AEC Magazine May / June 2022

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

Have the iPhone and iPad finally earned their pro status in AEC?

New cloud-based BIM tools Construction Verification Initiative May / June 2022 >> Vol.120 p01_AEC_MAYJUN22_Cover FINAL.indd 1

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From sketch to viz

Fa br ica tio n, ar ch ite ct ur e, co m pu ta tio n

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From concept design to reality capture, a new wave of iOS apps are making their mark

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Industry news 6 Varjo launches Reality Cloud; Intel to boost rendering with new mobile CPUs; Lenovo to enter new era for ThinkPad; Skanska to drive AI in construction; plus lots more

Apple iOS builds foundations in AEC 18 Apple’s ecosystem seems to be the target platform for most new mobile developers

SketchUp for iPad 22 The legendary push / pull conceptual design tool gets a new lease of life

EveryPoint 26 We are about to enter an era where we can quickly and easily capture reality in 3D using the phone in our pockets

SiteScape Multi-Scan 30

The digitisation of construction 42 On 21 June NXT BLD will explore emerging tech in off-site construction and modular design, plus lots, lots more

Qonic: accurate BIM 52 A new Belgian start-up is aiming to bring new efficiencies to the BIM process

Infurnia 55 A new BIM modeller taking aim at the Revits of the world has a specialism in interior design

Arkio in the metaverse of madness 58 The collaborative spatial design software has received a pile of new features for its official launch on Meta’s Quest App store

The iPad / iPhone Pro can now LiDAR scan buildings up to 5,000 sqft by merging scans into a single point cloud

The dos and don’ts of mail retention 60

The Construction Verification Initiative 34

With email being the letter of today and employees increasingly working remotely, managing emails in the age of compliance and litigation has never been more difficult

A new construction industry initiative aims to promote better work practices to verify and document what gets built

HxDR: reality capture 38 Martyn Day visited Leica at its HQ in Zurich, Switzerland, to learn about the latest developments

Real-time viz: transforming design 62 Real-time viz is doing what sketching never could, bringing inclusivity to the design process and empowering stakeholders to better collaborate May / June 2022

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24/05/2022 17:13

Varjo Reality Cloud to stream VR, XR, iOS and Windows from the cloud arjo, best known for its ‘human eye’ resolution VR/XR headsets, has launched a new platform for streaming VR/XR content from the cloud.

The Varjo Reality Cloud is available now, as part of a collaborative design service for automotive viz tool Autodesk VRED. Support for Unity and Unreal Engine will come later this year. Varjo is also working with other software developers and has an expectation that users will be able to upload their own apps in the future. “The long-term vision for us is to become software agnostic,” says Jussi Mäkinen, chief brand officer, Varjo.

The Varjo Reality Cloud is powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Nvidia GPUs. It currently works with Varjo VR/ XR headsets, but as Varjo aims to make the platform ‘industry-standard’, support will extend to ‘all other headsets’ (tethered and untethered) and other devices later this year. This includes iOS phones and tablets and Windows PCs. Mäkinen told AEC Magazine that he wants to make collaboration in the Varjo Reality Cloud as easy as a Teams or Zoom call. He uses the example of automaker Volvo, who has been using the service to connect its design studios around the world. “If they [in Stockholm] want to engage their US people, for example, in a very quick way, all they need to do is send the link and whoever gets the link can just click it and put the headset on,” he says.

“There’s no need to install Autodesk VRED, or no need to install [download] a car model. They just click the link, and it starts to stream.”

“Varjo Reality Cloud enables us to work together seamlessly through both virtual and mixed reality,” says T. Jon Mayer, head of exterior design at Volvo Cars. “This virtual space allows us to review design models together as if we are standing there physically together in the same space.

“The technology is a significant step towards democratising the use of VR and XR for collaboration through ease of use and lower PC hardware requirements.”

As with Varjo VR/XR headsets, visual fidelity in the Varjo Reality Cloud is of paramount importance. The platform is built around a ‘lossless’ proprietary foveated transport algorithm to stream the immersive content to devices. This

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uses the Varjo headset’s eye tracker to prioritise the pixels that the user is paying most attention to, so there’s no perceivable latency and visual quality is kept at the ‘perfect level’.

As with any remote graphics technology, distance to the datacentre is important for a good experience. Urho Konttori, co-founder and CTO, Varjo, says that when connecting from New York to an AWS datacentre in West Coast USA “you cannot perceive the latency at all”.

For greater distances, each user connects to the most local AWS datacentre, and datasets – plus any subsequent changes made to those datasets – are synced between datacenters.

In the future, firms will be able to deploy the service on-premise using Amazon Outposts. This could be important for automotive or defence firms with strict controls over data and IP. In terms of technology, the AWS instances that Varjo Reality Cloud relies on, are highly scalable and are powered

by Nvidia A10G GPUs. An Nvidia GPU is also needed for decoding on the client, and the minimum spec is currently a GeForce 3050 or 2060. However, Konttori says this is less about processing power and more about the DisplayPort standard required for Varjo headsets. When Varjo adds iOS support later this year, decoding will be done using Apple M1 silicon.

To VRED and beyond With Varjo Reality Cloud, users can create collaborative Autodesk VRED sessions on-demand and ‘easily invite’

key decision-makers to join. Cloud streaming support for VRED is available for up to five concurrent users per company at $1,595 per month.

