 1.0% per year over the past 20 years, compared to 2.8% for the total economy.

Construction is among the least digitised industries in the total economy.

72% of projects are completed over budget. 70% of projects are completed behind schedule.

Source: McKinsey Global Institute, “Reinventing Construction: A Route to Higher Productivity,” 2017.

Source: McKinsey & Company, “The next normal in construction,” 2020.

Source: R. Agarwal, S. Chandrasekaran and M. Shidhar, “Imagining construction’s digital future,” 2016.

www.AECmag.com

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March / April 2021

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24/03/2021 10:00

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24/03/2021 09:50

Opinion

Technology growth potential (2018-19)

Machine

learning

Artificial

Intelligence Virtual

Reality Augmented

Reality

Generative

Design

Source: Business Advantage CAD Trends 2018-2019 report

Mobile

Access

0

50

’’

p53_55_AEC_MARCHAPRIL21_Bricsys.indd 55

243%

172%

138% 100%

87%

100

As McKinsey wrote in its 2019 report: Artificial Intelligence (and its subdoModular construction: From projects to main of Machine Learning) the products, “Modular has had its moments BIM trend with the highest growth before, but there is reason to believe its potential, according to the Business momentum is sustainable this time.” Advantage CAD Trends 2018-2019 (tinyurl.com/modular-AEC) report (tinyurl.com/CAD-report).

This trend will have a significant Artificial Intelligence has the potenimpact on how BIM tools are used dur- tial to improve the BIM design process ing the design phase. Design decisions through task automation, recognition of will need to be made more upfront, and design intent and auto-completion of designers will need to align their proj- repetitive tasks, to name a few examples. ects to the manufacturing process whilst It is important that the AI tools act only focusing on the efficiency as an assistant to the of manufacturing and designer, and the designassembly. er can still reverse, overThis design approach is rule, or simply neglect often referred to as Design any design suggestion as for Manufacture and they wish. Some of the Assembly (DfMA). BIM most interesting applicatools that allow designers to tions of AI in BIM bridge the gap between coninclude: ceptual BIM design and manufacturing and assem• Automatic classificably can significantly reduce tion of BIM elements. the time and cost of the • Auto-completion of design period. Through connection details.

The Covid-19 automation and the devel• Maintaining data pandemic has opment of libraries of modintegrity of models and caused a shift in drawings. ules for the manufacturing process as assemblies, attitudes to cloud • Automatic annotation the design process can construction drawings technology in the of be accelerated to an even (including tags, dimenconstruction larger extent. sions, etc.)

• Model and drawing industry Automation of manual clean-up. work through AI • Assistance in planning.

The interest in Artificial Intelligence (AI) for computer-aided design can be traced Collaboration in the cloud back to the 1970s. The architect and tech- A shift from desktop to cloud-based sernologist Nicholas Negroponte envisioned vices has taken place in many industries. a dynamic between human and machine However, cloud-based services for CAD that “would bring about ideas unrealis- and BIM are not yet widely adopted in able by either conversant alone.” the AEC industry. Nevertheless, there are More than 50 years later, the advent of strong future growth indicators for big data, increased computing power, cloud-based BIM services, especially in and cloud computing have made addition to desktop BIM tools. The Covid-

‘‘

250%

143%

Cloud-based

CAD

www.AECmag.com

150

200

250

19 pandemic has caused a shift in attitudes to cloud technology in the construction industry, and working with models in the cloud while working from home has had a positive effect on general work performance.

The most important aspects of working with BIM in the cloud are design collaboration, design review, and construction collaboration. According to the Business Advantage CAD Trends 2018-2019 report over half of the CAD professionals use the cloud for exchanging or collaboration with files and models, and half of them use the cloud for storing and reviewing files and models.

It is expected that BIM tools for collaboration can reduce the time and cost of the design period: These tools: • Enable the possibility to trace back design changes.

• Avoid conflicts and assign ownership.

• Allow prompt and seamless communication during the design process • Coordinate work across teams.

• Support non-linear design flows, keeping track of multiple design options.

• Facilitate last minute design changes.

A good example of collaboration workflow can be found in the software development industry. In software development, many developers are cooperating on source code whilst using versioncontrol systems for tracking changes in files and coordinating work among programmers.

It is expected that such technologies will gradually find their way in BIM tools, if they are built for non-technical users, built for project workflows, and built for design change chaos.

■ bricsys.com

March / April 2021

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Software

MassMotion evolution With the ongoing pandemic, work, travel and public social distancing look set to remain important for months to come. Crowd simulation software, such as Oasys MassMotion, has really come in to its own, writes Martyn Day

A

EC magazine typically looks at software and hardware which can assist in the digital design of building projects.

Typically, these are forward-looking design assessments to help shape and improve the quality of any proposed project. In our strange new Coronavirus world of lockdowns and limited capacities, these design simulation and analysis tools are providing essential feedback on how we can bring existing buildings safely back to use.

As you might expect, one of the key developments added to Oasys’ pedestrian and crowd simulator, MassMotion, this year has been proximity-based tools, to help its customers respond to proximityfears and disease spread.

This functionality has enabled users to carry out urgent simulations to help facility and transit authorities to respond to the variable regulations imposed throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.

