AEC Magazine May / June 2015 by X3DMEDIA

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

Some light relief? Ultra portable mobile workstations: BIM on the go without the bulk

Londonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s deathray Building analysis for Revit Performance BIM: ArchiCAD 19

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

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Ultra portable laptops for BIM 12 A new generation of slimline mobile workstations is changing the way you can do CAD and BIM on the go. We put five machines to the test.

External storage for workstations 25 From SSDs to HDDs and Thunderbolt to USB, we look at a variety of different external storage options for CAD.

add-ons aim to provide architects and engineers with a graphical dashboard in Revit for performance feedback early on in the design process.

Daylight analysis: a new narrative 42 Architects are using daylight analysis to better tell the story of a design to clients. Together, renderings and analysis build a more complete — and more compelling — case for design, writes Carl S. Sterner.

Taming London’s Performance BIM: deathray 44 ArchiCAD 19 26 Design visualisation specialist With significant speed increases in this latest update, Graphisoft is clearly aiming to get the attention of Autodesk Revit customers who are frustrated with slow model performance.

Lightworks considers how enhancements in modelling and physically based rendering could help eliminate environmental, material and design flaws.

BIM transitions part 2 32

Structural design & interoperability 49

Sean Bryant gives more practical advice on how a CAD manager in a medium-sized, multi-disciplinary practice can help smooth the path to collaborative Level 2 BIM.

Fitzpatrick Engineering Group uses Bentley software to help save material costs on $18m rehabilitation centre, while sharing design model data with steel fabricator and delivering a Revit model for facilities management

Vabi Dashboard 36

Also this month: 4, 6, 9, 10 News

A new range of low-cost, design analysis May / June 2015

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News

Trimble and Nemetschek push for interoperability As a result of the alliance, workflows between products like Tekla Structures and SCIA Engineer could be streamlined

New HP inkjet ‘60% faster than LED’ P’s new PageWide XL printers, which can print up 30 A1 colour prints per minute, are the first CAD-focused printers to be based on HP’s PageWide Technology, an inkjet technology that prints from a scalable printhead across the entire page in a single pass. HP reckons the new printers are so fast that they can do the job of two printers in one single device, providing monochrome and colour prints speeds up to 60 percent faster than the fastest monochrome LED printer.

■ tinyurl.com/pagewide

n what appears to be a big win for interoperability in the AEC industry, Trimble has formed a strategic alliance with Nemetschek Group with a view to expanding the deployment of BIM across the entire Design-Build-Operate (DBO) lifecycle of buildings. The companies intend to transparently share data formats and, much like the Trimble / Bentley Systems alliance of last year, tighten the connection of Virtual Design & Construction (VDC) solutions to real data from the field and real objects in the physical world. Both companies say they are committed to open standards and workflows. “Across the DBO spectrum, customers want the freedom to choose the best tools for the job and the security of knowing those tools will work together. But too

often they find that the data they need is not interoperable across their different software workflows,” said Bryn Fosburgh, VP, Trimble’s Construction Technology Divisions. “Our companies’ shared vision is to give users a choice, rather than dictate what they use.” Trimble and Nemetschek plan use the Trimble Connect platform (Trimble’s cloud-based collaboration environment) to integrate design modelling and 5D construction management workflows and create close interoperability between selected Trimble solutions—including SketchUp, Tekla Structures, Vico Office, Trimble Prolog, Trimble Field Link and MEPdesigner for SketchUp—and solutions in the Nemetschek portfolio, such as Allplan, ArchiCAD, DDS, SCIA Engineering, Vectorworks and Nevaris.

and multi-processing technologies of ArchiCAD 18, the new technology uses unused computer capacity to anticipate potential future user actions and prepare for them in the background. According to Graphisoft, this greatly increases the

May / June 2015

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new link between Rhino and ArchiCAD allows ArchiCAD users on both Mac and Windows to import Rhino models into ArchiCAD as GDL objects (ArchiCAD’s generic object format). The free software comprises a plug-in for Rhino 5 and an addon for ArchiCAD 18 and allows complex shapes created in Rhino’s NURBS-based engine to be brought into ArchiCAD.

■ Full story @ tinyurl.com/rhinolink

■ Full story @ tinyurl.com/trim-nem

ArchiCAD 19 optimised for performance raphisoft continues to focus on performance with a new ‘Predictive background processing’ technology being the headline feature of its latest ArchiCAD 19 release. Building on the 64-bit

ArchiCAD Rhino link

overall responsiveness of the application, so it feels more agile with projects of any type or size. 3D graphics performance has also been improved thanks to a ‘fullyoptimised OpenGL engine. See page 26 for a full review.

Put BIM apps in the cloud rame (previously called Mainframe2) has launched the public BETA of its new enduser product that allows architects and engineers to put CAD or BIM applications in the cloud and access them through any web browser.

■ Full story @ tinyurl.com/frameBIM

www.AECmag.com

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News

ROUND UP Robot analysis Project Octopus, an Autodesk tech preview that allowed Robot Structural Analysis users to access data and results with Microsoft Excel, is now an official add-on product called Results Connect ■ tinyurl.com/robot-sim

Navisworks plug-in KUBUS has released a Navisworks plugin for BIMcollab, its cloud-based issue management system that uses BuildingSMART’s BCF format. Plug-ins are also available for Revit & ArchiCAD. ■ bimcollab.com

Print 3D content Materialise has previewed a new cloud service that improves the accessibility and ability to 3D print digital models available in Trimble’s 3D Warehouse. ■ 3DWarehouse.sketchup.com

Vulcan grip Tighter integration between Bentley Systems’ AECOsim Building Designer and Trimble’s Vulcan HVAC sheet metal cutting software means design models can be shared more easily. ■ buildings.trimble.com ■ bentley.com

Natural visualisation LumenRT Architect from E-on software allows SketchUp and ArchiCAD designs to be transformed into ‘nature-filled images, videos and interactive worlds’. ■ lumenrt.com

First person shooter Unity@Revit is a new add-in that connects Revit with the Unity gaming development platform. Users can have a first person 3D shooter like experience navigating a Revit model. ■ amcbridge.com

CityEngine enhanced Esri CityEngine 2015 is said to be faster and feature higher-quality visuals. The software is used for urban planning, architecture and design and can turn 2D GIS Data into smart 3D city models. ■ esri.com/software/cityengine

Revizto embraces VR Revizto, the AEC-focused visual collaboration software, now has a VR capability with both Oculus and Igloo Vision 360° supported in the 3.3 release. ■ revizto.com

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Tekla unveils analysis and design tool ekla Structural Designer is a new analysis and design tool for structural engineers who work on commercial building projects. The software is designed to complement the company’s Tekla Structures BIM tool and offers features for optimising concrete and steel design. Tekla Structural Designer enables structural engineers to create a single analysis and design model. According to Tekla, this eliminates the need for postprocessing analysis results. Fully automated loading and design includes wind loading and finite element analysis while product documentation is automatically produced. Engineers can create and compare multiple design options to help determine the most competitive scheme and manage changes, say the developers. Tekla claims changes can be easily managed and applied across the entire model to instantly assess impact and automatically get a re-design in seconds.

Calculation reports that automatically update are said to eliminate the need to generate new reports manually when changes occur. Structural engineers can synchronise models with Tekla Structures and other BIM software using auditing tools that show what has been added, changed or deleted during integration. Meanwhile, Tekla has also released a new version of its structural and construction-focused BIM tool. Tekla Structures 21 delivers new features for interoperability, drawing control, usability and performance. In addition, a new service — Tekla Model Sharing — allows project team members to work on the same Tekla model from any location. ■ Tekla Structural Designer @ tinyurl.com/teklaSIM ■ Tekla Structures 21 @ tinyurl.com/tekla21

Trimble developing holographic apps rimble is developing a range of tools for Microsoft’s HoloLens technology for use in the design, construction and operation of buildings and structures. With the head-mounted, holographic, mixed reality technology, Trimble says it

will be able to create new ways for the participants of complex, multi-phase construction projects to visualise, collaborate, share ideas and manage change. At a recent Microsoft conference users were able to experience SketchUp models as holograms placed in the real world—

enabling them to analyse various “what if” design scenarios in the context of the physical environment. Another demonstration with Trimble Connect showed how remote teams could review, collaborate and resolve constructability issues in real time. ■ Full story @ tinyurl.com/holo-AEC

Drone app to automate aerial reporting urboSite Drone from IMSI is said to be the first ever automated aerial reporting app for UAVs. Users can set waypoints in advance of a flight in order to autonomously

pilot a 3DR-powered vehicle to precise GPS coordinates. This allows users to take photos, videos, dictations, and text notes at that precise spot, as well as assign action items for future follow-up.

Photos can be marked up even while the drone is still airborne. Custom reports can be generated and distributed to specific people on the design team before the UAV lands. ■ Full story @ tinyurl.com/AEC-drone

www.AECmag.com

14/5/15 11:13:52

Advertorial

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All App data is stored within your BIM model. If you know how to use Revit¨ youÕ ll quickly and easily be able to use the Vabi¨ Apps and better integrate your design teamsÕ work.

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BIM ROADSHOW A journey demonstrating how today’s technology and processes can make a real difference in a project lifecycle. From inception, through design and construction, to meeting the owner’s ongoing space and asset management requirements, we will use real data to make the journey a reality.

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News

Revit 2016 tuned for speed utodesk has focused a lot of its development efforts for Revit 2016 on user productivity with the new release incorporating a number of new features and settings to boost model performance. With the new ‘Navigation during Redraw’ feature Autodesk says models can be navigated smoothly and continuously without having to wait for the software to finish drawing elements at each step when panning and zooming around a view. Model performance in large projects can also be improved by new settings in the calculations drop-down. According to Autodesk, Revit 2016 also takes better advantage of video hardware to provide faster updates to views that contain multiple instances of families. Improved linked file performance also means Revit models with links display faster, with geometric display calculation working only on links that appear within the crop region. Interoperability has been enhanced with improved IFC linking, With IFC Links and Rooms when creating rooms in the host model, you can use many IFC-based

Cl3VER pricing CL3VER has added V-Ray materials and new pricing (from $50 per month) to its cloud based platform for interactive 3D presentations, ■ Full story @ tinyurl.com/cl3ver-50

MEP estimating elements to define room boundaries. Other features include the ability to make adjustments in perspective views (so users don’t need to change views to make edits). Revision enhancements allow multiple revisions to be selected in the Sheet Issues/ Revisions dialog making it easy to delete multiple revisions at once. A new rendering engine — Autodesk raytracer — now offers an alternative to mental ray. For architects, Revit 2016 introduces a number of new Energy Analysis capabilities. Meanwhile, for structural design, the analytical model has been improved to help solve round-tripping issues between Revit and structural analysis software. ■ autodesk.com

Online viewer added to ICON System CON was one of several firms to participate in Autodesk’s Cloud Accelerator program, held in San Francisco in March. The Leicestershire-based web software development company —whose technology is used by many of the large retail firms in the UK for managing design

specifications during both pre-build and post build phases of a project — used the two week program to start development on a new online 3D file viewing capability for its ICON System. With development continuing back in the UK, the ‘Hotdog’ 3D Model Viewer can now query the

ICON system for the corresponding specification information and then display it directly within the browser. Interested parties can now try out some test models on a new website (hotdog. gallery) using Firefox or Chrome as well as register for a free trial of the system. ■ Full story @ tinyurl.com

BIM content management in the cloud IMobject Hercules is a new cloud-based content management solution aimed at the larger contracting, construction, consultant and architectural companies so they can develop, manage, publish and control their own

www.AECmag.com

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ROUND UP

BIM content, including documentation, CAD files and BIM objects. The Hercules service is offered as a yearly subscription and features Mosquito for generating BIM objects; BOPC (BIMobject Open Property Cloud) for managing additional properties in

BIM objects; and BIManalytics for detailed information on cloud traffic. Product Administration enables companies to selfmanage their content and there is integration into several BIM systems including Revit, ArchiCAD, SketchUp and AutoCAD.