The service gives design teams fast access to GPU accelerated instances on AWS, licensed with Autodesk VRED. “We reserve fully the instances so they’re always up and available, and you will never not have a server available for you,” says Konttori.

In developing the VRED service, Varjo worked closely with Autodesk to make it very easy to use. Setting up a collaborative session has historically been complex and required everyone to have a locallyinstalled licence of VRED on a high-end workstation. Through the Varjo Reality Cloud, setup for collaborators is instant and they enter the VR/XR space automatically without having to go through the standard VRED desktop UI. The bundled VRED service is just a start and Varjo is looking into different pricing models and options. “Not everyone wants five concurrent users,” says Konttori. He also acknowledges that while an automotive design firm might use the Varjo Reality Cloud to collaborate daily, an architectural team might only need one hour per week for design / review.

With support for Unity and Unreal Engine coming later this year, it won’t be long before the Varjo Reality Cloud service expands into other sectors.

Architectural visualisation tools, Enscape and Twinmotion, are ‘certainly interesting’ says Konttori.

■ www.varjo.com/products/realitycloud

www.AECmag.com

24/05/2022 16:32

News

‘The Atom’ AR headset integrates with BIM 360

Faro launches reality capture platform

Design and construction teams can also create and view issues in either BIM 360 or The Atom. Issues can be directed to individuals and specific models, allowing for the exchange of real-time information between The Atom and all the interconnected components.

Construction teams can use The Atom for pre-installation, inspecting the model on-site and identifying clashes before they take place; during-installation, to verify works during setting out and installation directly from the coordinated model; and post-installation, to validate, assess and sign-off on works in real-time.

aro has launched an ‘end-to-end’ reality capture and collaboration platform that combines three solutions: Faro Sphere for data exchange; Faro Focus for laser scanning; and the Faro Stream mobile app for real-time data verification.

Faro Stream, which is available for Android and iOS devices, works with the Focus Premium laser scanner to enable on-site scan data validation (preregistration). It can then be synced to Faro Sphere for registration and collaboration.

Faro Sphere centralises the collection and management of all 3D data projects for access by global stakeholders through the ‘secure, single point’ sign-on.

Faro Sphere is also designed to provide a ‘one-stop’ user experience across Faro’s software applications and support tools, including construction progress management solution HoloBuilder. Faro says more workflows will be offered in future Faro Sphere updates.

■ www.xyzreality.com

■ www.faro.com

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YZ Reality has announced an integration of its ‘engineeringgrade’ AR headset, The Atom, with Autodesk BIM 360.

Combining a construction safety headset, augmented reality displays and in-built computing power, The Atom enables construction teams to view and position models hosted in BIM 360 to ‘millimetre accuracy’ on-site.

Construction teams can use The Atom to create, visualise and manage issues and tasks, and ‘instantly’ assign them to project stakeholders in BIM 360. Users can share rich, up-to-date details, pictures and videos linked to a precise location on-site.

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Autodesk boosts support for IFC in Revit utodesk has enhanced interoperability in Revit 2023, with enhanced support for the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) data model specification, with built-in parameters and class mapping.

IFC objects are now given a unique ID

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when they are created, not on export, giving clarity to the user. Autodesk has provided editing tools to select the IFC type class / element type. These improvements should help users get more consistent IFC output from Revit.

synchronisation of issues with Autodesk BIM Collaborate Pro, Autodesk BIM 360 and Autodesk Build, as well as the ability to import Revit, Navisworks and IFC models. Export to BCF, CSV, and PDF is also supported.

adybug Tools has released Pollination, a new Rhino plug-in for environmental simulation that extends Rhino’s modelling capabilities allowing users to assign environmental simulation data to geometry.

Users can build, visualise, and validate geometrically complex models before running energy, daylight, thermal comfort, or other environmental simulations in parallel.

■ www.gamma-ar.com

■ www.pollination.cloud/rhino-plugin

■ www.autodesk.com/revit

Gamma AR links to Construction Cloud amma AR, which brings BIM models to the construction site using Augmented Reality (AR), now offers an optimised workflow with Autodesk Construction Cloud to help manage tasks and RFIs. The software supports bi-directional

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12th Gen Intel Core HX mobile CPUs launch with promise of huge boost for rendering ntel has announced its 12th Gen ‘Alder Lake’ Intel Core HX processors, designed for highperformance mobile workstations, including new 16-inch models coming out of Dell, Lenovo (ThinkPad P16) and HP (ZBook Fury G9).

The new mobile processors use the same silicon as the ‘Alder Lake’ desktop chips that launched last year.

They have all the hallmarks of Intel Xeon – including ECC memory, top-end performance, and large memory capacity – without the name. It would appear the HX-Series marks the end of the Intel Xeon W brand on mobile.

Intel HX processors follow on from the 12th Gen Intel Core H processors announced earlier this year. They feature the same hybrid architecture that delivers a mix of Performance cores (P-cores) and Efficient cores (E-cores) for background processes.

The main difference between the two processor families is the number of cores on offer. The top-end HX-Series CPU, the Intel Core i9-12950HX, has 8 P-cores and 8 E-cores, for a total of 24 threads, while the top-end H-Series CPU, the Intel Core i9-12900H, maxes out at 6 P-cores and 8 E-cores, for a total of 20 threads.