The software can model physical distances between each agent, mapping exposure times and interactions and ultimately identifying the maximum capacity of any given space, with various minimum distances. Of course, MassMotion can also be used to simulate queue spacing, one-way systems and other strategies, which, once proven, can be deployed to bring public buildings back to use within Government Covid-19 guidelines which should hopefully evolve as we head to a post-corona world.

However, the demands for help with social distancing and managing with the new limitations quickly initiated new feature development.

Also, because the way that people were working with MassMotion changed, Oasys had to make some changes to the licensing of the software, because the aim is to get people back on their feet and this

is a once in a generation shock.

Miles explained that while some customers would identify new features, such as the ability to better simulate accessibility for wheelchairs or adding elevators for high rise, from Oasys’ perspective the most important development has been the creation of MassMotion’s Software Development Kit (SDK).

In conversation Lachlan Miles, is product director of MassMotion at Oasys and is the driving force behind its development. He started as an engineer and moved into the software world. We discussed MassMotion’s development and what’s coming next.

Miles first explained that initially he thought Covid-19 was not going to be great news for crowd simulation as governments didn’t want the public to use mass transit, theme parks and stadiums.

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Theme Park: crowd simulation and heat-maps to identify queue times at ticketing and main entrance

www.AECmag.com

24/03/2021 10:14

While the SDK can be used to automate simple things, it actually puts MassMotion into new dynamic conceptual workflows that large practices are currently developing (see our Bespoke BIM software workflows story from earlier this year - tinyurl.com/Bespoke-BIM).

In the software world, Miles explained that, for both desktop and cloud, “If software doesn’t have decent APIs or open input / outputs, software will become increasingly isolated.”

He added that Oasys gets requests to take the simulation data from customers and use it in Autodesk 3ds max or Unreal Engine and historically software players said no because they want to keep customers within their application. Moving forwards this isn’t going to work.

The MassMotion SDK shares the agent database and offers other developers a direct pipeline. This means plug-in developers can factor MassMotion infor-

mation and feed it into any system the client chooses.

MassMotion is a desktop application, while the software world seems to be going cloud. “Cloud is the next big thing that we’re doing with MassMotion”, explained Miles, “…and we are not just throwing up the existing code on Amazon Web Services and changing the UI. The development team has almost tripled in size in the last year. The main thing that we’re doing is basically taking the engine out of the car and refactoring it for the cloud.”

“When we released the SDK a little while ago, the aim was always to get to feature parity. So, anything you can do in the UI, you can script, from placing portals for agent generation to a full Grasshopper plug-in system - and so we have started writing that.

“For us, in terms of what’s coming next in version 11, due out around summer-

time, we’ve decided to offer tools for really big customers, who are able to dedicate someone who knows C sharp and can spend two weeks reading documentation and developing something really unique and useful. But we are also going to make it accessible for someone at an engineering firm who’s learning Python maybe in their spare time.

“Of course, we will also include features that users have asked for like fly through cameras, different avatars and visual tweaks.”

But the research never stops. Miles explained that because buildings are smarter and smarter, there is more understanding of not just the occupants, but also how things are being used. Large infrastructure like airports or train stations are now sensor-rich spaces. Oasys is funding an ambitious research programme into how you take this Internet of Things (IoT) data and construct data pipelines directly into future releases of MassMotion.

Conclusion While the industry has had to adapt to a year of distancing and remote working, applications like MassMotion have proven invaluable when considering pandemic regulations. As we look forward to hopefully a summer of the easing and perhaps some sense of normality, it’s clear that simulation and analysis of public spaces will become increasingly important both for future developments, as well as for emergency planning.

MassMotion is undergoing an incredible amount of development work, both on the desktop and in the cloud, where data needs to be accessible to everybody in the project, through to digital twins. Oasys is looking to cater to all levels of clients, from those who just want basic simulations, to those who want to embed and build on top of it within their new digital workflows. We find this latter development exceptionally interesting and it is exactly the kind of capability that large practices are currently looking for.

We will certainly be catching up with Lachlan Miles again later this year as we carry on exploring how software developers and architectural practices are now working together to customise their own workflows and processes, to tailor-make their design technology stacks.

Increasingly software should not be just considered on feature sets alone, but on connectivity and how the data it creates can be refactored and used within the design and lifecycle of AEC assets.

■ oasys-software.com

www.AECmag.com

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Case study

A problem shared...

How an optimised cloud-based digital construction workflow helped the ECC Group keep its largest projects on track, improve site productivity, cut contractor’s unseen costs and reduce the impact of Covid-19.

R

ecognised as one of Ireland’s foremost engineering companies, the award winning ECC Group operates out of the UK and Ireland. Current live projects include the construction of numerous data centres for one of the world’s largest social media platforms, often up to 400m in length, along with other vast structures for pharmaceutical and life science companies.

With 2020 throwing up innumerable challenges, ECC Group CEO, John McGoey, was intent on delivering an enhanced service for his clients that would keep their large infrastructure projects on track. Required to provide structural and layout information to the contractors on these projects, McGoey was using 3D laser scanning as the best option for the fast collection of accurate point cloud information that would record every detail.