MEP Estimating from ViewPoint now features an integrated Web-based pricing tool to speed communications between contractors and suppliers ■ Full story @ tinyurl.com/EST-MEP

360° video imaging The SphereVision 360 Degree Video Imaging Solution can be used to create interactive 360 degree videography for use in building and FM ■ arithmetica.com

Model sharing Trimble has added a social enhancement to its online 3D Warehouse to encourage communication and sharing with other SketchUp designers, including architects, engineers and construction professionals. ■ 3dwarehouse.sketchup.com

Atkins supports HS2 Atkins has won a four year contract to provide BIM technical services to HS2, the firm behind Britain’s new north-south rail link. It includes BIM educational and assessment tools for the supply chain. ■ atkinsglobal.com

Bentley buys EADOC Bentley has acquired EADOC, a provider of construction management cloud services. EADOC’s technology will be used to advance ProjectWise and extend data into Bentley mobile apps. ■ eadocsoftware.com ■ bentley.com

Search Revit for free A free app, 3D Information Retrieval (3DIR, allows users to search Revit models for info by using specific key words or specifying a 2D area, 3D volume, or a set of 3D components. ■ tinyurl.com/Revit-info

Topcon Magnet Topcon has released v3 of its MAGNET suite of software solutions. Features include ‘seamless’ data transfer of Autodesk solutions to Topcon solutions without additional file conversion steps. ■ magnet-tour.com

■ Full story @ tinyurl.com/her-BIM

May / June 2015

14/5/15 11:14:07

News: SPAR International

New Z+F solution registers point cloud data on the fly

Point cloud processing and meshing

oller + Fröhlich’s new 3D laser scanner, the Z+F IMAGER 5010X, is said to come with a unique navigation system which works both outdoors and indoors. This is made possible by GPS and MEMSbased inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensors, combined with an automatic registration capability, which estimates the scanner position and orientation without any external targets. The scanner will also track the movements while carrying the device on to the next scanning position. Things appear to get even more interesting when combining the Z+F IMAGER 5010X with the new Z+F LaserControl Scout Windows tablet software. This resulting so-called ‘Blue Workflow’ allows users to check data and target quality and register scans before leaving the site. If any gaps are found in the data users can then fill them in with more scans, helping ensure the point cloud dataset is complete. As data registration and verification is traditionally done back in the office this could be a huge time saver by reducing

hinkbox Software used last month’s SPAR International conference in Houston, Texas to preview Sequoia, its AECfocused software that converts point cloud data into geometry. Sequoia is a standalone app for point cloud processing and meshing. Its multi-threaded technology uses multi-core systems and is said to handle data processing asynchronously to ensure interactivity even during heavy calculations.

the need for site re-visits. Z+F LaserControl Scout software automatically synchronizes all scan data locally and, after registration, updates all scans on the scanner. Data transfer between the LaserControl Scout software and IMAGER 5010X is carried out over high-speed WiFi (802.11n with dual antennas), which can move 200MB of data in 30 seconds. Both devices can be used in parallel, which helps minimise time on site: the Scout software can register scans while the laser scanner captures new data. ■ Full story @ tinyurl.com/ZF-blue

New point cloud tools target Revit users he annual SPAR conference was the launchpad for two new point cloud / laser scanning tools for Revit: PointSense for Revit and EdgeWise 5.0. PointSense for Revit is a brand new laser scanning software from FARO, designed to evaluate and convert point cloud data into BIM models inside Revit. The software provides tools for ‘fast and precise’ creation of walls, including automatic generation of different wall types and thicknesses. Faro says tools for fully automatic wall alignment create continuous wall ranges and orthogonal floor

plans, even on varying floor levels. Wall angle tolerances can be defined by the user. Additional functions include automatic generation of family types based on dimensions extracted from the point cloud and the creation of digital ground models (so called Toposurface). PointSense for Revit also provides a range of 3D design utilities. The application allows for the creation of 3D model lines and construction points via an all new 3D point snap within the point cloud. EdgeWise 5.0 from ClearEdge 3D is the latest release of a product that

May / June 2015

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can create as built BIM models from point clouds. It features automated extraction of gridded steel and concrete structure and improved Revit integration that enables import of outof-tolerance and nonstandard as-built elbows. EdgeWise BIM Suite, a BIM-specific version of the software with tight Revit integration, can automatically identify and extract walls, windows, doors, pipes and other features from point clouds and export them as Revit family objects. ■ Read the full story on PointSense

for Revit @ tinyurl.com/pointsense ■ Read the full story on EdgeWise

5.0 @ tinyurl.com/edgewise5

■ Full story @ tinyurl.com/think-seq

Autodesk boosts ReCap utodesk’s new ReCap 360 Ultimate software offers users improved targetless automatic registration of terrestrial laser scans. The base ReCap product, which is free, allows users to import laser scans, visualise, publish, and share point clouds, and prepare data for modelling, while ReCap 360 adds advanced measurement & markup tools.

■ recap.autodesk.com

Trimble to sell DPI-8 scanner rimble is to sell DotProduct’s DPI-8 handheld 3D scanner. The DPI-8 is designed to simplify the process of collecting “as-built” data to help effectively manage building projects. DotProduct’s Phi.3D software is fully compatible with Trimble Realworks. The collaboration aims to boost scanning technology adoption for building design and construction.

■ Full story @ tinyurl.com/dot-scanner

www.AECmag.com

14/5/15 11:45:49

Tekla Structural Designer is here. Revolutionary Analysis & Design Software. Work faster, more efficiently and win more projects. Tekla Structural Designer helps you do all this and more. NEW for Structural Engineers.

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Group test

Ultra portable 15-inch mobile workstations CAD folks with hefty laptops have long envied the Ultrabooks and MacBooks of fellow travellers. But a new generation of slimline mobile workstations is changing the way you can do CAD and BIM on the go, writes Greg Corke.

he first mobile workstations were 5kg beasts, almost guaranteed to put your back out on work trips. Weights have now come down, but most 15-inch machines still come in at a hefty 3kg. Bruised shoulders from laptop bags are no longer guaranteed, but you will likely feel the strain at the end of the day. Until recently, attempts at ultra mobile workstations have meant serious tradeoffs in both performance and screen size. When your job relies on detailed architectural or engineering design, running CAD or BIM software on a 14-inch laptop simply will not cut it for some. Everything changed in 2013 when Dell unveiled the Precision M3800, the first proper ultra portable mobile workstation with a 15.6-inch screen. At 1.88kg in weight and 8mm at its most slender, this MacBook Pro look-alike certainly turned some heads. Since then HP, Lenovo and MSI have all followed suit, delivering 15-inch machines that are certified and optimised to run 3D CAD and BIM software but also offer the same mobility as a slimline business laptop. Compared to a standard 15-inch mobile workstation, there are some compromises. On the whole, performance is lower. There is a maximum 16GB of RAM (instead of 32GB), which could be a stumbling block for those with complex Revit models. There is only room for one or two drives (instead or two or three) and you can forget about having a DVD drive. But they are considerably lighter. Most come in under 2kg and when power adapters are included the savings can be as much as 1.5kg. There is no standard template for these next generation mobile workstations. Manufacturers blend portability and per-

May / June 2015

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test, which can make use of all available formance in different ways. Broadly speaking there are two types of CPU cores, illustrates the benefits of having a quad core CPU over one with two cores. ultra portable mobile workstations. While our 3D graphics tests use CAD 1) Those based on a business-class laptop applications more commonly associated chassis, so include enterprise features like with product design and engineering, rathfingerprint scanner and docking port. er than architecture, they should give a Some models are classified as Ultrabooks. good idea of the relative 3D performance With Dual Core Ultra Low Voltage CPUs one might experience in an AEC-focused CAD or BIM application. and low power professional To test battery life, we GPUs they used PCMark 8’s prioritise Creative test (OpenCL), battery life which uses CPUs and over perforGPUs for tasks including mance. video editing, media transThey are coding and gaming. It is not m o r e CAD but should give a fairly suited to good indication of what to entr yexpect under a heavy compute level load — though it is important C A D to note that the test uses builta n d in Intel graphics, rather than the discrete Quadro or FirePro GPUs, which draw more power, so it is not perfect. All machines were set to high performance. Display brightness o r P EN HP OM was set at lowest and highest levels and both scores recorded. Of course, do not take the battery figures BIM than rendering. They include the HP ZBook 15u as gospel. If you only use your machine for Word or Excel then the battery will last a (p15) and Lenovo ThinkPad W550s (p17). whole lot longer. 2) Those based on a 3D gaming laptop chassis where performance is an absolute priority but battery life is more limited and AEC Magazine’s fans are noisier under load. They feature Mobile Quad Core CPUs that deliver in CAD and workstation BIM software as well as when rendering. buyer’s Professional GPUs sit between entry-level guide and mid-range. They include the Dell Precision M3800 (p21), MSI WS60 (p18) and HP OMEN Pro (p22). To assess performance we used a range of 3D CAD applications. Our 3ds Max render

Everything you ever wanted to know about BIM-class laptops tinyurl.com/MWS-buyer

www.AECmag.com

13/05/2015 16:52

Lenovo ThinkPad W550s

Dell Precision M3800

MSI WS60

HP OMEN Pro [pre-production unit]

Processor (CPU)

Intel Core i7-5600U (2.60GHz up to 3.20GHz (2 cores, 4 threads)

Intel Core i7-4712HQ (2.30GHz up to 3.30GHz) (4 cores, 8 threads

Intel Core i7-4710HQ (2.50GHz up to 3.50GHz) (4 cores, 8 threads)

Intel Core i7-4870HQ (2.50GHz up to 3.70GHz) (4 cores, 8 threads)

Memory (RAM)

16 GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3L-1600 SDRAM

16GB (2 x 8GB) 12800 DDR3L 1600MHz

16GB (2 x 8GB) 1600MHz DDR3L

16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3 L 1,600MHz

16GB (2 x 8GB) 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM

Graphics (GPU)

AMD FirePro M4170 (1 GB) + Intel HD Graphics 5500

Nvidia Quadro K620M (2GB) +Intel HD Graphics 5500

Nvidia Quadro K1100M (2GB) + Intel HD Graphics 4600

Nvidia Quadro K2100M (2GB GDDR5)

Nvidia Quadro K1100M (2GB) + Intel Iris Pro Graphics 5200

Display

15.6” diagonal LED-backlit FHD UWVA IPS eDP antiglare + PSR (1,920 x 1,080)

15.5” 3K (2,880 x 1,620) IPS Multi-touch, 350nits

15.6” 4K Ultra HD (3,840 x 2,160) Dell UltraSharp, IGZO2, 10 finger multi-touch, wide view, LED-backlit

15.6-inch 1,920 x 1,080, Anti Glare, Wide Viewing Angle

15.6” diagonal full HD WLED backlit touch screen display (1,920 x 1,080)

Drives

256GB HP Z Turbo Drive (PCIe SSD) + 512GB 2.5-inch SATA SSD

512GB 2.5-inch SATA SSD

256GB Solid State Drive (SSD)Full Mini Card

128GB M.2 SATA SSD + 1TB 2.5-inch HDD

512 Gb HP Z Turbo Drive (PCIe SSD)

Keyboard / Mouse

Spill-resistant keyboard. Image sensor Touchpad with two-way scroll, gestures. Pointstick with two buttons

ThinkPad Precision Keyboard with NumPad & Backlight

Backlit full size keyboard. Gesture enabled multi-touch touchpad with two buttons

Full-colour Backlight Keyboard by SteelSeries (includes numeric keypad)

Full-size islandstyle backlit keyboard. Touchpad with multi-touch gesture support

Battery

HP Long Life 3-cell, 50 WHr Li-ion polymer prismatic

3 cell Front (44 Whr) + 6 cell Rear High Capacity (72 Whr)

Dell 61 WHr 6-Cell Lithium-Ion Battery

6-Cell Li-polymer Battery (52.9Wh)

4-cell, 58 WHr 3.82Ah Lithium-ion polymer battery

Wireless

Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265 802.11a/b/g/n (2x2) and Bluetooth

Intel Dual Band Wireless- AC 7265, 2x2, Wi-Fi + Bluetooth, M.2 card

Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 @ 5GHz + Bluetooth 4.0

Wi-Fi (Intel 802.11 a/c) Bluetooth v4.0

Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 802.11ac (2x2) WiFi + Bluetooth 4.0 Combo

Ports

3 x USB 3.0 (1 x USB 3.0 charging) Intel I218-LM Gigabit Ethernet

3 x USB 3.0 (one Always-On charging port), RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet

2 x USB 3.0 + 1 x USB 2.0 (all with PowerShare), Thunderbolt 2.0/mini DisplayPort (mDP). USB 3.0 to Ethernet adapter included

3 x USB 3.0 Thunderbolt 2 RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet

4 x USB 3.0 USB to Ethernet Adapter (included)

Expansion / security

1 secure digital; 1 smart card reader

Fingerprint reader. Smart Card reader. Integrated 4-in1 SD card reader

3-in-1 media card reader

SD (XC/HC) memory card reader

Multi-format SD media card reader

Display outputs

VGA, DisplayPort

VGA, Mini DisplayPort v 1.2

Mini DisplayPort, HDMi

HDMI, Mini DisplayPort

Webcam

720p HD

Light sensitive HD video webcam

FHD type (30fps @ 1080p)

HP TrueVision Full HD WVA Webcam

Docking

Side docking port for HP UltraSlim Docking Station

Bottom docking port for Ultra Dock Docking Station

No dedicated docking port Dell D3100 USB 3.0 dock

No dedicated docking port

Size (W x D x H)