This should give the HX Series a

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significant advantage in multi-threaded applications, especially ray trace rendering. And because of its ‘E-Cores’, an even bigger advantage over ‘Tiger Lake’ 11th Gen Intel Core mobile and Intel Xeon W processors. In fact, when rendering in blender, Intel quotes the Core i9-12900HX to have an 81% performance lead over the Core i9-11980HK. The HX-Series also features a higher Thermal Design Power (TDP) than the H-Series (55 watts compared to 45 watts) and a higher Max turbo power (157 watts

compared to 115 watts) so performance could be further elevated in laptops with particularly good thermal management.

There are some other architectural differences. They are the first Intel mobile CPUs to support the PCIe Gen 5 interface and include up to 128 GB of DDR5/ LPDDR5 memory (compared to 64 GB), and up to four M.2 NVMe SSDs. Intel also offers 12th Gen Intel Core P-series processors with a TDP of 28W for thin and light mobile workstations.

■ www.intel.com/processors

Intel Arc graphics launch in laptops. Workstations to follow ntel has launched its Intel Arc graphics family for laptops, the first in a series of discrete ‘high-performance’ GPUs that will extend to desktops and workstations later this year.

This is a significant move for Intel as it looks to boost its graphics capabilities and compete more strongly against AMD and Nvidia, who offer a wide range of powerful discrete GPUs. Prior to this launch, Intel’s GPUs were mostly integrated with its CPUs and only really targeted entry-level users.

Arc is focused on consumers, specifically gamers and ‘creators’, a broad term that often refers to those who generate video or 3D content. At its launch, Intel spoke about Adobe Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve, and has previously

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referenced Blender (rendering with Cycles) and Autodesk 3ds max. However, there was no mention of CAD or BIM software.

Historically, Intel has focused on directly supporting only the most popular CAD and BIM software. However, Intel graphics driver support for these applications appears to have slipped over the years. Certification of Intel integrated GPUs with the latest CAD products from Autodesk, Solidworks, Siemens and others, are few and far between.

However, with a new focus on discrete GPUs, this could change and it will be interesting to see how much attention Intel gives the CAD sector moving forward.

The products The new Intel Arc A-Series GPUs are built on Intel’s Xe High Performance

Graphics microarchitecture, or Xe HPG for short. They offer support for DirectX 12 Ultimate, hardware accelerated ray tracing and Xe Super Sampling (X e SS), which uses AI to denoise and upscale images and video.

There are three tiers of products: Arc 3, Arc 5 and Arc 7. Arc 3 is available now in two product offerings: the A350M for ultra-thin laptops and the A370M for more performance in thin-and-light laptops. The more powerful Arc 5 and Arc 7 graphics products will follow this summer.

In gaming benchmarks, Intel shows the A370M to offer up to around double the performance of its Iris Xe integrated graphics. Intel did not share any data comparing its new GPUs with those from AMD and Nvidia.

■ www.intel.com/arc

www.AECmag.com

24/05/2022 16:32

News

Lenovo ThinkPad P16 mobile workstation marks new era for ThinkPad design enovo has introduced the ThinkPad P16, a new mobile workstation designed to deliver the high-end performance and features of a 17-inch laptop in a compact 16-inch chassis. In a departure from the classic ThinkPad styling, the P16 also features an innovative new industrial design, plus an advanced thermal solution to maintain performance levels, while running cool and quiet.

Built around the new ‘hybrid architecture’ 12th Gen Intel Core HX mobile processors, the ThinkPad P16 offers up to eight ‘Performance’ cores and eight ‘Efficient’ cores, for a total of 16 physical cores and 24 threads. This is a big step up from the 11th Gen Intel Core mobile processors used in previous generation ThinkPads, which maxed out at eight cores and 16 threads (see HX mobile story left for more information).

With more cores, 12th Gen Intel Core HX processors have a Thermal Design Power (TDP) of 55W, 10W more than 11th Gen. To handle the increased thermal load in the smaller 16-inch form factor, Lenovo’s thermodynamics engineers had to create an all-new cooling solution with dual fans, heat pipes, a dual vapour chamber, keyboard air intake, and dual by-pass design.

According to Lenovo, this innovative solution allows for more airflow through the chassis and keeps the P16 cooler and quieter during the heaviest workloads.

The cooling solution is also designed to balance the thermal load between the CPU and GPU. Lenovo offers several options here including the 125W Nvidia RTX A5500 (16GB) for the most demanding real-time visualisation, GPU rendering and VR workflows.

The completely re-designed chassis features a new ‘storm grey’ aluminium ‘A cover’, built around a magnesium subframe to protect the display. The palm rest is crafted from ABS plastic and The ultrapolycarbonate, portable coated with a grey ThinkPad P1 anti fingerprint paint to echo the aesthetic of the ‘A Cover’.

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The ThinkPad P16 features an integrated on-chip fingerprint reader in the power button

Meanwhile, a solid magnesium sub frame or ‘roll cage’ gives the laptop body its traditional ThinkPad strength and rigidity. A red stripe across the rear expands on the aesthetic of Lenovo’s desktop ThinkStation workstations.

The ThinkPad P16 also comes equipped with the latest DDR5 memory, supporting up to 128 GB across four DIMMs, as well as a maximum of 8 TB of storage via two high-performance M.2 NVMe SSDs. The laptop features a new 16-inch low blue-light display, with OLED Touch option with pen support. The 16:10 viewing area is said to deliver a higher screen-to-body ratio thanks to narrower bezels, higher pixels per inch and higher vertical resolution and space.