The existing workflow would then see this scan data sent to the office based ECC BIM team where it would be processed in Trimble RealWorks software and then stored, ready to be retrieved when progress meetings etc. were scheduled.

However, with the potential delays that Covid-19 could cause and the need for remote working, McGoey felt that a fresh look at how he collected, processed and shared each project’s survey data would bring enduring benefits to both existing and future contracts.

Straight to the point As a curious and committed supporter of technology and a long-term user of Trimble instruments, McGoey contacted Trimble’s UK and Irish distributor, Korec, to talk through some possible approaches on how to get better use out of the data he was collecting.

In particular, how he could ensure that all the project’s stakeholders including the QC team, senior management and package management - could have access to this rich and up to date information whilst avoiding site visits and overcoming the issue of files being too big to email.

By better sharing the latest site data, McGoey felt that it would vastly reduce the risk of delays and rework and also keep people fully informed, all from the safety of the office rather than on site

1

which could result in all parties crowding around a paper plan or single screen.

The living document Following a consultation with Korec and Trimble, McGoey turned to Trimble’s Cloud Engine software (TCE). The software creates a ‘living’ document of the scanned point cloud data, ideal for monitoring the construction process and detecting clashes etc. in a format that could be easily understood by technical and non-technical stakeholders.

TCE allows each scan dataset to be shared as a simple URL link (identical to inserting a web link in an email) added as a note to a 2D drawing which is then shared with the client and contractors by email.

From the client perspective, this allows them to view the 2D plans and additionally, via one simple click, to be transported into an interactive 3D model of the build, complete with imagery. Here, they can zoom, pan, check coordinates, tag elements, add notes and PDFs and of course view the scan, all whilst discussing the project plan with the ECC team.

Clear communication Following the implementation of the new workflow, McGoey reports that the benefits have been diverse. For a start, as opposed to basic 2D plans, the software is making full use of the rich 3-dimensional point cloud data and shares it in a format that is both intuitive and quick to learn.

This has greatly increased client engagement and the overall understanding of a project’s progression.

As well as fostering trust between the parties, this increased engagement

1 Trimble software was used to create a ‘living’ document of the scanned point cloud data 2 Tripods with wheels were used to manoeuvre the laser scanners around the vast floor areas

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18/03/2021 11:46

2

1 Quick activa i

‘‘

2C Vec (

The early morning scan team arrives on site and the data is processed, with the URL link emailed to stakeholders by the close of play that day, ensuring that all relevant parties have access to the most up to date data

3V

’’

reduces misinterpretation and misunderstanding, as it allows the most realistic view possible of the project.

From a safety and site management perspective, this workflow reduces onsite personnel to the bare minimum with just one operative required to collect the 3D data and the accompanying imagery.

Less bodies on site means less accidents, less person-to-person contact (vital at this time), and frees up staff for other, safer, more valuable office-based tasks.

The TCE software is also free to use for all nominated stakeholders and the simple, intuitive layout ensures that very little (if any) training is required from the client side. This means that contractors can considerably reduce unseen costs www.AECmag.com

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such as travel. QA teams can be managing multiple global projects and therefore having access to this quality of data from wherever they may be significantly reduces unseen costs through remote inspections, QA and sign offs etc.

Same day turnaround With a highly effective workflow tried and tested, McGoey further enhanced his scanning operations to increase efficiency. Already using Trimble’s highest spec laser scanner, the TX8, which was perfect for long range scans, he supplemented it with the addition of a Trimble X7.

With a schedule of up to 50 scans per day he ensured that the programme was planned at least a week in advance detail-

ing scan density etc. Additionally, in order to speed up operations, the tripods were often placed on wheels for easy manoeuvring around the vast floor areas.

However, it is the functionality of the Trimble X7 that has had the most impact.

The X7 automatically registers scans on site and the size of the data files are smaller and more manageable reducing processing time in the office. So much so that McGoey can now offer clients a ‘one day’ service.

The early morning scan team arrives on site and the data is processed, with the URL link emailed to stakeholders by the close of play that day, ensuring that all relevant parties have access to the most up to date data.

McGoey is already looking at the next step in this new workflow recently supplying two sub-contractors with Trimble’s XR10 HoloLens System, a mixed reality headset purpose-built to fit into an industry-standard hardhat.

This technology allows ECC or the subcontractors to bring models of their client’s construction projects out of the screen and onto the site so that they appear lifelike and can be moved and changed depending on how the user interacts with them.

Models are given context when overlaid onto the real world hugely assisting the onsite team. They can also be used for remote sessions and progress reporting – ideal for keeping people apart during Covid-19.

■ korecgroup.com ■ eccgroup.ie

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Feature

5G: powering tomorrow’s construction sites By delivering real-time data, 5G can help construction firms deploy onsite innovations such as IoT structural sensing and holographic building visualisation, writes James Bristow of Cradlepoint

F

rom real-time 3D modelling to GPS tracking equipment and tools, construction sites are often hotbeds of the latest in cutting edge technology. Getting devices to talk to one another, on the other hand, can be a challenge. After all, plugging a laptop into a wall is tough when the wall hasn’t been built yet.