375.5 x 253.6 x 21.42 mm

380.6 x 258.2 x 23.3 mm

372 x 254 x 8-18 mm

390 x 266 x 19.9 mm

383 x 248 x 15.5 mm

Weight (machine + power adapter incl UK plug)

Starting at 1.91kg + 0.45kg

2.48kg + 0.33kg

Starts at 1.88kg + 0.49kg

Starting at 1.9kg + 0.67kg

2.12kg + 0.63kg

Operating System

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

Microsoft Windows 8.1 Professional 64-bit

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

Warranty

Standard limited 3 years parts, 3 years labour, and 3 years onsite service (3/3/3)

3 year on site

Standard 1-year (optional 3, 4 or 5 year) Next Business Day Service On Site Service after Remote Diagnosis

3 year: parts, labour, collect and return

3-year Next Business Day Onsite

Website

hp.co.uk

lenovo.co.uk

dell.co.uk

uk.msi.com

hp.co.uk

574

643

300

267

273

CAD (SolidWorks 2013)

3.14

Benchmark does not run on Win 8

4.28 @ HD / 1.85 @ 4K

4.55

4.26*

CAD (PTC Creo 2.0)

3.45

3.44 to 4.12*

4.24 @ HD / 4.14 @ 4K

4.98

4.46*

Battery test (PCMark 8) Compute intensive creative test (max & min brightness)

2h 40mins 3h 23mins

6h 33mins* No min brightness recorded

2h 11mins 2h 42mins

1h 32mins 1h 45mins

1h 50mins* 2h 07mins*

Price (excl VAT)

£1,315

£1,956

£1,599

£1,416

£TBC

* TESTING PERFORMED ON PRE-PRODUCTION UNIT SO PERFORMANCE COULD CHANGE WITH FINAL PRODUCTION UNIT

HP ZBook 15u

CPU benchmarks (smaller is better) Rendering (3ds Max Design) Graphics benchmarks (bigger is better)

www.AECmag.com

p12_13_15_17_18_21_22_25_Mobile workstations.indd 13

May / June 2015

13/05/2015 16:53

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Group test The HP ZBook 15u offers impressive serviceability, head and shoulders above all other ultra portable mobile workstations

6 5 7 7

4 2

1 HP Easy Access Door ● 2 3-cell, 50-WHr, 4.5-AHr battery ● 3 2.5-inch drive (SSD or HDD) ● 4 HP Z Turbo Drive ● 5 WLAN module ● 6 Memory modules ● 7 Screws to release keyboard ●

HP Zbook 15u This new addition to the HP ZBook family goes all out for portability but still retains the key enterprise features of its older siblings Portability is clearly a big focus for HP at the moment, launching not one but two slimline 15-inch mobile workstations in the space of six months. The HP ZBook 15u is the more enterprise-focused of the two (the HP OMEN Pro (p22) being the other) and delivers many of the features you would expect to see in a higher-end mobile workstation. This includes fingerprint scanner, Smart Card reader, (side) docking port and the impressive HP Easy Access Door (more on this later). The big pitch for the ZBook 15u is its portability and HP is focusing much of its marketing efforts around the machine’s ‘Ultrabook’ standing. For those not familiar with this Intel classification, for a laptop to be called an Ultrabook manufacturers have to meet certain specifications relating to battery life, thickness, performance, wake from sleep time and others. With the HP ZBook 15u (and Lenovo ThinkPad W550s) things get a little confusing as not all models qualify as an Ultrabook — specifically, we think, those that do not use an SSD for the OS — but on the whole one can expect all models to come close. Key to the ZBook 15u achieving its Ultrabook status is the Intel Core i7-5600U, an Ultra low voltage (ULV) dual-core CPU based on the Broadwell architecture. This CPU might lack the multi-threaded power of the quad core chip found in the HP OMEN Pro and Dell Precision M3800, but with a clock speed of 2.6GHz rising to 3.2GHz, it still delivers where it matters for CAD and BIM. And it does so without breaking into a sweat. Fan noise was kept to an absolute minimum, even www.AECmag.com

p12_13_15_17_18_21_22_25_Mobile workstations.indd 15

under heavy loading. Like most mobile workstations, the HP ZBook 15u relies on switchable graphics with a view to saving power. It uses the built in Intel HD Graphics 5500 for mainstream apps and swaps over to the higher performance CAD-focused AMD FirePro M4170 (1GB GDDR5) as and when required. This should happen automatically, as it did for our CAD test suite, but individual apps can be matched to GPUs in AMD’s Catalyst Control Center software. Despite its entry-level positioning, the AMD FirePro M4170 delivered some decent scores in our 3D tests. Compared to the more powerful Dell Precision M3800 with Nvidia Quadro K1100M, it was only 19% slower in Creo and 27% slower in SolidWorks. In practice it should give users a good experience when working with small to mediumsized CAD and BIM models. While compromises have been made with CPU and GPU, there is nothing entry-level about the storage with a PCIebased 256GB HP Z Turbo Drive for operating system and applications and a 512GB SATA-based SanDisk X210 2.5inch SSD for data. Our tests showed that the HP Z Turbo Drive delivered around 70% better sequential read speeds and 40% faster sequential read speeds than the SanDisk X210, which is great news if you frequently copy large files. 3ds Max also opened slightly quicker, taking 17.3 secs on the HP Z Turbo Drive and 18.4 secs on the SanDisk X210. However, in the AS SSD benchmark, the SanDisk X210 SSD actually scored higher in random read/write performance and access time so the benefits of PCIe storage are not as broad as one might presume. As you would expect from an HP ZBook, build quality is excellent and despite its 1.91kg weight the machine feels solid and well built. Serviceability is superb with all key components easily accessible behind the

excellent HP Easy Access Door. Simply remove the optional security screw, slide the switch, pull off the panel and memory, storage, WLAN and battery are all within easy reach. HP scores big points here, standing head and shoulders above the competition, which all require messing about with lots of fiddly screws. Despite its moderate spec, the HP Long Life 3-cell, 50 WHr Li-ion battery lasted a respectable two hours 40mins under the heavy load PCMark 8 battery test. The multi-touch image sensor Touchpad is precise and the backlit keyboard comfortable in use but a numeric keypad is noticeably absent. Dedicated power, airplane mode and mute buttons sit conveniently between keyboard and screen. The HD (1,920 x 1,080) matte screen is of good quality but, in this age of IPS panels, nothing outstanding. There is no optional touch screen like there is with its ‘Ultrabook’ sibling, the ZBook 14. Even with a thickness of 21.42mm HP has managed to include a standard RJ45 port in the chassis. This ingenious design has a spring-loaded hinge that expands the port to its full width when you plug in an Ethernet cable. Dual Band Wireless-AC is on tap for high-speed WiFi. There are four USB 3.0 ports, one of which is always on so smart phones and other devices can be charged even when the mobile workstation is off. DisplayPort and VGA give both digital and analogue options for connecting to external displays. The HP ZBook 15u is an impressive addition to the HP ZBook family, giving fans of the enterprise-class CAD laptops an ultra-portable 15-inch offering. While the ZBook 15 and ZBook 17 are pitched as desktop replacements, the ZBook 15u, with its entry-level 3D graphics feels more like a companion to a desktop machine. But if you are after a slimline, highly portable ‘Ultrabook’ for travel that is also optimised for entry-level 3D CAD and BIM, it is an excellent choice. May / June 2015

13/05/2015 16:53

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Group test

Lenovo ThinkPad W550s

the ThinkPad’s 15.5-inch 2,880 x 1,620 multi-touch display with Windows 8.1 was a moment of enlightenment. While we would not recommend it for precise CAD work, in terms of navigating files, apps and web pages, touching the With unrivalled battery life Lenovo has screen directly is often much quicker and created a CAD-class laptop that can more intuitive than using the trackpad or truly be used all day long without having to plug into the mains. point stick. That is not to say the trackpad is poor. Battery life can be a big issue for CAD on A vast improvement over the one used in the go. But when a laptop has workstationthe ThinkPad W540, we found it comfortclass components throughout one cannot able and precise. really expect it to last more than a few The backlit keyboard took a little gethours away from the mains. ting used to, as the island style keys have This really sucks if you are a frequent more travel than most, but we adjusted traveller or too old to be fighting over quite quickly and the numeric keypad is a sockets in Starbucks, and is something big bonus for CAD. The ThinkPad W550s that Lenovo has acknowledged with its and the MSI WS60 were the only two new ThinkPad W550s, which gets the machines in this group test to boast this Intel Ultrabook seal of approval in some often-valued feature. configurations. The chassis is classic ThinkPad — a Lenovo claims its new slimline machine solid, well built simple design with a soft has the best battery life of any mobile touch finish on the lid. However, it lacks the workstation. And we would have to agree. serviceability of Lenovo’s desktop P-series Fully loaded with nine cells, it lasted an workstations and accessing the internals is incredible 6h 33mins in our compute a bit of a challenge due to an awkward plasintensive PCMark 8 battery test, about tic back panel with multiple screws. twice as long as its closest rival, the HP In saying that there probably is not ZBook 15u. much cause for access as upgrades are limWith the benchmark hammering CPU ited. Like all of the mobile workstations in and GPU for most of its duration, we our group test, RAM is maxed out at 16GB. would expect this machine to last well However, more surprisingly, Lenovo only over a whole day under more has room for one 2.5-inch drive. restrained use (think Word and Our test machine’s 512GB SATA Excel with a sprinkling of BIM). SSD is perfectly adequate, but It offers a unique proposition for The secret to the ThinkPad’s those in need of more capacity to ultra portable 15-inch mobile longevity is not rocket science — store hefty CAD datasets will have powerful batteries combined with to choose a slower 1TB HDD. workstations — a CAD-class laptop low-voltage processors mean the continued on page 18.... that can last all day on batteries power issue is tackled on two fronts. However, the way that Lenovo Intelligent Cooling is one has implemented its batteries is rather of a number of features unique. Rather than having a single battery the that can be adjusted the intuitive ThinkPad W550s has two: a fixed internal through 3 Cell (44 Whr) and a removable external Lenovo Settings software. Rather than having to drill battery that clips underneath. The external battery comes in three down into the Windows options. A 3-cell (23 Whr) model that sits Control Panel and dialogue flush with the underside of the machine box upon dialogue box, the or a 6-cell (48 WHr) or 6-cell (72 Whr) touchpad, wireless, network, that protrudes from the bottom — by power, camera and fingerprint reader can all be configabout the width of an AA battery. As the eternal battery can be easily ured from an easy-to-use removed, you can extend battery life even touch screen menu. Having initially been a further by keeping a spare in the laptop bag. This makes 3D CAD all the way from little sceptical about LHR to SFO a distinct reality. You can the real value of even swap out the external battery with- touch screens on a mobile out having to power down. Keeping power consumption down, the workstaThinkPad W550s features the same Ultra t i o n , Low Voltage (ULV) processor as the HP using ZBook 15u — an Intel Core i7-5600U. With only 2 CPU cores, performance will be restricted in ray trace rendering software. However, with a clock speed of 2.60GHz (Turbo up to 3.20GHz) it is a decent option for single threaded CAD and BIM operations. For 3D graphics, Lenovo has taken a different tack to HP, partnering the Intel CPU with an entry-level Nvidia Quadro K620 GPU. In our hands-on 3D CAD tests the machine felt responsive, even with some relatively complex models. However, it is hard to put an exact figure on performance as a) our SolidWorks benchmark does not run on Windows 8.1 and b) the benchmark scores in Creo were a little erratic — ranging from. 3.44 to 4.12. This inconsistency could be down to our test machine being a pre-production unit. We did experience a few quirks with the system, specifically in relation to Lenovo’s ‘Intelligent Cooling’ technology, which seemed intent on clocking the CPU right down to 1.2GHz under most loads, significantly impacting performance. Switching off Intelligent Cooling meant performance was restored to expected levels — and it did this without negatively impacting fan noise. Lenovo told AEC Magazine that it is working on a patch to fix this issue.