Additionally, the P16 features a wider 115mm touchpad, an integrated on-chip fingerprint reader in the power button, and a FHD camera for better picture quality on video calls. Wireless connectivity options include Intel WiFi 6E AX211 and 4G LTE. The laptop measures 364 x 266 x 30mm and starts at 2.95kg, which is slightly bigger and heavier than the HP ZBook Fury G9 and Dell Precision 7670 (see page 11), both of which have similar specs.

The ThinkPad P16

mobile workstation will be available later this month starting at $1,979.

ThinkPad P1 Lenovo has also updated its premium ultra-portable 16-inch mobile workstation, the ThinkPad P1.

The ThinkPad P1 Gen 5 is said to offer more performance than its predecessor in the same thin and light form factor, which starts at 1.81kg.

The laptop features the latest 12th Gen Intel Core H-series processors (up to 14 cores and 5.0 GHz) and a choice of GPUs up to the Nvidia RTX A5500 (16 GB) and Nvidia GeForce 3080 Ti (16 GB).

Lenovo says a new liquid metal thermal design gives the improved cooling performance and long-term reliability.

The ThinkPad P1 Gen 5 features double the storage capacity of the ThinkPad P1 Gen 4 – up to 8 TB spread across two M.2 PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSDs. The pro laptop comes with a choice of 16-inch, 16:10 aspect ratio, narrow bezel IPS panels with low blue light technology and X-Rite colour calibration. These include the WUXGA (FHD+) (1,920 x 1,200), WQXGA (QHD+) (2,560 x 1,600) and WQUXGA (UHD+) (3,840 x 2,400) with and without touch.

Other features include 5G connectivity, a 90WHr battery, up to 64 GB of DDR5 4,800 MHz memory, and a high resolution FHD camera or FHD Hybrid IR camera.

■ www.lenovo.com/workstations

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ROUND UP Bentley gets FEA

AMD Ryzen Pro 6000 Series launches for pro laptops

Bentley Systems has acquired Adina, a developer of finite element analysis (FEA) software used by civil, structural, and mechanical engineers on a variety of projects including buildings, bridges, stadiums, pressure vessels, dams, and tunnels ■ www.adina.com

ReCap Pro 2023 Users of reality capture software Autodesk ReCap Pro 2023 can now share large ReCap datasets with other users with only a browser and Autodesk Docs. It means users no longer need to download Recap datasets to local devices ■ www.autodesk.com

AMD on Redshift Redshift, the GPU-accelerated biased renderer from Maxon that works with Cinema 4D, Maya, 3ds max, Blender, Vectorworks, Archicad and others, can now be accelerated by AMD Radeon Pro GPUs using AMD (HIP). GPUs from Apple (Metal) and Nvidia (CUDA) are also supported ■ www.maxon.net

CupixWorks X Cupix has released CupixWorks X, a 3D ‘digital twin’ platform powered by the Gamma Engine. This 3rd generation AI engine uses ClearVision technology which is said to provide ‘remarkably clear’ image quality of 360° video-based virtual walkthroughs ■ www.cupix.com

Uniclass boost NBS has redesigned its Uniclass website to better support interoperability between software platforms and enable users to more easily explore the relationships between classifications. According to NBS, it is more ‘user-friendly’ and offers improved search functionality ■ https://uniclass.thenbs.com

Kier selects Procore UK construction and infrastructure services firm, Kier Group, has selected the Procore platform to enhance and standardise operations across its construction business and projects. The company hopes to drive improvements in everything from project progress, to supply chain developments as well as safety and performance ■ www.procore.com

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MD has launched the AMD Ryzen Pro 6000, a new series of processors with integrated pro graphics designed for mobile workstations and business laptops.

The AMD Ryzen Pro 6000 Series features ‘Zen 3+’ cores to deliver what AMD describes as an uncompromising combination of high-performance and power efficiency with ‘all day’ battery life.

Offering up to eight cores and 16 threads with a maximum boost clock of 4.9 GHz, AMD says the new CPUs are up to 1.3 times faster than its previous generation.

The AMD Ryzen Pro 6000 Series stands out due to its integrated AMD RDNA 2 graphics, which includes support for the AMD Radeon Pro graphics driver.

Offering up to twice the performance of AMD’s previous generation and with 19 planned Independent Software Vendor (ISV) certifications, it should mean some users of CAD and BIM software do not need a mobile workstation with a separate discrete GPU. This could save money, reduce energy consumption, and improve battery life as

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the Thermal Design Power (TDP) of the top-end AMD Ryzen Pro 6000 processors only go up to 45W. The AMD Ryzen Pro 6000 is split into two classes of products: the Ryzen Pro 6000 H Series for high-performance mobile workstations and the Ryzen Pro 6000 U Series for thin and light laptops.

The new processors also feature ‘enterprise class security, manageability, and reliability’ to help IT departments support an increasingly remote workforce.

Lenovo is the first major manufacturer to launch an AMD Ryzen Pro 6000-based mobile workstation.

The Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen1 (16” AMD) features a choice of AMD Ryzen 5 Pro 6650U (6 cores, 4.5 GHz boost) or AMD Ryzen 7 Pro 6850U (8 cores, 4.7 GHz boost) processors. It comes with integrated Radeon Graphics, 4 GB vRAM and the Radeon Pro APU driver with certifications for AutoCAD, Revit and other CAD and BIM applications.

Lenovo launched an Intel version of the Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen1 in February.

■ www.amd.com

Teradici and HP present HP Anyware eradici and HP have released the beta of HP Anyware, an enterpriseclass remote graphics solution that combines Teradici CAS with HP ZCentral Remote Boost.

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The announcement follows the acquisition of Teradici by HP in 2021 and lays the foundations for a full product launch in summer 2022.

HP Anyware uses Teradici CAS as its

foundation and, in many ways, is simply the next generation of Teradici’s well respected remoting software, augmented with select features from ZCentral Remote Boost.

■ www.teradici.com/hp-anyware

www.AECmag.com

24/05/2022 16:32

News

HP unveils new 16-inch ZBook mobile workstations

Intel Core i9-12900KS to boost CAD he Intel Core i9-12900KS, a special edition of the 12th Gen Intel Core ‘Alder Lake’ family of desktop CPUs, has launched.

With frequencies of up to 5.5 GHz on up to two of its ‘Performance’ cores, Intel claims it is the world’s fastest desktop processor’ for games, although this should also extend to CAD and BIM software, which is largely single threaded.

The processor features the same underlying silicon configuration as the Core i9-12900K —8 Performance cores (P-cores), 8 Efficient cores (E-cores), for a total of 16 physical cores and 24 threads.

However, at 5.5 GHz, the chip’s peak max turbo frequency is a full 0.3 GHz higher than the Core i9-12900K (5.2 GHz). The lead in other specs, including the base frequency of the P-cores and E-cores is smaller.

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P has unveiled two new 16-inch ZBook mobile workstations, the HP ZBook Fury G9 and the HP ZBook Studio G9.

The ZBook Fury G9 is powered by the new 12th Gen Intel Core HX-Series processors with 8 P-cores and 8 E-cores.

Graphics options include the Nvidia RTX A5500 with a max Thermal Design Power (TDP) of 145W, and AMD Radeon Pro GPUs, although HP has not detailed which ones.

The machine supports up to 128 GB of DDR5 memory across 4 DIMMs and up to 16 TB of NVMe storage across four M.2 SSDs. There are no Hard Disk Drive options, a first for an HP ZBook of this class.

HP has also concentrated on improving the experience of video conferencing. With HP Auto Frame, the 5-megapixel IR camera and audio will automatically follow the presenter (or multiple presenters) as they move within the camera’s frame. DNN Noise Suppression will also suppress background noise for ‘crisp, clear calls.’

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The HP ZBook Fury G9 measures 363 x 251 x 2.78mm and starts at 2.44 kg.

The ZBook Studio G9 is significantly slimmer and lighter than the ZBook Fury G9, so offers the slightly less powerful 12th Gen Intel Core H-Series processors with up to 6 P-cores and 8 E-cores.

It offers similar graphics options up to the Nvidia RTX A5000, with a max Thermal Design Power (TDP) of 110W. Meanwhile, HP Vaporforce Thermals feature new curved metal blades to help keep the machine running cool and operating at peak processing power.

With up to 64 GB of DDR5 memory, spread across 2 DIMMs, the HP ZBook Studio G9 offers less memory than the HP ZBook Fury G9. However, this is still a big improvement over the HP ZBook Studio G8 with 32 GB, which some customers found limiting. Other specs include up to 4 TB of NVMe M.2 storage.

The HP ZBook Studio G9 measures 356 x 242 x 180mm and starts at 1.73 kg.

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Framence boosts digital twin platform

A2000 GPUs and 259mm thick with the Nvidia RTX A3000, A4500 or A5500.

Features include a 16:10 aspect ratio 500nits PremierColor display, up to 12TB of storage across three M.2 SSDs and up to 128GB of 4,800MHz via Dell’s new patented Compression Attached Memory Modules (CAMM) which is said to allow for a thinner chassis design.

erman firm Framence has developed a digital twin platform that provides a ‘single point of data access’ for asset management.

Data from multiple systems, such as maintenance, condition monitoring, and energy data management, can be accessed through a photorealistic model generated by AI and photos.

The platform can also be used to document construction progress via an integrated timeline, and to compare as-designed against as-built, by importing 3D models in the coordinate system.

■ www.dell.com/workstations

■ www.framence.com

■ www.hp.com/zworkstations

Dell launches two 16-inch laptops in one ell has introduced two mobile workstations built around the 12th Gen Intel Core HX mobile processors — the 16-inch Precision 7670 and the 17-inch Precision 7760.

The 16-inch Precision 7670 comes in two chassis options – thin and performance – depending on which GPU is specified. It is 232mm thick with the CAD-focused Nvidia RTX A1000 or

■ www.intel.com

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Arskan using compressed reality meshes to drive digital twins rskan, a specialist in 3D visualisation over the Internet, has developed a compression technology for reality meshes that is said to reduce file size by up to 100 times without data loss. The French company says its Codec technology allows massive datasets to be viewed on mobile devices without having to rely on a constant, fast internet connection, that is traditionally required when reality meshes are streamed from the cloud.