This presents a clear use case for wireless as the primary method of network connectivity in the industry, an area which is proving just as transformational as the physical devices it connects. From gigabit speeds over LTE to the millisecond latency of 5G, the power of the wireless WAN (WWAN) is allowing sites to achieve an ethernet-like quality of connection but without the need to lay a single cable.

5G is expected to provide 10 to 100 times faster speeds. It could also unlock 10 to 100 times more capacity than current long-term evolution (LTE) networks. This will give those working in construction almost instantaneous access to data-intensive edge and cloud applications, enabling multiple users to interact with each other in real-time, from anywhere in the world.

Given that construction sites are complex and constantly-evolving environments, this will be a huge step forward.

With a higher data crunching capacity combined with more efficient connectivity channels through network slicing, 5G is also key to unlocking the power of massive machine-type communications in the construction industry. This technology will provide highly scalable and broad geographical coverage to help with complex construction and infrastructural projects such as smart cities, where the number of nodes will be considerably higher than on a normal project.

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Looking further ahead, 5G will also prove key in accelerating the industry toward autonomous and remote operations – in other words, completing projects by machine alone, without the need of having people on site. Even though remote-control technology exists at present, 5G’s ultra-low latency eliminates any delay in connectivity and ensure work is completed with adequate speed and precision. This could also unlock the capabilities of self-driving machines, which will be able to accurately map areas, recognise signals and communicate with other machines more efficiently.

Taylor Construction A demonstration of the power of 5G in the transformation of the construction industry was recently brought to light in Australia, where one of the first realworld deployment of 5G connectivity was rolled out by visionary company Taylor Construction.

Driven by a need for more advanced and agile software platforms to power everything from blueprint design to site security, Taylor Construction noted that such applications require real-time data, which is only possible with immense bandwidth, low latency and constant uptime at the edge of the network with 5G. Using an enterprise-grade WWAN edge solution provided by Cradlepoint, the company has successfully deployed a number of new onsite innovations powered by 5G: • Holographic building visualisation – comprising mixed-reality smart glasses that Taylor’s employees and customers can wear on-site to render a virtual model of the building or ele-

ments of the construction process, such as structural steel, framing, or electrical schematics.

• 360-degree 8K streaming and QR code scanning from wireless video cameras – enabling site workers to deploy digital induction tracking, which is said to improve risk management by automating the process of ensuring every person on-site has completed safety training.

• Internet of things (IoT) structural sensing – using smart sensors fixed to rebar and embedded in concrete aggregate to send data to the cloud where it can be subject to rapid and in-depth analysis. As a result, Taylor Construction can determine whether concrete is poured correctly and track any shifting of concrete over time.

• Real-time design displays – allowing staff on site to make changes to digital blueprints in real time on tablets and display on large monitors in trailers.

Scratching the surface While 5G is making technological leaps forward at an accelerated rate, the construction industry is still only scratching at the surface of its full potential. Like the innovations which were helped along by the power of 4G LTE, we won’t know how 5G will manifest in exciting new use cases in the future. But what we do know, is that this future is bright.

It’s clear that 5G will improve productivity, safety and compliance for construction and engineering. But this is by no means the end-goal. Instead, 5G will be a catalyst of continuous improvement and innovation, helping to accelerate firms in the construction industry and beyond toward the use cases of tomorrow.

■ cradlepoint.com

www.AECmag.com

18/03/2021 11:56

V E R C AT O R Automatic Point Cloud Processing Powered by the Cloud agile . scalable . efficient . reliable

Our fast, accurate, on-cloud registration service can now take more data than ever!

3D Lidar from SLAM/Mobile Devices 3D Lidar from Terrestrial Scanners 3D Lidar from UAVs

Combining them into a single, HYBRID data set.

www.vercator.com

Nvidia RTX A6000 review One of the most eagerly anticipated workstation GPUs in recent years has finally arrived, and it’s certainly been worth the wait, writes Greg Corke

N

vidia first announced its new Nvidia RTX A6000 workstation GPU back in October 2020. But with delays, we’ve been eagerly awaiting its arrival. Now it’s finally here and UK firm Scan sent us a sample of the PNY Nvidia RTX A6000 inside its new 3XS GWP-ME N1-32T AMD Ryzen Threadripper workstation, which we take a closer look at below.

Tuned for visualisation workflows, the Nvidia RTX A6000 (A for Ampere) is Nvidia’s second generation RTX GPU. With an emphasis on hardware-based

ray tracing, it promises to deliver more than double the GPU rendering performance of its predecessor, the Turingbased Nvidia Quadro RTX 6000. And, of course, it also offers a significant boost for 3D graphics, VR, and AI workflows.

And all for £3,730 + VAT. The Nvidia RTX A6000 is the first workstation GPU to be built on the Nvidia Ampere architecture, and also the first to support PCIe Gen 4. With double the bandwidth of PCIe Gen 3, it should mean data can move in and out of the GPU quicker, but it won’t benefit all workflows.

PCIe Gen 4 is currently only available in workstations with the latest AMD CPUs, such as the Ryzen 5000 series and 3rd Gen Ryzen Threadripper. However, it will soon be supported on the forthcoming 11th Gen Intel Core S-series CPU.

What no Quadro?