‘‘

’’

OF OASYS

p12_13_15_17_18_21_22_25_Mobile workstations.indd 17

May / June 2015

SY AGE COURTE N SCREEN IM MASSMOTIO

www.AECmag.com

13/05/2015 16:54

Group test

MSI WS60 mobile workstation

heavy loads. However, they do run all the time, even when idle, which can be annoying. With levels of performance that rival standard 15-inch mobile workstations, it The best performing of all the ultra por- will come as no surprise that the WS60 tables but there are some compromises. had fairly poor battery life. High-powered components also mean a bigger 150W We first looked at MSI’s slimline worksta- power adapter, which weighs in at a hefty tion-class laptop back in September 2014 670g. The good news is the machine is (tinyurl.com/AEC-MSI-WS60). Since then only 1.9kg so the overall package is still the machine has undergone a few tweaks significantly lighter than a standard — a faster CPU (Intel Core i7 4720HQ 15-inch machine. At 390 x 266mm it is the biggest ultra CPU - 2.6GHz up to 3.6GHz) and optional 4K (3,840 x 2,160) display — but the key portable in terms of height and width and even though specs remain the build quality same. is good it is As this new The Intel Core i7 4720HQ not quite on model is not processor makes the WS60 the par with the available quite others. yet, we re-visitfastest ultra portable 15-inch There are ed the exact mobile workstation available some comsame machine promises. we tested last Despite havyear. The Intel Core i7 4710HQ processor (2.5GHz up to ing room for three drives (2 x M.2 SSDs 3.5GHz) may be a touch slower than the and 1 x 2.5-inch HDD) the M.2s are limited new 4720HQ but this quad core CPU still to 128GB. To get up to 256GB you need to makes the WS60 the fastest ultra portable stripe two drives in a RAID 0 array. 15-inch mobile workstation available. While this has the benefit of delivering Coupled with an Nvidia Quadro K2100M faster sustained read/write perfor-GPU it just edged out the HP OMEN Pro mance, it does mean you have two in all of our processor intensive tests from points of failure on the critical OS drive. In saying that, if you only use a rendering to 3D graphics. Considering MSI has packed so much handful of apps 128GB should be power into a small envelope, it has done a more than sufficient. The keyboard is excellent and comes pretty good job on acoustics. Dedicated fans for both CPU and GPU mean it does with a numeric keypad, great for engineernot get too loud or too hot, even under ing input. The touchpad is less impressive

and we found the cursor jumped about at times, which makes precise CAD work very difficult. Of course, this is not a problem if you use an external mouse. The WS60 is well connected. With 3 x USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt 2.0 there are plenty of options for peripherals. Thunderbolt doubles as a mini DisplayPort, which together with HDMI, means you can connect up to two external displays. Overall, the WS60 is an impressive machine and very hot on price (£1,416). There is no other sub-2kg mobile workstation that can deliver such performance, but there are some downsides including battery life and always on fans and it is let down a bit by the poor touch pad.

continued from page 17.... One would expect a machine of this class to offer both a 2.5-inch drive for data and a small form factor SSD (mSATA or M.2) for operating system and applications. Of course, storage can be supplemented by an external USB 3.0 drive. There are three ports (one is always on, which is useful for charging smart phones). Data can also be brought in and out via Gigabit Ethernet or fast Intel Dual Band Wireless — AC 7265. 3G or 4G WWAN is an option extra with a Sierra EM7345 LTE or Ericsson N5321 3G, HSPA+ module. The ThinkPad has always been a popular choice with enterprise customers so it is good to see that Lenovo has not cut corners when developing this slimline model.

have more storage options, but this should not detract from what is otherwise an excellent enterprise-class mobile workstation ideal for truly mobile designers.

‘‘

’’

May / June 2015

p12_13_15_17_18_21_22_25_Mobile workstations.indd 18

Fingerprint and smart card readers are available and, thanks to the underside docking port, it can mate with a ThinkPad Pro Dock or UltraDock making it easy to hook up to external displays, peripherals and LAN — via DisplayPort, VGA, DVI, Gigabit Ethernet and USB. The ThinkPad W550s offers a unique proposition for ultra portable 15-inch mobile workstations — a CAD-class laptop that can last all day on batteries. As a result it is a little thicker (23.3mm) and heavier (2.48kg) than other models, though with all day battery you probably won’t need to carry the power adapter with you so that saves some weight. With the slightly bulkier frame it is a little disappointing it does not

www.AECmag.com

13/05/2015 16:54

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Group test

Dell Precision M3800 Recently updated with a new 4K screen and Thunderbolt 2, Dell’s slimline beauty continues to shine, albeit with a few tradeoffs. First unveiled in Autumn 2013, the Dell Precision M3800 was the original ultra portable 15-inch mobile workstation and, in our opinion, still the best looking. This slender MacBook Pro look-alike may lack originality but it is still a thing of beauty. Beyond aesthetics, there is an innovative use of premium materials. A CNC machined aluminium lid protects the glorious 4K touch display, while a magnesium mid panel, overmoulded with silicone does a great job of keeping the palm rest surface cool to touch. The carbon fibre base gives lightweight strength as well as keeping laps at a comfortable temperature. The insulation is important as the machine does produce a fair amount of heat, evident by its two audible fans, which kick into action during most CPU and GPU intensive operations. Warm air is expelled at the rear underside of the machine. What the Precision M3800 lacks in acoustics, it makes up for in performance. With four CPU cores, the 37W Intel Core i7 4712HQ CPU cut through our 3ds Max rendering benchmark in a mere 300 seconds, twice as fast as the UltraBook-class HP ZBook 15u and Lenovo ThinkPad W550s, and not far behind the HP OMEN Pro or even the desktop Lenovo ThinkStation P500 reviewed earlier this year. With a clock speed of 2.30GHz going up to 3.30GHz, a small improvement over the Intel Core i7 4702HQ CPU in last year’s model, it also performs well in single threaded applications. For a machine of this size, 3D graphics performance is impressive and the 2GB Nvidia Quadro K1100M delivered solid scores in our CAD benchmarks. But there is

www.AECmag.com

p12_13_15_17_18_21_22_25_Mobile workstations.indd 21

a BIG caveat to this — and that is the impact of display resolution on 3D performance. The new 4K (3,840 x 2,160) Dell UltraSharp touch panel is a thing of beauty. Vibrant colours certainly make the most of its pin sharp resolution and it is arguably the best laptop panel we have seen at AEC Magazine (even with its glossy finish that can be prone to annoying reflections in direct light). But with four times as many pixels to push about on screen 3D performance can slow down. Running our SolidWorks benchmark at 4K (3,840 x 2,160) resulted in a significant drop in performance, less than half that we experienced at HD (1,920 x 1,080). With PTC Creo the impact of resolution was negligible, so it is important to note that performance in relation to resolution will likely depend on the application, datasets and how the model is viewed (e.g. realistic effects or shaded). The good news is, because HD uses exactly half the horizontal and vertical pixels as 4K, the image still looks good at 1,920 x 1,080 resolution. With other panels when you use a non-optimal resolution fonts and images will be blurry. This is also an important consideration as software developers make changes to user interfaces. Many applications are still not optimised for 4K so icons and dialogues appear unreadable even with Windows settings ramped up. Having a real choice of HD or 4K in the Precison M3800 will help smooth the transition. An HDMi and Mini DisplayPort are included to connect to external displays. Storage is more standard, courtesy of a 256GB Solid State Drive Mini-Card (mSATA). While some may find this a little light on capacity, there are plenty of ways to remedy this — either by upgrading to a 512GB or (soon) 1TB mSATA, or adding a 2.5-inch drive (HDD up to 1TB, SSD up to 512GB or Solid State Hybrid

Hard Drive (SSHD) up to 512GB). User upgrades are possible but you will need a T5 Torx screwdriver to remove the 12 screws that secure the back panel. In addition to storage and memory, you will also find the 6-Cell battery which is rated at 91 WHr and not bad considering the spec of the machine. It lasted 2h 11min in our heavy duty PCMark battery test but we would expect much longer operation when using standard office applications. The backlit island style keyboard and spacious trackpad with soft touch surround are a pleasure to use, but there is no numeric keypad. For connectivity, the laptop is well appointed with three USB 3.0 ports and Thunderbolt 2 — a nice addition for those that want lightning fast external storage. Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 means CAD data can be transferred over WiFi more quickly than with 802.11 a/b/ g/n (providing you have an optimised network, of course). Gigabit Ethernet is still the preferred way to connect to the network but the slimline design means no Ethernet port. A USB to Ethernet adapter is included in the box though. Other notable omissions include fingerprint scanner, smart card reader or dedicated docking port — all important enterprise features — although the machine can connect to a USB dock. Finding the balance between performance and portability is a major challenge for mobile workstation manufacturers. The emphasis on delivering performance in an exceedingly sleek chassis means inevitable trade offs in battery life and fan noise but the Precision M3800 continues to be an exceptional machine for CAD on the go, though be sure to consider the implications of having a 4K screen.

May / June 2015

14/05/2015 12:41

Group test

HP OMEN Pro

there is no numeric keypad (none of the gaming-evolved mobile workstations have them) there are six programmable keys that sit to the left of the main keys. With a brand new mobile workstation, While these were designed with games HP breaks the mould of its enterprisein mind they could be put to good use as focused ZBooks offering a uniquely styled machine that is big on performance. CAD shortcuts. Each key (P1 to P6) can be used on their own or in conjunction with Not content with producing one ultra portafour modifier keys (shift, FN, CTRL, ALT) ble 15-inch mobile workstation, HP surgiving up to 30 different combinations. prised everyone this April with the launch Customisations can be saved to profiles. of a second. The fact that the HP OMEN Pro The multi-touch touchpad is excellent. was not a member of HP’s established It feels very similar to the MacBook Pro’s, ZBook family also got everyone talking. but is presented in a much wider landHP has spent years building up its Z scape format. The touch screen panel is Workstation brand, which spans both also very useful for navigation, though desktops and laptops, so to launch a CADnot recommended for accurate CAD certified mobile workstation under a difwork. Of course, with Windows 7 64-bit ferent name at first seemed odd. pre-installed on the HP OMEN Pro as We were lucky enough to get our hands standard you will not get as much out of on a pre-production unit (the final shipthe touch screen as you would with ping machine may be slightly different) Windows 8.1 Pro 64 (which is supported and having seen the OMEN Pro in the but cannot be pre-installed). flesh it all makes perfect sense now. The panel itself is glossy so reflections Like the Dell Precision M3800 and MSI and fingerprints show up more but the WS60 the HP OMEN Pro is based on a colours are extremely vivid and bright. gaming laptop of the same name. As a At 1,920 x 1,080 (HD) it may not match result it was originally designed to tick the pixel count of the 4K Precision two boxes. To be high performance (both M3800 but it is an impressive display CPU and GPU) and to be slim and styled nonetheless. for gamers. By having such a sharply bevelled chasThis means it lacks many of the feasis, which falls away at the front and tures that have become synonymous with sides, all of the I/O ports are found at the ZBooks over the years: enterprise rear. At first this looks like a neat features, such as docking port and solution for keeping unsightly fingerprint reader, plus serviceabilcables out of the way, but it can be a ity that has become the hallmark of real pain to plug monitors, mice It is a beautifully styled slimline all HP Z Workstations, both deskand external storage. Rather than laptop that delivers performance top and mobile. It is also less cusleaning slightly to the side to see to rival most standard 15-inch tomisable, coming in a few base exactly where the ports were, we configurations. continued on page 25... mobile workstations With this in mind it would actually be a bit disingenuous for HP to call the OMEN Pro a ZBook. The OMEN Pro also gives HP another power button, keys and the exhaust string to its bow in this growing Ultra grills at the rear of the machine. While gamers reportedly love this Portable market. The ZBook 15u prioritises battery life over performance with a kind of thing, architects may not be Dual Core Ultra Low Voltage CPU and so enamoured. The good news is, the entry-level GPU, whereas the OMEN Pro lights are fully customisable and can is all about performance, with a Quad be toned down to a calmer shade, Core processor and higher spec GPU. In including white, or switched off altothis respect it is very similar to the Dell gether. HP has said that lights will be switched off by default when the Precision M3800. Both Dell’s and HP’s machines feature final machine ships this month. The keyboard is excellent: Quad Core CPUs; the OMEN Pro having a slightly more powerful Intel Core firm, responsive and a i7-4870HQ (2.50GHz up to 3.70GHz) pleasure to use. compared to the Precision M3800’s Intel W h i l e Core i7-4712HQ (2.30GHz up to 3.30GHz). Both have a Quadro K1100M (2GB) GPU and 16GB of RAM. In terms of spec, storage is the big differentiator with the HP OMEN Pro having fast PCIe-based storage in the form of a 512GB HP Z Turbo Drive while the Dell has an mSATA SSD and, crucially, space for a 2.5-inch drive (SSD or HDD), which can be very useful if you want to store a lot of CAD data. While the HP Z Turbo excels in sequential read/write tasks — i.e. copying large files or in workflows where exceedingly large files are the norm (e.g. video editing, point cloud processing and simulation) — mainstream CAD users probably will not notice much benefit. (See our PCIe vs SATA SSD article for more on this — tinyurl.com/PCIe-SATA-SSD-AEC). Beyond the core specifications, similarities to the Precision M3800 end. While Dell’s machine is a dead ringer for MacBook Pro, the HP OMEN Pro is like no other laptop we have seen before. Its striking angular chassis falls away at the front and sides with a sharply bevelled edge, giving the appearance of a much more slender machine. That is not to say it needs any visual trickery. The beautiful chassis, CNC milled from solid aluminium and anodised with a black textured finish, is only 15.5mm at the front and 19.9mm at the rear. It looks exceptionally smart but is prone to fingerprints. Its gaming pedigree becomes apparent as soon as you switch it on as you are greeted by glowing red lights. Colour emanates from everywhere — speakers,

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Group test continued from page 22.... found we had to turn the machine round a full 180 degrees. At the rear you will find four USB 3.0 ports (all charging), mini DisplayPort and HDMi. With such a slimline chassis, there is no Ethernet port but a USB to Ethernet adapter comes in the box. Performance is excellent. Having a full 0.2GHz over the M3800 (0.4GHz in Turbo) it has a clear lead in our multi-threaded, CPU intensive 3ds Max benchmark and is only a whisker behind the MSI WS60. With the same Quadro K1100M GPU as

the M3800 the performance increase is far less pronounced in our Creo and SolidWorks graphics tests. Fans kicked in significantly under load, making a fair bit of noise. They also ran slowly in the background when idle but this was less noticeable than with the MSI WS60. We actually experienced a few issues in our SolidWorks test with PhotoView 360 crashing regularly. It should be emphasised again that this was a pre-production unit and software issues like these are likely to be ironed out with the shipping

machine and during CAD certification. Performance could also change slightly. Overall, the OMEN Pro is an excellent addition to HP’s workstation portfolio — a beautifully styled, slimline laptop that delivers performance to rival most standard 15-inch mobile workstations. There are some compromises, of course. Battery life is not great and some may find the storage too limiting and rear ports annoying but, apart from these minor gripes, the OMEN looks to be a very impressive machine for mobile CAD/BIM and entry-level design visualisation.