The compression technology is available as a Software Development Kit (SDK), so it can be plugged into a range of third party applications, including reality modelling software. Arskan also sees the Codec as key component for digital twins and is using the technology as one of the foundations on which to develop commercial digital twin products.

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Lossless compression Using the Arskan Codec, mesh data is compressed in the cloud or a server, then sent to a desktop or mobile device for viewing in a browser. For a recent industrial project, Mickaël Pastor, technical director at Arskan, explained how a 5 GB mesh was shrunk down to just over 50 MB, so it could be downloaded to a mobile phone over 4G in ‘a matter of seconds.’

Once on the local device the dataset is decompressed, and the visualization can adapt to different levels of detail.

Decompression can be progressive, so the user can start to view the mesh before the decompression has finished.

For particularly large meshes, Arskan is working on technology that allows decompression and viewing to start before the entire dataset has been downloaded to the local device. New ‘out of core’ technology aims to remove all file size limits and Arskan is currently experimenting with a 200 GB mesh of a cathedral compressed down to 2 GB.

Digital twins Arskan is working on developing a commercial digital twin solution that makes use of the compression technology.

The company’s SiloData platform combines the Arskan Codec with its universal viewer, Arskan MoveInside, to 12

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deliver a ‘complete set’ of technological solutions for visualisation, management and sharing 3D data on the web, on the go.

Arskan says the platform enables clients to generate interactive, collaborative and real-time digital twins.

But Arskan acknowledges that a digital twin is much more than just a reality mesh. The company is working on integrating data from Internet of Things (IoT) devices and using AI to enrich the model and deliver more value to the digital twin A car park in France has become one of the test beds for its digital twin solution.

Developed in partnership with Lyon Parc Auto, a specialist in public park parks, and INSA, a public scientific research laboratory for image computing and information systems, the CAJuN project looks to explore the predictive maintenance of the 28,000m² LPA Cordeliers car park and company headquarters in Lyon.

A large, extracted point cloud was meshed and compressed using the Arskan codec, so it could be visualised by parking agents on a tablet or smartphone, accessed via a digital twin stored in the Arskan Silo-Data platform.

The CAJuN project point cloud also used AI for ‘unsupervised pattern recognition’ to interpret the point cloud data and deliver an inventory of repetitive shapes.

This included over 100 fire extinguishers which were classified accordingly and tagged with maintenance information for asset management. AI is also being used on the point cloud to identify walls and reduce file size further by minimising the number of points on the mesh.

As the CAJuN project evolves it could be used to manage other car parks in the region and form the foundation for future commercial digital twin solutions to cover a range of assets including factories or even nuclear power plants.

■ www.arskan.com

www.AECmag.com

24/05/2022 16:32

News

SketchUp for iPad introduced for modelling on the go

Resellers align under VinZero brand

ketchUp, the easy-to-use modelling tool, popular with interior designers, architects, engineers and construction professionals, is now available for the Apple iPad. SketchUp for iPad is said to combine the power of 3D with the ease of sketching by hand to allow AEC professionals to more effectively create, edit and collaborate on projects while on-site, on the go, and in the office.

The software includes most of the functionality available in the desktop version, and users can ‘move seamlessly’ between SketchUp for iPad, SketchUp for Web and SketchUp Desktop applications.

There are several features specific to the iPad version. The most notable are ‘smart drawing tools’ and support for Apple Pencil, so users can ‘intuitively sketch’ in

adline UK and EMEA, an Autodesk Platinum Partner, has formed a brand partnership with A2K Technologies ANZ, U.S CAD The Americas, and Capricot India under the VinZero brand.

The companies had worked together for the past few years under a Global Alliance agreement, but this move formalises the relationship. It will allow the firms to leverage their global reach and serve customers at scale. With over 550 employees across 32 offices globally and covering some 25 languages, it makes VinZero one of the largest Platinum Partners for Autodesk globally.

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3D and add markups. The software also has the ability to visualise models in the real world using augmented reality (AR) and add photo textures using the iPad camera.

AutoShape is a machine-learning feature designed to transform doodles into 3D shapes and configurable components. This includes standard 2D and 3D primitives, as well as a range of doors and windows that can be parametrically edited and configured. e.g. number of mullions, number of window units, colour of the windows, etc. Here, SketchUp for iPad sends the doodle to a cloud service and it automatically downloads the relevant content.

There are several other features including a markup mode, which places annotations in context, and tight integration with Trimble Connect. See page 22 for a full review.

■ www.sketchup.com

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■ vinzero.com

Graphisoft to support Nvidia Omniverse

contractor and subcontractor organisations.

“We’re very grateful for Slate in helping Skanska navigate the valuable unstructured data that doesn’t sit in one place and doesn’t sit in a beautifully crafted data lake or data warehouse,” states Andrew MacAskill, operational efficiency director at Skanska UK. “We genuinely believe Slate could be a game changing opportunity for the whole industry.”

By integrating and analysing data from almost any location, Slate’s proprietary dynamic scheduling capabilities are designed to help ensure change decisions can immediately update an overall schedule, and the order of individuals’ tasks. According to Slate, this dramatically boosts efficiency, improving every step of the building process.

Felipe Manzatucci, director of digitalisation at Skanska, will be sharing some of his experiences of using Slate at NXT BLD on 21 June (www.nxtbld.com)

Graphisoft has developed an Omniverse Connector for Archicad 24, to enable Archicad users to send and live sync their model(s) to Nvidia Omniverse, a scalable, multiGPU real-time platform for 3D simulation and design collaboration.