You may have noticed that the Nvidia RTX A6000 is missing something. Yes, after 17 years, it appears that Nvidia is retiring its Quadro brand.

For someone who has written about Nvidia professional GPUs since the early

Scan 3XS GWP-ME N1-32T review With the new Nvidia RTX A6000 GPU and AMD Ryzen Threadripper CPU, this beast of a workstation has the power to deliver in a whole range of design viz workflows, writes Greg Corke In the world of design viz, there’s an ongoing debate about CPU / GPU rendering and where to best allocate your workstation budget.

Do you place an emphasis on GPU, with one or more high-end graphics cards for rendering, coupled with a high GHz, low core count CPU, or go large with a

64-core CPU and spend what’s left on a half decent GPU for real time 3D? The reality is, for those that take design viz seriously, and rely on multiple applications, it’s never really that black and white.

Unreal Engine, for example, thrives on a powerful multicore CPU for many of its

workflows including recompiling shaders and building lighting. In V-Ray you can choose to render on GPU or CPU depending on what you want to achieve. The good news is, with Scan’s latest workstation users don’t have to make that decision.

Equipped with an AMD Ryzen Threadripper CPU and the brand new high-end Nvidia RTX A6000 GPU there’s buckets of processing power for all different types of workflows.

Nvidia RTX A6000 GPU In workstation reviews like this, the CPU normally gets top billing – after all it’s the heart of the machine – but when you have a component as impressive as Nvidia’s new high-end workstation GPU, the Nvidia RTX A6000, it’s impossible not to break protocol.

The Nvidia RTX A6000 is Nvidia’s first professional desktop GPU based on its ‘Ampere’ architecture. It’s a Quadro in everything but name, with all the features you’d expect from a pro class GPU, such as support for ECC memory, stereo, Frame

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Lock for viz clusters and GPU virtualisation.

The most notable feature, however, is that is comes with 48 GB of on-board GDDR6 memory. This is colossal amount for any GPU, and plenty for handling complex scenes in GPU renderers, both in terms of high-poly models and high-res textures.

On test, the Nvidia RTX A6000 didn’t disappoint. In GPU renderers V-Ray GPU and KeyShot 10 we saw double (in some cases more than double) the render performance of the previous generation ‘Turing’ Nvidia Quadro RTX 6000 (24GB).

In real time 3D applications, including Enscape and Autodesk VRED Professional, the leap wasn’t as big, but still gave a performance increase of between 1.40 and 1.50. In short, the Nvidia RTX A6000 looks to be an amazing GPU for rendering, real time 3D and VR. We cover this in far more detail in our in-depth Nvidia RTX A6000 review above.

AMD Ryzen Threadripper Our test machine came with the 32-core AMD Ryzen

Threadripper 3970X, but other Ryzen Threadripper CPUs are also available, including 64-core and 24-core models.

At just under £1,500 + VAT for the CPU, the 32-core AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3970X gives you a huge amount of multi-threaded processing power for your money.

In KeyShot, for example, it completed our 4K test scene in an impressive 66 secs, second only to the Armari Magnetar X64T-G3 FWL (38 secs) (tinyurl.com/armari-AEC) and Lenovo ThinkStation P620 (47 secs) (tinyurl.com/ TRPRO-AEC), both of which had 64-core Threadripper / Threadripper Pro) CPUs. In the V-Ray 5.0 benchmark it delivered a score of 34,902 vsamples. As this benchmark is new we have very little historical data at AEC Magazine, but you can see comparative scores at tinyurl.com/V-ray-bench.

Changing tack to point cloud processing, the Scan 3XS GWP-ME N1-32T set a new record in our Leica Cyclone Register 360 benchmark, registering our 100 GB dataset in an incredible 2,119

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Workstations

secs. As this application is only lightly threaded, the workstation’s fast memory (128 GB of DDR4 3600MHz) and fast storage (PCIe 4.0 NVMe) will also have played a very important role.

The beauty of Threadripper is you also get good single threaded performance, which is essential for CAD and BIM workflows.

Amazingly, it completed our Solidworks IGES export test in 81 secs, just 6 secs slower than the current record holder, an Intel Core-i910900K (10 core) clocked to 5.0 GHz.

Cool runnings The substantial 280W CPU is cooled by an all-in-one Hydro CPU cooler, the Cooler Master MasterLiquid ML360 TR4 Edition. It features a plate / pump that bolts directly onto the processor, with tubes leading to a substantial three fan radiator attached to the roof of the case.

For a CPU of this power, it’s relatively quiet in operation, but fan noise is noticeable.

The pitch of the fans also goes up and down, depending on what’s being processed, although this was mostly apparent when processing point clouds in Cyclone Register 360 where the CPU load comes in waves.

Acoustics aside, it does an excellent job keeping the CPU running at top speeds. It

maintained an impressive 4.0 GHz when rendering in KeyShot for over an hour, 0.3 GHz above its base clock of 3.70 GHz. In CAD software Solidworks it hovered around 4.30 GHz under single threaded loads and in Lecia Cyclone, which is lightly multi-threaded, 4.15 GHz.

Superfast storage For storage, Scan has done something we don’t see very often – an M.2 NVMe SSD for the main system drive and a 2.5-inch SATA SSD for data.