External storage for mobile workstations Mainstream 15-inch mobile workstations can typically hold up to three internal drives but their slimline siblings are limited to one or two. This increases the importance of external storage for storing huge CAD datasets. When you are talking about Gigabytes of data performance is important. No one likes waiting, particularly when rushing out of the door and late for an appointment. Mechanical Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) with spinning disks used to be the only serious technology for storing CAD data but with capacities increasing and prices dropping Solid State Drive (SSD) technology is now becoming an attractive alternative — not only because of the superior performance but built-in protection against accidental drops. Most drives are USB 3.0 but with Thunderbolt 2 now being introduced in some machines (e.g. Dell Precision M3800) this could change over time. We tested four different portable storage options, all of which can be powered by the USB or Thunderbolt bus. Our initial testing was simple: the time taken to transfer 7GB (13,500 files) of CAD data to and from the drive. We then did a parallel copy test where we transferred three sets of data in quick succession so all three were being copied at the same time. If, like me, you often grab datasets from different folders as and when you find them, this can be a real bottleneck with mechanical drives.

Akitio Palm Raid (512GB) 1 £436 (scan.co.uk) 1 year warranty This high-speed Thunderbolt drive features two mSATA SSDs combined in software RAID 0 (where two drives become one to boost performance). For those that prefer to protect against data loss, it can also be formatted in RAID 1 (mirrored) so your data should stay safe even if one drive fails. The drive is primarily designed for Mac OSX so needs reformatting for Windows. This proved to be easier said than done as some partitions were locked (needed both DISKPART and Disk Management tools). Once up and running it was the fastest drive on test, taking just 40 seconds to read the CAD dataset and 36 secs to write. However, rather surprisingly, it slowed down in our parallel test completing it in 137 secs (read) and 133 secs (write). With a high-quality aluminium case, built in cable, carry case and high-speed transfer, the premium grade pocket size drive is no doubt an attractive package. However, at over £1 per GB the price is high and despite it winning our standard copy test by some margin, with performance dropping under parallel copy you need to carefully consider the way you work to choose it over the Samsung T1.

Samsung’s USB 3.0 T1 SSD fits easily within a pocket. The performance of the drive is also excellent, taking 48 secs to read and 55 secs to write our CAD dataset. It also performed exceedingly well in our parallel test completing the copy in 100 secs (read and write), quicker than it would have taken to copy all three in sequence. Overall, it is a hugely impressive drive and comes highly recommended. At £0.36 per GB it is significantly more expensive than a mechanical drive, but for the performance it offers in a compact footprint it cannot be beaten. The Samsung T1 SSD is also available in 250GB and 1TB capacities. SSD 850 EVO M.2 (500GB) 3 £144 (scan.co.uk) 3 year warranty + Startech M.2 Enclosure £17 (uk.insight.com)

This DIY solution houses a SATA-based Samsung M.2 (2280) SSD in a metal Startech caddy. Installation takes a few minutes and, hey presto, you have a highly portable SSD, not much bigger than a USB stick. Performance is slightly below that of the Samsung T1 (sequential — 51 secs read, 58 secs write) (parallel — 118 secs read, 120 secs write). At £161 it is the cheapest of all the SSDs and offers flexibility, should you wish to install the M.2 (2280) SSD in a laptop or desktop, but other than that we would find it hard to recommend over the Samsung T1 SSD. Seagate Backup Plus Slim 4 (2TB) £62.50 (amazon.co.uk) 2 year warranty This slimline traditional mechanical drive is only 12mm thick. It is housed in a solid metal case which comes in blue red, silver or black.

For sequential read and write, performance is pretty good. Read speeds, in particular were only 1.5 times slower than the Samsung T1 SSD, completing in 72 secs (124 secs write). The limitations of mechanical drive technology were exposed in our multiple copy test, as the drive slowed right down when transferring three separate datasets in parallel (525 secs). This is likely to slow down as data gets scattered over different parts of the disk (as the drive head has to move further). However, a managed approach to file copy (dataset by dataset, rather than throwing everything at it at once) will help ease this bottleneck. At 1.6 pence per GB, the Seagate Backup Plus Slim wins hands down on cost. And it also cannot be beaten on capacity — 2TB makes it incredibly attractive to those with swelling datasets.

iPhone 5S for scale

2 3

Samsung T1 (500GB) 2 £180 (scan.co.uk) 3 year warranty Smaller than a business card and only 9mm thick

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Review

ArchiCAD 19: performance BIM With significant speed increases in this bumper update to ArchiCAD, Graphisoft is clearly aiming to get the attention of Autodesk Revit customers who are frustrated with slow model performance. by Martyn Day

Next generation tools will get peed is something ArchiCAD 19 acceleration from parallelisathat designers have tion of processes not clock always striven for Supplier: Graphisoft cycles. with their tools. Even Price: From £1,699 Website: graphisoft.com Hungary-based developer back in the good old days of Graphisoft has been well 2D CAD, drafters wanted the latest Intel x86 workstations, with ‘masses’ aware of this change and over the past four of RAM (4MB) and powerful graphics releases has been building comprehensive cards, albeit ones capable of providing only multi-core support into its ArchiCAD BIM platform. This parallelises the computing SVGA in 256 colours. Just when we started thinking we had that’s necessary for handling large BIM more than enough power on the desktop, models. However, the latest release, and file exchange ‘just worked’, the indus- ArchiCAD 19 brings a whole new dimentry moved to BIM, which combines 3D sion to using the multi-cores available. geometry, proprietary databases, parametric constraints and rich layers of meta- Predictive performance data, requiring lots of RAM and process- Prior to release 19, ArchiCAD’s multi-core ing power. capability would break up tasks and alloThis move has driven us back to trying cate those to individual cores on your to squeeze every last drop of performance workstation’s processor. This was very out of our workstations. Speed is one of the much on demand and related to the current biggest issues in BIM today and CAD man- view. With this release, ArchiCAD further agers have to spend their time working out enhances its use of multiple cores by constrategies to handle large unwieldy data- stantly using the spare capacity of the sets to keep projects on track. workstation CPU and ‘guessing ahead’, the In general the industry is creaking processing tasks that it ‘thinks’ you are under the combined effect of big data going to do next. While this might sound shoehorned into ‘old’ BIM software. fanciful and indeed a touch too much like Neither the complexity of models nor the snake oil or clairvoyance, it’s actually quite advances of processor architectures were a stroke of genius. originally planned for in the current genObviously, ArchiCAD can’t actually eration of applications and many software predict the future but there have been developers have failed to fully utilise changes to the interface which assists it in multi core processors, instead relying on a getting ahead with the processing worksingle processor core to do most of the load. With 19, Graphisoft has introduced heavy lifting. the concept of tabbed workspaces, which Looking forward, software that does not work in a very similar way to tabs in a utilise multi-cores could actually stagnate web browser, but each tab contains a in terms of performance as the next gener- workspace. This makes it much easier to ation of processors from Intel will have flip between sections, model view, drawmore cores but single threaded perfor- ing view, render or elevations. mance may not increase significantly. The predictive processing uses these as

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clues as to what you will be doing next, As you work in one tab making edits and updating the design, the software will dynamically allocate the update of the model in those tabbed views to spare cores or processing capacity. The net result is that moving from tab to tab, users will find the model ‘instantly’ updated or a long way into performing a task — such as a 3D section. So the software appears significantly more responsive and makes the most of today’s multi-core architectures. Graphisoft explained that in addition to the ‘tabbed clues’ for predictive processing, the new predictive algorithm will do some analysis as to workflow and commonly used tools, to further refine the allocation of processing. To ensure that all this additional ‘front-loaded’ processing doesn’t impact the overall speed of ArchiCAD, the software leaves one core free. By using this unused computer capacity, even if the software anticipates incorrectly, nothing has been lost. www.AECmag.com

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Tabbed workspaces make it much easier to flip between sections, model view, drawing view, render or elevations

As to how much quicker this makes ArchiCAD 19 over 18? Graphisoft stated the benefit can be from ‘Instant’ to a 70% improvement in creating 3D views. The opening time for all model-based sections, elevation or 3D documents has dropped by half. Beta testers have told me that it’s a significant improvement and absolutely screams on Apple’s new Mac Pro, which comes with an Intel Xeon processor with up to 12 cores.

OpenGL It’s not just editing and rendering that have seen speed improvements in this release; graphics performance has also been further optimised with faster and smoother OpenGL navigation. It is now possible to navigate through extremely large models with a ‘flickerless display’, reaching frame rates well in excess of 30 frames per second. In reality, this kind of performance is games software territory and brings realtime performance to BIM. www.AECmag.com

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New ArchiCAD functions

Point clouds: ArchiCAD 19 now reads industry standard point clouds for the

Tabs: Workspace is really important and import of laser scanned survey data. This so many BIM tools today take up valuable screen real estate with menus and frames. 19 does away with many of these menus, making them ‘pop-up’ when the mouse is moved to the top of the screen and the new ‘tab’ views make it much easier to navigate.

is formative functionality at the moment but will be expanded on in the future. For now it is possible to select and model BIM objects to the XYZ points.

Surface label: ArchiCAD now has an interactive 3D Surface Painter for dragand-drop editing on building model surRhino: Graphisoft has decided to team faces in 3D. This provides instant visual up with McNeel, developer of the feedback. Rhinoceros NURBS-based modelling tool and Grasshopper computation design Productivity: In general productivity, environment. Graphisoft has added dimensional ArchiCAD 19 has been enhanced to bet- improvements for the ease of laying out ter import Rhino geometry and there are areas where dimensions and labels can plans to further link Grasshopper to drive automatically overlay and become concomplex forms in future releases. This fusing. saves Graphisoft having to develop this ArchiCAD 19 has overhauled its Guide type of functionality and there are thou- Lines function to better match the way you sands of proficient users of Rhino and work, making precise input even more Grasshopper out there. intuitive. There are new on the fly snap May / June 2015

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Review (Top) Background updating can be toggled on and off (Bottom) ArchiCAD 19 now reads point clouds for the import of survey data

guides and line smart guide lines which stay as long as you want them (permanent if necessary on a separate layer) Layouts can now be exported (not just model views) with their drawing layers to PDF format. In the resulting PDF document, you can show or hide content by layers, or navigate among layers. Teamwork and BIM Server have also seen some useful updates, such as a BIM Cloud / BIM Server diagnostic tool.

BIM X: The company’s unique portable model sharing format has been slightly enhanced, where authors can control which element information will be published as part of the Hyper model. MEP: Collision detection now works for all elements classified as MEP-type in Element Settings and not just for MEP Modeler elements. As a result, collision detection works on all imported IFC MEP elements (regardless of which MEP application exported the IFC model), and all ArchiCAD project MEP Objects.

BIMCloud Designer: Launched last year, BIM Cloud is Graphisoft’s cloud extension for ArchiCAD teams. It can create private microsites or public clouds for teams to collaborate on BIM projects. While mainly beneficial to large firms, it seems that small practices wanted to get some of the benefits and so have delivered a low-cost version to enhance distribution but it is missing the teamwork capabilities.

Nemetschek The final thing to note is a small corporate change, but Graphisoft also unveiled its new logo, which is actually very similar to the old one but now includes the brand ‘Nemetschek’ within it. Graphisoft is owned by Nemetschek, a German developer, which started out with Allplan — a BIM 28

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system popular in Germany. Nemetschek also owns Vectorworks (Formerly Minicad), Maxon (rendering) and Bluebeam (PDF workflow) amongst other firms. Historically the company has tended to ‘silo’ its acquisitions but now there appears to be a more cohesive approach to push the brand.