The Archicad connector not only gives Archicad users access to a high-performance renderer through Omniverse Apps but also the ability to open, edit and sync with any of the Nvidia Omniverse Connect applications, which includes Revit, Rhino, SketchUp and Unreal Engine.

While Nvidia Omniverse Enterprise is paid for by subscription, Omniverse is also a free service, enabling access to the Omniverse render engine, and using local Nvidia GPU reources.

■ www.slate.ai

■ www.nvidia.com/omniverse

Slate and Skanska drive AI in construction onstruction software startup Slate Technologies is using AI and machine learning to help improve the productivity of construction professionals. The company says its platform enables better, earlier decision making to keep building projects on time, maximising revenue. Slate’s early development collaborators include multinational construction leader Skanska.

Slate claims its solution is unlike any other construction software platform. Its ‘Digital Assistant’ executes multidimensional analysis across internal and external data sources, learning as it goes to offer full transparency into the building process.

Data sources include ERP systems, emails, RFIDs, 3D models and other construction-related information – along with public data such as weather, labour, and traffic; dark data locked in silos; and non-integrated systems within general

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ROUND UP Rugged SSD

Enscape 3.3 offers enhanced workflows for site context

Samsung has launched the Portable SSD T7 Shield, a new credit card size external solid state drive, that is said to provide ‘lightning-fast’ data transfer speeds in a water and dust resistant rugged design. The 1TB model costs £134 and the 2TB model £250 ■ www.samsung.com/ssd

PlanRadar Connect PlanRadar has enhanced its digital construction project management platform to make it easier to sync with third party tools, such as Outlook, Dropbox, Jira, SAP and Microsoft Dynamics, and automate work processes without the need for complex coding ■ www.planradar.com/connect

Moata Marketplace Mott MacDonald has introduced the Moata Marketplace, a new area where clients can access engineering solutions on demand. This includes SAALG Daarwin, which uses analysis to assess ground behaviour during construction ■ www.mottmac.com/digital/moata

Spacio enters beta Spacio, a new browser-based building design platform for architects and engineers, has launched in beta. Features include smart sketching, generative design, space allocation, adaptive parking, and daylight, noise, wind and energy simulation ■ www.spacio.ai

Site safety Voxel, which applies computer vision technology and artificial intelligence to security cameras to automatically identify hazards, risky behaviours, and operational inefficiencies across a diverse range of workplaces, has raised $15m in Series A funding ■ www.voxelai.com

Urban-Air Port Urban-Air Port has selected the Dassault Systèmes 3DExperience Platform to provide the digital architecture for design, development, and operational management of its vertiport sites. This includes Air One in Coventry, UK, which is billed as the world’s first electric urban airport ■ www.urbanairport.com

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nscape 3.3, the latest release of the real-time visualisation tool, offers a range of new features including the ability to import building surroundings into renderings, improved visualisation of glass and water surfaces, and new assets and materials for education building projects.

To provide important context for designs, low poly buildings, streets and topography can now be imported into renderings by utilising OpenStreetMap data. Simply open ‘Site Context’ within the Enscape rendering window, enter an address or coordinates, then choose to import all surroundings, or select to import building and landmarks, streets and sidewalks, or topography.

Transparent materials will now appear in reflections, improving visualisation of

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rendered glass and water surfaces. The use of a graphics card that supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing, such as NVIDIA RTX series and AMD RX6xxx series, is required.

Enscape 3.3 adds 280 new ‘highquality’ education-themed assets including classroom furniture, toys, musical instruments, chalkboards, playground equipment, acoustic panels, and more, as well as 30 new materials.

The asset package also includes a large collection of new 3D people.

Enscape has also enhanced its post processing workflows, with a new ‘Alpha Channel Export’ feature that allows users to render an image with the alpha channel applied to make it easier to add different backgrounds.

■ www.enscape3d.com

Fabrics and furniture added to Cosmos haos Cosmos, a free library of ready-to-render content for users of V-Ray or Chaos Corona, now offers materials and models direct from manufacturers.

To get the ball rolling, Chaos has partnered with Twinbru and Haworth, giving architects and interior designers access to 480 digital replicas of Twinbru photorealistic

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fabrics and Haworth furniture models, including chairs, armchairs and sofas.

“Digital fabrics are the glue that hold 3D spaces together; as virtual environments become more prevalent, the need for high-quality, on-demand fabrics will only continue to grow,” says Jason Neiman, CEO of Bru Textiles. “By partnering with Chaos, we are making the transition even easier for designers

and 3D artists, giving them instant access to the biggest digital fabric library on the planet.”

Chaos has also announced 200 additional new assets, including: CGAxis (kitchen appliances, musical instruments, toys, medical equipment and more); Fisherman3D (cars, airplanes, watercraft, etc); Globe Plants (plants, trees, bushes, etc.).

■ www.chaos.com/cosmos

www.AECmag.com

24/05/2022 16:32

News

Epic Games releases limited beta of RealityScan for iOS

Urban Splash closes prefab firm ‘House’ he path to off-site construction is not an easy one. The industry has seen unicorns such as Katerra implode after $1.6 billion in investment, Alphabet / Sidewalk labs closed and got rid of its Mass Timber off-site factory, now UK residential developer, Urban Splash has seen its offsite construction start-up, ‘House’, go into administration.