The 2TB WD Black SN850 M.2 SSD is based on the new PCIe Gen 4.0 standard, which is fully supported on the Threadripper platform courtesy of the Asus RoG STRIX TRX40-E motherboard.

It means you get vastly superior sequential read/ write performance (up to 5,839 MB/s read and 4,827 MB/s write, according to the AS SSD benchmark). This may go some way to explaining the leading scores in our Leica Cyclone point cloud processing test which reads and writes hundreds of gigabytes of data.

With 4TB on the Samsung 860 Evo SATA SSD, there’s plenty of capacity as well, but the machine can also be kitted out two more M.2 NVMe SSDs and multiple SATA Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) if required.

www.AECmag.com

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The workstation For a machine of this class, it’s not surprising that Scan has gone for a substantial chassis. The Fractal Design Define 7 measures 547 x 240 x 475 mm and weighs 13.45 kg (before you add any components).

Our review machine came with a tempered glass window side panel, so you can gaze admiringly at the components inside – if that’s your thing.

Joking aside, Scan has done a nice job of the interior, setting the RGB lighting system to all-white. And when you have a GPU as beautiful as the Nvidia RTX A6000, then why not show it off to your colleagues? If you don’t want to brag, then a solid side panel is an option.

Thanks to the Asus motherboard there’s a whopping number of ports: 8 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 (1 Type-C) and 4 x USB 2.0 on the rear; 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type A and 2 x USB 2.0 front top. There’s support for fast 2.5GbE NIC Ethernet, plus built in Intel Wi-Fi 6-AX 200.

The system is powered by a 1,000W version of the Corsair RMi power supply, which is 80PLUS Gold rated.

However, even though the motherboard can take a second Nvidia RTX A6000, if you do want to double up with NVlink and get a GPU memory pool of 96 GB, you

may need a more powerful power supply.

Our test machine’s 128 GB is split across four super-fast 32 GB 3600MHz Corsair Vengeance DIMMs, making the most of Threadripper’s four channel architecture, and leaving four slots free for future upgrades.

Product spec ■ AMD Ryzen

Threadripper 3970X CPU (32C/64T) (3.7GHz – 4.5GHz) ■ Nvidia RTX A6000

GPU (48 GB GDDR6 ECC) (461.09 driver)

Conclusion

■ 128 GB Corsair

With a 32-core Threadripper CPU, and the most powerful workstation GPU money can buy, the Scan 3XS GWP-ME N1-32T is a powerhouse for multi-application design viz workflows — CPU-centric or GPU-centric, it really doesn’t matter.

And with 128 GB of fast DDR4 memory (with capacity for 256 GB) there plenty of scope for multi-tasking, allowing you to chop and change between applications with ease.

As with most Scan workstations, this one is very well built and generally quiet in operation.

However, in workflows where CPU load varies, some may find the fan noise distracting.

Of course, at £7,500 (Ex VAT) the Scan 3XS GWPME N1-32T doesn’t come cheap, but if you’re looking for machine to make light work of any CPU or GPU centric design viz workflow you throw at it, then you’ll know this would be money well spent.

Vengeance LPX 3600MHz DDR4 memory ■ 2TB WD Black SN850

PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD + 4TB Samsung 860 EVO SATA SSD Asus ROG STRIX TRX40-E mainboard ■

Fractal Design Define 7 case (547 x 240 x 475 mm) ■

Cooler Master MasterLiquid ML360 CPU cooler ■

Corsair RM1000i – 80PLUS Gold PSU ■

Microsoft Windows 10 Pro 64-bit ■

3 year warranty - 1st Year Onsite, 2nd and 3rd Year RTB ■

£7,500 (Ex VAT) scan.co.uk/3xs

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Enscape 2.6 Museum model

4K

4K (3,840 x 1,080 resolution)

Frames Per Second (FPS) (bigger is better)

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AMD Threadripper 634Pro 3995WX (457.09 driver) 500

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2500

2000s, it’s hard to get used to this change. RTX 6000. This is particularly relevant And, it would seem, Nvidia is struggling for those working with high poly count too. For the October launch, product pho- models and very high resolution textures tos were sent out with ‘Nvidia Quadro in GPU renderers or real time visualisaRTX A6000’ in the file name, which sug- tion / VR. But more on this later. gests a last minute re-branding.

What’s more, two Nvidia RTX A6000s But the Nvidia RTX A6000 is certainly can be bridged together with an NVLink a Quadro card in everything but name. It adapter to create a memory pool of 96 has certified drivers for pro applications, GB. However, sharing geometry between renowned reliability, ECC memory and two GPUs can come with a significant plenty of specialist features for pro visuali- performance hit. sation, such as stereo and Frame Lock for viz clusters. There’s also support for Nvidia Beauty and the beast virtual GPU (vGPU) software, which Nvidia’s product design team has allows a workstation to be repurposed into really gone to town on the Nvidia RTX multiple high-performance A6000 and the card is a 1 KeyShot 10: RealCloth 2.0 virtual workstation instances. thing of beauty, with a miniwith coarse weave With 48 GB of VRAM, the malist angular design and (uses 6.8 / 48 GB VRAM) Nvidia RTX A6000 has the black mirror finish. NVLink, 2 KeyShot 10: RealCloth 2.0 most memory of any profesStereo and Sync connectors with a much finer weave sional GPU – on a par with are all hidden away behind (uses 38.2 / 48 GB VRAM) the Quadro RTX 8000, and discrete panels.