Conclusion This is another great release of ArchiCAD with loads of crowd pleasers. Putting performance aside, changes to the interface, giving maximum model room, really makes a big difference and certainly helps make the most of a laptop screen. There are a range of useful new features and capabilities ranging from small productivity enhancements to collision detection and IFC output. Following Bentley and Autodesk, point cloud support is now the de facto standard in the industry, as more firms experiment with importing survey data to rapidly generate BIM models from real-world measurements. This is definitely a useful future technology.

The decision to work with Rhino and Grasshopper is also a no-brainer for getting complex forms into ArchiCAD. It saves the company developing computational design tools, as Bentley (GC) and Autodesk (Dynamo) already have done and Rhino is also exceptionally popular in practice. Despite being the most mature BIM application on the planet, you have to admire Graphisoft’s commitment to driving performance and fundamentally re-architecting ArchiCAD to utilize the capabilities of multiple cores on both Windows and Apple OSX. BIM models are big and complex and as models get ever bigger and more detailed it’s important to use whatever hardware is available to accelerate this. When looking forward and knowing that processors will get more cores but single core performance won’t increase at the same rate, software has to be ready for this. Autodesk Revit, which only runs in Windows, has some multi-core support, but these aren’t for discreet processes and apply to separate capabilities like rendering. A number of functions are multi-threaded (Save / Load etc.) but the software’s architecwww.AECmag.com

14/5/15 10:35:17

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Review (Top) Labelling has been improved to help avoid confusing overlays (Bottom) An interactive 3D Surface Painter can be used for draggingand-dropping editing on building model surfaces

ture is just not designed to work that way, which is a concern, considering the way the next generation processors will work. In a BIM discussion with an Intel employee we were told, “As processor clock speeds dip, you will see the number of cores greatly increase. We could have six or 12 cores minimum in the future. If you think of these like lanes of a motorway, software that just uses one core will be deciding to only use the inside lane, with all the other ‘traffic’ in your system. Software that needs to provide performance will have to make use of all the other lanes, as opposed to Revit stubbornly staying in the slow lane”. We wonder if Autodesk has any plans for a major reworking of the Revit code or, which seems more likely, it may bypass updating the software architecture of the desktop version of Revit and can get better model performance by leveraging a new system architecture in ‘the cloud’? With 19, Graphisoft is certainly seeking to have ArchiCAD’s performance on big models compared to Revit’s. At the launch event Graphisoft’s ArchiCAD/Revit comparisons were very much at the forefront.

Graphisoft showed its own benchmark results finding the insignificant’ improvement from Revit’s current multi-threaded capabilities and went on to state that ‘16GB is the minimum RAM requirement for Revit, while 16GB is the maximum you will need in ArchiCAD’. Graphisoft’s development team feels it does a better job with 3D graphics accelera-

tion, multi core utilisation, memory efficiency and now predictive processing. For Mac users, ArchiCAD is a much more simple choice as there’s only two BIM modellers on the market that run on OS X ArchiCAD and Vectorworks. But ArchiCAD 19 is the only multi core BIM tool that could justify the purchase of a lovely Mac Pro and make use of the cores on its Xeon processor.

From multi-threading to multi core Multi-threading is a program’s ability to break itself down to multiple concurrent threads that can be executed separately by a computer. A multiprocessor (or multi-core) computer can run two or more of the threads at a time, which means that the program “runs faster” on a multiprocessor machine than on a single-processor machine. “Traditional” single-thread

applications cannot make use of two or more processors, therefore they don’t run faster on multiprocessor machines. Multi core processors. All Modern Intel desktop processors have multiple cores. Depending on the product there can be 2, 4, 6, 12, even 18 cores per processor. In a dual processor system, which has 4 cores per pro-

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cessor, there would actually be 8 physical cores available. In an ideal world, four cores would provide linear scaling of four times the processing capacity of one but most applications don’t see this kind of benefit. Hyper-threading is a very specific technology from Intel, which aims to improve the parallelisation of tasks for software developers. Some

applications use Hyperthreading, many do not. Hyper-threading turns each physical core into a virtual dual core system. So a dual core processor that supports Hyper-threading actually has four virtual cores. In our example of a dual processor system, each with four cores (eight in total), the Operating System would actually see 16 virtual cores. Hyper-threading is slower

than actually having completely separate physical cores, as there are some operations which cause ‘collisions’ of system resources, which can negate the performance advantages and actually make it slower. Software has to be written to get the balance right. When done well, speed benefits of around 15% can be achieved vs no Hyperthreading.

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Comment

Transitioning to BIM pt2 About the author Shaun Bryant is an Autodesk Certified Professional with twenty-six years total industry experience using AutoCAD and Revit.

Introduction This is the second in a series of three articles about making the move to BIM (the first part appeared in the March / April 2015 edition of AEC Magazine). Using the scenario from part one of the series A medium sized, multi-disciplinary CAD practice, involved in architecture, structure and services, which often works with external contractors. Based in London, UK, it has fifteen core users, with anywhere up to twenty-five users when contract CAD personnel are brought in to make up capacity. A CAD manager is in place who acts as liaison between management at director level and the users in the CAD team. The team is currently using Autodesk AutoCAD for all of its work and is up to date with the latest version, due to an active Autodesk subscription agreement. The practice has decided to use Autodesk Revit as its BIM tool of choice. There is a need to manage both the implementation and training required to make the practice both effective and efficient. The article is written from the CAD manager’s perspective.

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Sean Bryant gives more practical advice on how a CAD manager in a medium-sized, multi-disciplinary practice can help smooth the path to collaborative Level 2 BIM.

Addressing the Revit implementation

Training Needs Analysis (TNA)

CAD manager to director level “Revit is now our tool of choice. We need to invest in our IT and server capacity to ensure we have the server space to handle our Revit central models, and make sure that our users have enough local space to work with local worksharing models.”

CAD manager to director level “We will need to ensure that all Revit users undergo a Training Needs Analysis (TNA) to assess their training needs and requirements. This will give us a picture of exactly what they need and allow us to use the training effectively and get the most out of our incumbent training provider. It is imperative we allow the team to work with their strengths but also get trained up on areas of weakness, so that we have fully rounded Revit users that are effective and productive.”

CAD manager to the CAD team “As we move forward with Revit in the practice, we will be working with much more capacity, both locally and on the servers. However, this does not allow us to be lazy. We will have to implement new strategies that allow us to be economical with this new space provided, as we will be working with much larger file sizes than we were with AutoCAD.” Revit project files (RVT files) are bigger files. The CAD manager is making sure that the CAD team is aware that new working practices will be needed to manage this on a day to day basis, and that at director level, they are fully aware that investment is needed in the IT infrastructure. On an operational level, this has to be managed to ensure effective use of the IT infrastructure, to maintain Revit productivity. The last thing the CAD manager wants is a heavy Revit server that slows down local models and hinders the CAD team’s productivity on live projects. From an IT standpoint also, the IT department managing the servers do not want slow servers overloaded with repetitive Revit data, hence the new working practices must include suitable housekeeping policies that keep the servers quick and lean, so as to handle the Revit 3D models.

CAD manager to the CAD team “We need you all to undergo a Training Needs Analysis (TNA). This is to assess your existing Revit knowledge (if you have any) and what areas you need to work on to make sure you are fully trained on every aspect of Revit you need to perform your role within the practice effectively. We need you to make sure that you include everything in your TNA so that we can get the best training for you from our training provider.” Effective training on any CAD product is imperative. The CAD manager is using the TNA to ensure each Revit user is trained to their strengths and that any areas where their product knowledge is weak is thoroughly assessed and appropriate training given. The TNA is done individually per user to make sure that each user gets training tailored to them. It also provides the user with the reassurance that with the new CAD product, in this case Revit, they will be fully trained and prepared to use the product on live projects that the practice is, or will be, working on.

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13/5/15 16:50:34

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Comment

Training delivery CAD manager to director level “We will be using our incumbent training provider to provide all of our Revit training based around the findings of the TNA exercise. We will be making sure that all training is scheduled around projects and staffing levels for those projects. We have to make sure that key project staff are trained sequentially, and to allow for at least one key member of project staff to be in the office at any given time when the other project team members are being trained.” CAD manager to the CAD team “You will be receiving individualised training based on the findings of your completed TNA. We need each of the project teams to build a training roster that allows for one key project team member to be in the office at any given time. We have to make sure that our existing projects are covered at all times. This will be even more important once Revit and BIM are implemented, as we will need to make sure that our central Revit models are fully co-ordinated with external contractors, partners, engineers and the client.” The CAD manager has a responsibility to manage all of the ongoing projects in the practice. Training will disrupt the smooth running of those projects unless it is managed properly. The TNA process gives exact results on what training is required per user, so the CAD manager can ask the project teams to build a training roster per team, ensuring project coverage, and making sure there is at least one project team member in the office when training is ongoing. As CAD manager, this management is extremely important to the efficient running of the current projects. There is also a responsibility on the CAD manager to make sure that each team is trained in turn, rather than one member at a time. You want each team to be fully trained up, so that they can hit the ground running. But there will always be one key project member remaining (the one that stays in the office when the others are being trained). The solution here is to train that key member when another team is being trained. For example, Key Project Team A Member gets trained with Key Project Team B and vice versa. That way, full project coverage is maintained but all teams get trained with sensible timescales.

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Further training and certification CAD manager to director level “Once the CAD team is bedded in and trained on Revit, we need to think about intermediate and advanced training and build a budget and a schedule for this. It is imperative we keep the CAD team lean, trained and efficient on the latest versions and methodologies. The only way to do this is regular scheduled training. We also need to benchmark their Revit knowledge by way of Autodesk Revit Certification. All of our Revit users should become Autodesk Revit Certified Professionals.” CAD manager to the CAD team “Now that we have Revit set up in the practice and training is ongoing, we need to think ahead towards intermediate and advanced training. We would like you to keep notes of all aspects of Revit that you feel you will need to perform your role within the practice. You will also be offered the opportunity to gain Autodesk Revit Certified Professional status through our training provider. In order to obtain this qualification, you will need to get approximately four hundred hours of active Revit usage under your belts. Keep a note of your hours and when you hit the four hundred mark, please inform us. We can then get you an examination place for certification.” Here, the CAD manager is, in essence, future-proofing the practice’s investment both in Revit and the staff. In order to get a return on that investment, the CAD manager is already looking forward to future training for the CAD team. Staying on top of a CAD product once it is in place is imperative, to stay lean, and make sure the staff are fully aware of new version upgrades and methodologies that come with it. With Revit, though, a new version updates all of the Revit data to that particular version, and there is no backward compatibility. All of the project team, including external contractors, partners and the client would need to upgrade as well. Everyone involved with that particular project has to be on the same version of Revit.

Conclusion In this second installment about transitioning to BIM, we have looked at the implementation of Revit and training of the practice staff to use Revit. The physical implementation of the Revit software is fairly simplistic and Autodesk provides full documentation on how to do this. What is paramount here is the server infrastructure, and how it is set up to the advantage of the CAD team using Revit. Quite often a new server is set up from scratch to allow for the worksharing of Revit projects, along with a professional cloud storage account for use with external parties and for archiving. This would be individual to each and every organisation that uses Revit, but it must be set up to ensure that Revit is used to its full advantage by way of central and local Revit models. Training is also imperative. For any organisation to get full return on investment on any software that is purchased or subscribed to, the staff must be trained. The training should be mandatory for all appropriate staff, along with (possibly, in this case) Autodesk Certified Professional status. The Certification qualification then provides a staff benchmark to competency levels, plus it will also highlight any further areas of training required. Overall, a transition to a BIM application such as Autodesk Revit should not be undertaken lightly. It requires organisation, planning and a will to move forward and utilise the tools Revit provides. With BIM 2 compliance on the horizon for January 1, 2016 in the UK, it is in every organisation’s best interests to make the move to BIM and its associated CAD applications as soon as possible.