3 Enscape real time rendering test model double that of the Quadro The board is rated at

1

8.45

AMD Threadripper 3790X (461.09 driver)

123

AMD Threadripper 923 Pro 3995WX (457.09 driver)

500

Luxion KeyShot 10 benchmark (GPU)

1,346

2

16.75

0 1

2,490

1

2000

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vrays (calculations per minute) (bigger is better)

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659

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1,531

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Chaos Group V-Ray 5.0 benchmark 123

25.15

Nvidia Quadro RTX 4000 1 40

Frames Per Second (FPS) (bigger is better)

1.23

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22.05 0

AMD Threadripper Pro 3995WX (457.09 driver)

4K (3,840 x 1,080 resolution)

43.75

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19

AMD Threadripper 3790X (461.09 driver)

64.3

4K

Automotive model (Anti Aliasing - Ultra-high)

Frames Per Second (FPS) (bigger is better)

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38

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1.23

Autodesk VRED Professional 2021

4K

Automotive model (Anti Aliasing - Medium)

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Autodesk VRED Professional 2021

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99.62 50.48

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AMD Threadripper 33.83 Pro 3995WX (457.09 driver)

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300W, so you’ll need a fairly hefty PSU in your workstation. It gets its power from a special 8-pin connector, that is connected to two standard 8-pin PSU connectors via an adapter. It is cooled by two fans, top and bottom. There are four DisplayPort 1.4a connectors nestled below a heat sink.

Testing the Nvidia RTX A6000 AEC Magazine put the PNY Nvidia RTX A6000 through a series of real-world application benchmarks, both GPU rendering and real time visualisation.

The GPU is simply overkill for current generation CAD and BIM software, so we didn’t do any testing in that regard.

However, it’s important to note that it will still be certified for the likes of Revit and ArchiCAD, which is useful if you plan to use those kinds of applications alongside more viz focused tools like Enscape, V-Ray and Lumion.

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3 For comparison, we used a Quadro RTX 4000 and historic data from the Quadro RTX 6000 GPU (457.09 driver), tested in a Lenovo ThinkStation P620 workstation with AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro 3995WX processor and 128 GB RAM.

Chaos Group V-Ray

GPU memory – why 48 GB?

V-Ray is arguably the No. 1 physicallybased rendering tool for arch viz. We put the Nvidia RTX A6000 through its paces using the new, freely downloadable, V-Ray 5 benchmark, which has dedicated tests for Nvidia CUDA GPUs, Nvidia RTX GPUs, as well as CPUs. The results were extremely compelling, with the Nvidia RTX A6000 showing itself to be 2.32 faster than the Nvidia Quadro RTX 6000 in the CUDA test and 1.85 times faster in the RTX test.

Considering this is just a generation on generation comparison, it’s a phenomenal leap in performance.

One aspect of technology that has long held back GPU rendering is the limited amount of GPU memory available on each card. When a scene, including geometry, materials and lighting, doesn’t fit entirely into GPU memory, the render GPU rendering can fail, slow down (if it runs ‘out of core’ GPU rendering has now reached a stage using system memory), or simply fall where it is becoming ubiquitous. While back to the CPU. renderers built into CAD and BIM appliThere are many established workacations still tend to rely on the CPU, most rounds to help users ensure a dataset fits of the major design viz focused renderers entirely within GPU memory — such as now offer a GPU rendering capability. resizing or optimising textures, simplifyThis includes traditional ray trace rening or stripping out geometry, or renderderers such as Chaos Group V-Ray, ing in separate passes — but all of this Luxion KeyShot and Solidworks takes time to prep. What the user really Visualize, all of which can take full Luxion KeyShot wants is not to have to worry about GPU advantage of Nvidia RTX technology, KeyShot, a CPU rendering stalwart, is a memory at all. including the dedicated Ray Tracing relative newcomer to the world of GPU With 48 GB, the Nvidia RTX A6000 is cores and Tensor cores arguably the GPU that for AI denoising. will enable this. And Then there are real while it’s not the first to It’s quite incredible to think it has managed to time ray tracing tools like offer that much memory Unreal Engine and the double the GPU rendering performance, generation (the Quadro RTX 8000 new Chaos Vantage (for- on generation. And, it’s hardly dragging its heels in also came with 48 GB) it’s merly known as Project the first to do so at a sub real time 3D either, with a 1.4 to 1.5 boost Lavina), which works £4,000 price point. with V-Ray scenes. (N.B. Of course, for some you can currently pick workflows 48 GB will be up a free one year licence if you register rendering. But it’s one of the slickest overkill. However, for those pushing the before June 2021). implementations we’ve seen, allowing boundaries of realism, using very hiAs a side note, it’s important to check users to switch between CPU and GPU fidelity textures (such as those captured that your chosen GPU rendering tool rendering at the click of a button. from real-life scans) or colossal engineersupports the new Nvidia RTX A6000.

In the Keyshot 10 benchmark, part of ing accurate datasets, it should open up a Users of Solidworks Visualize 2021, for the free KeyShot Viewer, we saw similar wealth of opportunities. example, will have to wait until Service results to V-Ray. The Nvidia RTX A6000 Luxion, for example, has in the past Pack 3 in April 2021 before they can take outperformed the Quadro RTX 6000 by reported ray tracing a KeyShot scene with advantage of any ‘Ampere’ GPU. a factor of 1.97.

1.37 billion unique triangles using two

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Workstations

Quadro RTX 5000 cards and NVLink for a combined 32 GB of memory.

Indeed, despite its designer-friendly workflows, KeyShot is doing a lot to break new ground. A new feature in KeyShot 10 called RealCloth 2.0 allows users to generate visually accurate woven materials using thread geometry. However, this can be incredibly memory hungry when using the option to represent each individual thread as a geometric entity, even with relatively small scenes.

Previously, we’ve explored this feature in our sister publication DEVELOP3D (tinyurl.com/KeyShot10). Using a 16 GB Quadro RTX 5000, however, we quickly ran out of memory, with the scene falling back to the CPU to render. However, things were entirely different with the Nvidia RTX A6000.

With 48 GB to play with we were able to much better match the scale of the weave in KeyShot to that of the physical fabric. As you will see from the images on the previous page, the difference in accuracy, in terms of how the material is represented, is quite incredible.

Of course, RealCloth 2.0 is quite a niche example. However, there will certainly be some architectural or automotive visualisers out there that would benefit from 48 GB (or even 96 GB with two RTX A6000s over NVlink) now or in the future. You’ll know who you are.

Real time 3D While GPU rendering is a major play for the Nvidia RTX A6000, real time 3D using OpenGL and DirectX continues to be a very important part of architectural visualisation, with applications includ-

ing TwinMotion, Lumion, Enscape, Unreal Engine and others. And, of course, the boundaries between real time 3D and ray tracing continue to blur.

To test frame rates we used FRAPS in combination with a 3DConnexion SpaceMouse to ensure the models moved in a consistent way every time. We only tested at 4K (3,840 x 2,160) resolution. At FHD (1,920 x 1,080) resolution this level of GPU simply isn’t stressed enough.

Enscape Enscape is a real-time viz and VR tool for architects that uses OpenGL and delivers very high-quality graphics in the viewport. Enscape has used elements of ray tracing in its software for some time.

Newer versions of the software are RTXenabled, so full ray tracing can be toggled on and off.

For our tests, Enscape provided a large architectural scene of a museum and its surrounding area. At 7.5GB, the GPU memory requirements of this model are relatively high, but Enscape models can take up much more and this is a drop in the ocean for the Quadro RTX A6000.

In terms of performance, the Nvidia RTX A6000 delivered a phenomenal 53 frames per second (FPS) for an incredibly smooth experience. This is around 1.39 times faster than the Nvidia Quadro RTX 6000 and 2.79 times faster than the Nvidia Quadro RTX 4000.

Autodesk VRED Professional Autodesk VRED Professional is an automotive-focused 3D visualisation, virtual prototyping and VR tool. It uses OpenGL and delivers very high-quality visuals in

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the viewport. It offers several levels of real time anti-aliasing (AA), which is important for automotive styling, as it smooths the edges of body panels. However, AA calculations use a lot of GPU resources, both in terms of processing and memory.

We tested our automotive model with AA set to ‘off’, ‘medium’ and ‘ultra-high’.

The Nvidia RTX A6000 was significantly faster than the Quadro RTX 6000 delivering between 1.46 and 1.50 more frames per second in all of our tests. Most notably, the card delivered a very smooth 25.15 FPS when AA set to ‘ultra high’, which is unheard for a model of this complexity. This is 2.97 times faster than a Quadro RTX 4000.

Conclusion Nvidia has put a huge effort into developing its hardware-based ray tracing technology and it’s now really starting to see the fruits.

It’s quite incredible to think it has managed to double the GPU rendering performance, generation on generation. And, it’s hardly dragging its heels in real time 3D either, with a 1.4 to 1.5 boost.

Rendering has become the big battleground for hardware manufacturers and, with the 64-core AMD Ryzen Threadripper CPU, competition between GPU and CPU has never been so fierce.

CPUs have always had the lead when it comes to addressable memory and there’s an ongoing debate about rendering performance vs accuracy. But with 48 GB per GPU, and the ability to scale up cards as and when required (the new Supermicro SuperWorkstation 5014A-TT can support up to four Nvidia RTX A6000s), the argument for GPU rendering has never been more compelling.

In many ways the biggest competition for the Nvidia RTX A6000 is from Nvidia itself. The consumer-focused Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 should offer roughly the same performance for one third of the price. It does have half the memory (24GB) but with support for NVLink, two can be linked together to create a virtual 48 GB render resource. The downside is — it’s currently nigh on impossible to get hold of a board and prices are inflated.

Of course, for some firms it will always need to be Quadro all the way. Or should we say Quadro in features, warranty, reliability and certification, but not in name?

It’s going to take some time to get used to the rebranding.

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