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13/5/15 16:50:47

Review

Vabi Dashboard A new range of low-cost, add-on design analysis applications aim to provide architects and engineers with a very graphical dashboard for performance feedback early on in the design process. by Martyn Day

t has proven exceptionally hard to sell building analysis to architects. The vast majority still believe it is a specialism outside of core architectural design. This has not been from a lack of trying. IES gives away some low-level functionality to SketchUp and Revit customers, and Autodesk provides some access via its Suites and Subscriptions, but without widespread success. One reason for a lack of take-up is that building analysis tools have nearly always failed to integrate well with design tools. Results are given in measurements that only a building services engineer can understand and even progressive Building Information Modelling (BIM) architects do not prioritise a performance-based process. And yet, a BIM design process has the In 2010, after 38 years, Vabi became a pripotential to offer architects an incredible vately held company and continued to benamount of feedback on expected perfor- efit from its roots in government-mandated mance. Spatial, material and geographic building performance. The company’s Vabi design information can all be analysed to Elements software is pretty much the de assess design choices. facto standard in Holland, from small pracThere are many players in the building tices to large blue chip companies. analysis software market. Specialist firms Vabi employs over 65 people and has a such as Integrated Environmental methodology of training users on its buildSolutions (IES) (iesve.com) and Sefaria ing analysis tools for free at its HQ in Delft, (sefaira.com), together with solutions from while providing its software free to stuBentley (which acquired Hevacomp) and dents and universities in Holland. Autodesk (which acquired Dutch building regulations Ecotect and others). have been deeply encoded Vabi Dashboard With this competitive enviinto the core Vabi Elements ronment to crack, we did not product, so when it came to Supplier: Vabi Price: From $9.99 per month expect to hear from another producing new, internationWebsite: vabisoftware.com building analysis company ally applicable tools, it meant wanting to join the fray. starting from scratch and However, Dutch developer Vabi is applying decades of know-how to new approaching the market in a novel way, broader applications. looking to provide a broader range of Vabi has come up with a much broader design analysis tools, through low-cost suite of analysis tools with a very unique subscription, right inside the BIM design vision for application delivery, payment environment. and usage for potentially all BIM products, but concentrating on Revit first. Vabi The company has launched its new Vabi dominates in its home market of Revit add-on products as a low-cost subHolland, with 95% of the country’s building scription model (between $10-$30 a performance analysis market. Founded in month per app). These bite-size analysis 1972, it started life as part of the Dutch applications are delivered inside Revit’s Research Institution (TNO), as the centre of menu system, and within its own building Expertise on Building Service Calculations. performance dashboard to give instant 36

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The Vabi BIM Building Performance Dashboard provides performance feedback for a wide range of criteria

feedback on design performance over a wide range of criteria. Over time, Vabi plans to develop scores of these applications, over a range of topic areas which can be ‘pick and mixed’ and displayed in the dashboard. It is not just a range of new applications, it is a whole ecosystem.

Dashboard The most instantly obvious benefit of the new Vabi applications is the dashboard display, which is in the Revit ribbon menu and gives ‘at a glance’ design performance information. Each application has a ‘fuel’ type indicator providing feedback on how well a design matches the criteria specified. I have seen many demonstrations from Autodesk showing what they think BIM will look like in the future, providing feedback, using on-screen dashboard feedback, for example, but this is the first time anyone has delivered such a system within Revit. It is really simple to understand and does not need explaining.

Market changes The whole design tool market is changing quite rapidly and not just the move from 2D drawing to BIM. Industry silos are coming down, with more firms opting to become multi-disciplinary and benefit from the rich data that BIM provides. Design tools are moving to cloud delivwww.AECmag.com

14/5/15 12:17:41

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Review ery and subscription. Vabi has looked ahead and designed a development, deployment and subscription payment system that works with the current desktop environment and anticipates the future changes coming to the market, such as fewer dealers, more cloud-based delivery and micro payments. By keeping the pricing low and enabling short term per-month use, Vabi hopes to attract many Revit users to dip in and out of its software suite and use them on demand, perhaps keeping long term subscriptions to the most regularly used applications.

Modules There are currently 10 modules available in five core topic areas: Financial, Comfort, Functional, Green Building and Secure & Safe. Each application is initially available on a 15 to 30-day free trial followed by a monthly price of $10 to $30 —the difference in price indicating the perceived benefit or complexity of analysis. Apps can be used on a monthly on / off basis and are available in 135 countries. The initial ten applications available are: Financial: Financial Energy Assessor.

Simulator

and

Financial Simulator For all those ‘what if ’ moments, Financial Simulator pulls together and displays financial performance related data and reveals the P&L, Balance Sheet, Discounted Cash Flow and Return on Investment (ROI) impact of design decisions. It enables the consideration of design alternatives using comparisons of alternate design options from impact on overall building value, to profitability and is a useful discussion tool with owners and asset managers.

Thermal Comfort Optimizer The Thermal Comfort Optimizer allows the user to set optimal design temperatures for each room in the BIM model. This can increase understanding of energy usage and occupancy requirements. The software takes into account occupant satisfaction, metabolism, expected clothing insulation level, relative humidity, air velocity, and room heating/cooling setpoints for indoor temperatures in winter and summer.

Lighting Organizer Lighting Organizer automates the task of ensuring the right amount of light is available in a design. As different design options are investigated it enables decisions on lux levels, lumen, lighting, brightness, electrical installation, light fittings, ceiling fittings, lighting plans, fixed and variable lighting, lighting comfort, living and working spaces, etc.

Ventilation Optimizer This application checks against building codes and client needs, considering clean air volumes, ventilation capacity, airflow capacity, air handling units (AHU), ventilators, supply, exhaust and return ducts, vents, detectors etc, as prescribed by room occupancy or space type and number of people capacity.

www.AECmag.com

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Comfort: Thermal Comfort Optimizer, Ventilation Optimizer, Daylight Ratio Evaluator and Lighting Organizer. Functional: Spatial Requirements Assistant, Daylight Ratio Evaluator and Accessibility Evaluator. Green Building: Energy Assessor. Secure and Safe: currently unpopulated but expect to see additional applications appear over the coming weeks and months. We have seen a list of modules in the works and there is a lot more to come.

Financial Simulator provides the following: • Accepts inputs such as rental rates and marketing costs for different types of occupancy. • Uses floor areas and assigned occupancy types of rooms to calculate returns. • Saves all financial indices in the BIM model • Displays all financial results. • Contributes various performance indicators in the Vabi BIM Performance Dashboard.

The Thermal Comfort Optimizer features: • Allocation of the thermal comfort values per room based on room function, space and occupancy type. • Analyzes 3D spaces in the BIM model and uses Fanger model predictive mean vote (PMV) and percentage of people dissatisfied (PPD) calculations in conformance with ISO 7730 (2005) Annex D. • Saves thermal analysis data within the BIM model • Displays thermal comfort results. • Creates a Thermal Comfort Performance Indicator in the Performance Dashboard.

The Lighting Organizer features: • Accepts as input the minimum illuminance per room area and space type. • Scans the BIM model room by room for area and available lighting. • Calculates and saves the lighting values per room in the BIM model. • Displays Lighting results. • Creates an artificial Lighting Performance Indicator in the Vabi BIM Building Performance Dashboard.

The Ventilation Optimizer features: • Scans the BIM model room by room for volumetric space data. • Calculates and saves the ventilation flow per room in the BIM model. • Displays Ventilation results. • Creates a Ventilation Flow Performance Indicator in the Vabi BIM Building Performance Dashboard.

May / June 2015

14/5/15 11:06:50

Review Accessibility Evaluator This application assists in checking the accessibility compliance of a building design for wheelchair or other disabled access. The software will check corridor widths, room access, ramps, door widths, multi floor or level access via lifts and lift dimensions, disabled toilet and shower facilities, etc.

Daylight Ratio Evaluator Checks daylight area per room inside the BIM model and assesses illumination, energy use and solar glare/ reflection regarding modelled floor areas, positioned glazing, glass area, artificial lighting, comfort and brightness

Spatial Requirements To ensure a design meets the functional requirement of the client’s brief and building regulations. Spatial Requirements Assistant automates the checking of the Revit model against set criteria. The Spatial Requirements Assistant features: • Accepts various functional requirement inputs based on Revit’s room occupancy types and user defined rule sets for custom requirements such as

Energy Assessor Minimizing energy, meeting regulatory requirements and occupant satisfaction is a modern design essential. Vabi Energy Assessor, comes with a great pedigree and works inside the Revit BIM model to assess monthly and yearly energy costs, electricity use, gas use, renewables use, CO2 emissions, green building rating, EPC, energy performance, heating, cooling, HVAC, thermal insulation and airtightness.

Conclusion Vabi’s new dashboard is more than just a building analysis tool and its approach to the delivery of its applications is truly unique. The relatively low cost of access as well as flexible subscription for third party add-ons are also untried in the Autodesk developer community. While these are all inventive it will be interesting to see just how popular they prove, there should be at least one or two listed here that appeal to most people. Vabi’s masterstroke is linking the apps to a unified digital performance dash40

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board display, which is a highly desirable capability. It is now possible, at a glance, to see how well the current design conforms to many performance criteria, no training required. The benefits for building performance feedback in the iterative design process are also clearly obvious, however some of the analysis tools do require users to ‘prepare the model’, such as allocating room spaces within the Revit model, to provide important spatial information for downstream analysis. The market will have to decide if the ‘portion size’ of the Vabi applications is right for

The Accessibility Evaluator features: • Calculates and saves the accessibility values per room in the BIM model. • Displays Accessibility results. • Creates various Accessibility Indicators in the Vabi BIM Building Performance Dashboard.

The Daylight Ratio Evaluator features: • Scans the BIM model and reports daylight ratio compliance against required minimums. • Accepts input of required minimum daylight area ratio per room area. • Uses floor areas of rooms and glass areas of windows, doors, and curtain walls. • Automatically adds and saves the daylight area ratio values per room in the Revit model. • Displays your daylight ratio results. • Creates a Daylight Performance Indicator in the Vabi Building Performance Dashboard.

occupancy types, room and other space sizes, toilets, circulation areas, parking spaces, etc. and Building Code rule sets such as minimum access widths, circulation space requirements, and the number of toilets or parking spaces. • Scans the BIM model and reports compliance of the current design iteration against all the functional requirements. • Creates various Functional Performance Indicators in the Vabi BIM Performance Dashboard App.

The Energy Assessor features: • Accepts various decision inputs on building data, grouped by building discipline. • Uses Revit building envelope construction data and room data. • Automatically adds and saves the energy use values within the BIM model. • Displays energy use results. • Creates various Energy Performance Indicators in the Vabi BIM Building Performance Dashboard.

the incremental subscription fee it is charging. It will depend on how much benefit can be derived from their use. It strikes me as a sign of the company’s confidence in its products that the apps can be extensively trialled before purchase and turned on / off on a monthly basis. Vabi is actively encouraging feedback and wants customers to help drive development of its modules. The buy / download system appears to be set up for individual or small firm access, for large firm global access to application suites, it is best to contact Vabi directly. www.AECmag.com

14/5/15 11:06:52

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Comment

The narrative potential of daylight analysis Architects are using daylight analysis to better tell the story of a design to clients. Together, renderings and analysis build a more complete — and more compelling — case for design, writes Carl S. Sterner.

s architects, we are trained to use daylight to shape the character and experience of the spaces we create. We are skilled at exploring the visual, experiential aspects of daylight. We are adept at creating striking renderings — those beautiful depictions of light and shadow that viscerally communicate the character of the design. These images are easily woven into the narrative of our design intent, and easily understood by clients. But there is a critical element missing from this medium: the practical issue of whether the daylight actually works. Are our renderings actually representative of the lighting in the space, or are they evocative works of fiction? Do they capture typical conditions or a unique moment? Does our design actually supply the lighting required? Renderings are unable to answer outcomes-based questions: Is this classroom well-lit for most occupied hours? Is there glare in the conference room? Are roof lights an effective strategy for improving daylighting in our office? How do they compare 42

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About the author Carl S. Sterner is a senior product marketing Manager at Sefaira and Owner at Sterner Design. He has worked at numerous architecture firms, including William McDonough + Partners.

to light shelves? Should there be more glass on the north or south façade? A good design needs more than poetry: it needs to work — not just sometimes, at that magic golden hour, but every day, every hour. These are questions, of course, for which daylight analysis is well suited. Nearly every space has lighting requirements, and day-lighting analysis can show how well a design meets those needs. It can help designers proactively identify problem areas, measure progress toward project goals, and compare design options. Physics-based analysis allows designers

As-existing CGIs

View along glazing towards pyramid, showing very high light levels at perimeter but becoming dark very quickly within the space.

Existing terrace without any form of cover at all limits the potential all weather seating options.

View within pyramid showing patent glazing — the effect of this is extreme levels of glare and overheating within the space as well as poor insulation so heating over winter likely to be a cost issue.

View upwards to show current ceiling arrangement.

to build performance into the very fabric of their designs, and thereby weave a strong objective case into each concept. This insight is increasingly easy to get, thanks to new tools that make daylight analysis accessible, quickly enough to be an integral part of the design process. www.AECmag.com

13/5/15 16:44:30

Proposed CGIs

Daylighting analysis

Screenshots showing lux levels across the floor plate at different times of the year before and after the improvements.

Existing

Proposed

10am June 1st

View along glazing towards pyramid, showing effect of new canopy and rooflights (less glare at perimeter and light distributed more deeply and evenly within the space).

5pm June 1st

10am Jan 1st

View along terrace showing the effect of the canopy on direct light when canopy is in fully open position — can be retracted to provide same as existing.

2pm Jan 1st

View within pyramid showing rooflights within roofed area (less glare / more even light) as well as greater levels of insulation to retain heat in winter.

View upwards to show light shaft that would need to be formed for rooflights to bring daylight into the space between ceiling bulkhead / coffer features.

But the point is not simply that daylight analysis can be a great design tool (although this is certainly true). The point is that it is also a great tool for communication — for telling the story of a design to clients. The combination of qualitative and quantitative elements is especially www.AECmag.com

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200

400

600

powerful. Renderings put an expressive face on otherwise opaque numbers; and analysis backs up the vision with clear, impartial data. Together they build a more complete — and more compelling — case for a particular design. Take, for example, a recent project by Allan Joyce Architects (pictured). The firm was approached to retrofit a Tearoom at the Royal Horticultural Society Gardens in Harlow Carr, UK, with an eye toward improving day-lighting and comfort. The building’s existing south and west glazing took advantage of views, but contributed to uncomfortable overheating and unfavorable glare. The architects developed a series of changes that they believed would greatly improve the occupants’ experience — but wanted to bolster this intuition with metrics. Their presentation put renderings and analysis side-by-side to communicate the impact of their proposed changes, both qualitatively and quantitatively. The renderings suggested an experience that was confirmed by the data.

800 and above

“Our client wanted to understand in detail how the proposed changes would provide the outcomes that they were after,” Toby Evison, architect at Allan Joyce Architects said. “We used a combination of rendering and analysis software to produce a report documenting the before and after conditions. Our client was delighted — they could easily comprehend the effect of the design proposals and this directly informed their decision making.” Mr Evison sees analysis as an important tool in the architect’s kit: “As architects working on a wide range of projects for an equally wide range of clients, it is important that we can draw on a comprehensive set of tools to communicate our ideas.” Architects are in the unique position of articulating the vision of a design while attesting to its technical feasibility and ultimate performance. The right combination of tools and imagery allows us to speak to both aspects of design, and to weave them together into a rich and compelling narrative. ■

sefaira.com

May / June 2015

13/5/15 16:44:35

Taming the deathray Design visualisation specialist Lightworks considers how enhancements in modelling and physically based rendering could help eliminate environmental, material and design flaws 44

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n the 26th August 2013 Rafael Viñoly’s ‘Walkie Talkie’ building at 20 Fenchurch Street, London, was hitting the headlines for all the wrong reasons. A beam of sun light reflected off the 525 ft skyscraper’s concave-glass façade had just cracked tiles, blistered paint and melted parts of a Jaguar XJ as its temperature soared to a staggering 110°C. To stop this so-called ‘deathray’ damaging neighbouring properties, brise soleil sunshades had to be retrofitted to the façade. The cost to the developer was a www.AECmag.com

14/5/15 10:44:30

Comment

Simulation of the Walkie Talkie’s deathray as it melts parts of a Jaguar XJ

reported £10m (5% of the cost for the entire build). The destructive power of the Walkie Talkie’s ‘deathray’ re-affirms how important it is for architects to accurately predict how their designs might impact the immediate environment in densely populated urban areas. They need to ask if the design will become a danger to those around it, not through poor structural integrity, or sloppy construction, but through a lack of understanding of material and lighting behaviours in its real-world environment. www.AECmag.com

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Physically-based rendering Physically based rendering, or physically based simulation, provides architects, designers and civil engineers with feedback on how their designs will behave in real-world environments. This includes how materials interact with light sources—both natural and artificial—how light is reflected and refracted, where shadows hit and if there are any points where the material or lighting is not enhancing the environment but damaging it instead. In the past it was common to review the

lighting and physical properties of a design after several aesthetic iterations had been made. This delay was often due to the time taken to create these visuals — up to 24 hours for a single render that showed a photorealistic still of the proposed design. It is now easy to review the properties of the materials, lighting and environmental factors at any point in the design process with physically based rendering. With tools like Iray+ now more widely available in packages like 3ds Max, access has become cheaper and easier for May / June 2015

14/5/15 10:44:33

Detailed model of London around the Fenchurch Street area

designers. At the same time, processing power has become more affordable, allowing for more real time rendering. Designers can thus create as many iterations as required. In the case of 20 Fenchurch Street a potential problem with reflections from the concave frontage was identified during the review of the second design iteration, but it was believed that the sun would not reach a great a height, or intensity, than the example used in the model. The reflected light it was assumed would, therefore, never form a concentrated beam. If the designers had combined physically based rendering with interactive render modes the design could have been continually tweaked and reviewed to make sure this hypothesis was correct.

In focus Design visualisation specialist Lightworks decided to do its own physics experiment into the deathray phenomenon. It took a detailed model of London around the Fenchurch Street area, inputted the exact longitude and latitude of the building, set the time and date to midday on 26 August 2013 (when the deathray occurred), and using Iray+ inside of 3ds Max, set up a physical sun and sky model and added some physically based materials, such as glass, to the model. Using the Irradiance mode in Iray+ for 3ds Max, the light energy was calculated in the scene — with a minimum and maximum lux value. As the time was moved closer to midday, a hotspot formed on the street, with a maximum lux value of about 500,000, which translated accurately to 110°C. Further modelling found that, had the designer increased the curvature of the building by as little as 10%, the light and the heat of the sun would have been focussed into a much smaller, much more intense hotspot that the company has dubbed the ‘ultimate deathray’. This could potentially be up to 30 times the power of sunlight. Which could have been enough to melt the tarmac on the street. When undertaking lighting reviews it is important to analyse the diffuse and spec46

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ular reflected light; in the case of 20 Fenchurch Street it was the specular component of the light — or caustic — that created the concentrated beam. The combined analysis of diffuse and specular light, was, until recently, hard for designers to achieve as most applications cannot measure the specular light; it is a key feature in the Iray suite of products. This sentiment was echoed by the building’s architect Rafael Viñoly in an interview with the Guardian newspaper, where he admitted that he predicted the building might reflect hot sun rays to the street below but “didn’t realise it was going to be so hot.” “There was a lack of tools and software that could be used to analyse the problem

accurately,” he said. However, Lightworks believes that with continued developments in visualisation technology and the combination of raytracing, real-time and interactive rendering, design review has become much more accessible across all areas of the product pipeline. These visualisation programmes, when supported by scalable hardware options, means that architects and designers can easily set-up multiple interactions for review; making sure that minor changes to a building do not have a negative impact on its environment. Aside from the obvious benefits of not melting cars or having to retrofit millions of pounds worth of sunshade equipment www.AECmag.com

14/5/15 10:44:35

Comment

to 525 ft skyscrapers, the developments in physically based rendering provide information that can be used in a number of industries and applications, including automotive and green energy production. In the case of energy production, a concentrated beam, can be specifically created and directed to an energy capture point close by, where it is then converted into electricity. Had Rafael Viñoly and his team had access to tools like 3ds Max and Iray+ they might have been able to confidently predict the issues earlier in the design process, enabling them to specify a more absorbent glass or even an alternative design for the façade. ■ lightworkdesign.com

www.AECmag.com

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14/5/15 10:44:39

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Case study

Structural design and the need for interoperability Fitzpatrick Engineering Group uses Bentley software to help save material costs on $18m rehabilitation centre, while sharing design model data with steel fabricator and delivering a Revit model for facilities management.

Structural Synchronizer provided a ocated in North Carolina, USA, struction team, including fabricators, was Fitzpatrick Engineering Group not new to FEG. However, the owner’s shared, dynamic repository for all struc(FEG) specialises in structural requirement for a Revit deliverable did tural content, including change manageengineering solutions for com- require FEG to closely examine the accu- ment visualisation and revision history. mercial, institutional, and healthcare racy and completeness of data exports. AECOsim Building Designer used buildings. The firm was selected by a A thorough internal review concluded Structural Synchronizer to communicate major healthcare provider in the south- that Bentley AECOsim Building Designer, with the database, while the ISM Revit eastern United States to be part of an inte- one of FEG’s preferred BIM applications, plug-in transferred data to Revit. “We could work in our preferred BIM grated project delivery team for a US$18 was able to export accurate and complete application, confident that we would be million rehabilitation centre, providing structural data. able to send reliable informastructural design for the tion to the fabricator and deliv65,000-square-foot, steeler a Revit model through elecframed building. Parametric cells have allowed us to add tronic means without having to The rehabilitation centre in the more meaningful content into our manage two models separately,” southeast of the United States Fitzpatrick said. was the owner’s first foray into models and provide tighter co-ordination FEG started the project with integrated project delivery, in between our models and plans two Bentley products: RAM which the design team, contracStructural System, which tor, and major subcontractors allowed analysis and design were on board from the start of the project in late 2011. The solution to providing both the using a single model, and Structural The owner requested a Revit model Revit model deliverable and high-quality Modeler, a BIM application that enabled deliverable from all design disciplines for steel fabrication data, without having engineers to easily explore design alteruse in facility management. The owner also to re-enter data, was to implement natives with flexible interdisciplinary corequired FEG to share the design model Bentley’s Integrated Structural Modeling ordination and interoperability. When a data with the fabricator. (ISM) tools. FEG determined that its new release of AECOsim Building structural engineers could use AECOsim Designer became available, FEG phased Bentley integrated software Building Designer in conjunction with out its use of Structural Modeler in order Sharing structural model information Bentley’s Structural Synchronizer and to make use of the new modelling features in AECOsim Building Designer. with downstream members of the con- ISM Revit plug-in.

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Case study Parametric modelling with AECOsim Building Designer helped provide an immediate visual feedback to ensure model accuracy

Parametric modelling

than dealing with an RFI during con- between the model and plans and enforcing corporate standards for labeling each With the latest version of AECOsim struction. Column base plate parametric cells of the elements. The risk associated with Building Designer, FEG was able to use dimension-driven parametric modelling were created that included anchor bolts, transferring red marks the old way was to create and manipulate complex struc- nuts, washers, embedment depths, and a eliminated, and consistency between tural assemblies. Parametric modelling non-plotting clearance lug at the bottom FEG’s model and drawings was ensured. “By creating parametric content with technology enabled the creation of para- of the anchor bolt. If this (red) lug was metric cells for common structural com- visible from the underside of the founda- AECOsim Building Designer, we were ponents in the project including the pro- tions, FEG knew the footings were too able to provide an immediate visual conprietary SidePlate connection and base- shallow or the bolts too long for that confirmation of modelling accuracy during dition, and the anchor bolts would not element placement,” Fitzpatrick said. plates with anchor bolts. “The user was able to see the new con“Parametric cells have allowed us to add have the proper concrete cover. Anchor more meaningful content into our models bolt layouts could be visually compared tent in full context of the model and could and provide tighter co-ordination between against the column profile for clearances tell if the assigned parameters fit the current condition. This visual confirmation during modelling as well. our models and plans,” Fitzpatrick said. provided the first level of conParametric cells provide formance and error checking.“ designers with a visual check as they are placing the element. Material cost savings They also yield benefits with We could work in our preferred BIM plan annotations and schedulUsing RAM Structural System application, confident that we would be ing. Because they are linked to to analyse the proprietary the original element, any assoSidePlate connection technology able to send reliable information to the ciated data for an element can FEG identified a $15,000 savfabricator and deliver a Revit model be placed as an annotation on ings in direct material steel costs the plans, and as the design through electronic means without having on the project. Although the continues to evolve, the annoSidePlate connection was conto manage two models separately tations are automatically ceived for high-seismic applicaupdated. Similarly, an entire tions, it has demonstrated savgroup or subset of data for a ings in lower seismic regions as The base plates and anchor bolt layouts well — not only in terms of direct material component can be easily exported to a spreadsheet and reformatted into a sched- were included on the extracted founda- costs but also in field inspection costs. tion plan, offering another opportunity to Traditional seismic connections require ule to meet corporate standards. FEG created parametric cells for the ensure consistency. The engineering team continuous inspection of full penetration SidePlate connections that included all of created spread footing parametric cells to welds, whereas SidePlate connections are the plate components as well as the welds. allow them to consistently model footing all fillet welds allowing for periodic inspecAs the connection component was placed, sizes, reinforcing quantities and elevation and less field testing. The inspection the engineer received immediate visual tions. It also ensured enforcement of and testing cost reduction was anticipated feedback. If the parameters entered were FEG’s corporate designs. to save an additional $13,000. Beam web openings, necessary for propcorrect, the cell would fit snugly around Bentley’s innovative products have er co-ordination and interference detec- allowed this small firm to surpass industhe column and beams for that condition. If column flanges extended beyond the tion, were created and scheduled. try standards and set itself apart as a leadside plates, or if the cover plates were not Annotations were placed on drawings for er by developing an advanced solution to snug to the beam flanges, the user could each of these parametric elements, closing today’s BIM workflow. take action to correct the problem rather the loop on accurate co-ordination ■ bentley.com

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AEC Magazine May / June 2015

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