‘House’ made 1,000 prefabricated homes before going into administration and making 160 workers redundant.

Getting off-site construction up and running as a profitable business seems like one of the biggest challenges the industry faces, especially considering the burn rate we are seeing.

At our NXT BLD event on 21 June we are honoured to have Michael Marks, co-founder of US off-site construction unicorn, Katerra, who will be relaying some of the things he learned in the experience of setting up that business. Get your ticket now.

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pic Games has released a limited beta of a free 3D scanning app that turns smartphone photos into high-fidelity 3D models.

The RealityScan app, which appears to be more focused on scanning smaller objects for viz assets rather than buildings, is designed to broaden access to ‘sophisticated photogrammetry’, allowing users to bring ‘ultra-detailed’ digital models of real-world objects into virtual projects.

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The software walks users through the scanning process with interactive feedback, AR guidance, and data qualitychecks. Once scanning is complete, RealityScan is said to create a realistic model ‘almost instantly’. From there, users can upload their assets to Sketchfab.

RealityScan is developed in collaboration with Capturing Reality (creator of RealityCapture) and Quixel (creator of Megascans).

■ www.capturingreality.com/introducing-realityscan

DWG-native AutoCAD clone enhanced MCAD23, a major new release of the DWG-native CAD software, features a new interface that developer 4M claims is almost identical to AutoCAD, with the software ‘significantly faster’ in almost every function.

New features include the insertion of dynamic blocks, support for 3Dconnexion input devices, enhanced layer

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management, new editing tools, commands for single/group entities, new options for text and tables, enhanced printing and publishing commands, digital signatures and many others.

4MCAD is available in four versions, Viewer, Classic, Standard and Pro. The latter two are available in cloud key licences, so users can work from anywhere.

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Perkins&Will issues ‘Carbon Forecasts’

the model or viewing direction in Allplan are immediately applied in Lumion.

According to Allplan, this allows users to easily generate visualisations with Lumion in a short time, especially for realistic representations of vegetation, interior design or moving people /vehicles.

ne of the largest architecture firms in the world, Perkins&Will, will issue its clients a “carbon forecast” for their projects—a tool to facilitate measurable and meaningful carbon reduction in the built environment.

The move is in response to intensifying climate change risks and accelerates the firm’s efforts to reduce whole-life-carbon emissions of building design, construction, and operation.

■ www.allplan.com ■ www.lumion.com

■ www.perkinswill.com

■ www.mintronics.co.uk/4mcad

Allplan hooks up with Lumion for viz IM software Allplan has expanded the visualisation options for its users, with a new ‘LiveSync’ integration with real time visualisation software Lumion.

Available as a technical preview in the Allplan 2022-1 release, LiveSync point-ofview synchronization means changes to

■ www.nxtbld.com/tickets-2022/

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21/05/2022 07:28

Feature

Apple iOS builds foundations in AEC In the AEC industry, mobile devices have largely been perceived as fit for data consumption, viewing documentation, communication, or simple data input. However, as processing power starts to rival desktops and powerful new capabilities are added, this looks set to change. Apple’s ecosystem seems to be the target platform for most new mobile developers, writes Martyn Day

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(Left) Concept design with Spaces for iPad (Above) Reality capture with SiteScape (Top left) LiDAR scanner on the iPhone 13 Pro

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hen the iPad was first launched in 2010, it was really just a giant iPhone. It ran the same operating system, had the same processor and the same memory limitations as its smaller stable mate. If you were lucky, the application you wanted had an iPad variant which would make use of the bigger screen. It found a niche as a consumption device, ideal for web browsing, email and social media. Its professional applicability would take years to be realised.

Roll forward more than ten generations and twelve years of evolutionary design, and the Apple iPad Pro has changed beyond all recognition. It runs its own branch of iOS (iPadOS), shares the same system-on-a-chip silicon (Apple M1) as its MacOS desktop equivalent, supports a pressure sensitive stylus (Apple Pencil), offers fast Wi-Fi and 5G, comes in a range of sizes, has an operating system branch to itself, an XDR display, supports a file system, can connect to high data rate (40 GB/s) devices via USB C, supports up to 2 TB

of storage, supports a keyboard and mouse, and has Augmented Reality capabilities and LiDAR built-in.

The iPad has become a serious desktop alternative, with the advantage of being extremely thin and portable. Similarly, the iPhone, while not sharing the desktop class processor, offers 95% of all the other capabilities of the iPad in that important, pocketable small form factor.

There are still some limitations which hold these devices back and that’s the operating system’s (iOS) limitation of only allowing each application to access a set amount of memory. Over time, this has gone from 2 GB to 3 GB, to 5 GB and, with the latest version (iPadOS 15) apps can now access 12 GB as a maximum.

Memory limits have existed since the first version of the iPhone and iOS, and still remain despite having the M1 processor, but they are increasing with each major operating system update. The eco system of professional apps previously developed have therefore tended to be cut down or feature limited. As I write this on Word for the iPad, the paucity of desktop features is immediately obvious and May / June 2022

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Feature

follows on for Excel, Adobe Photoshop and video editing applications etc.

With iOS 15 being relatively new, the serious increase in addressable memory will assist software firms in adding fullfeature capabilities to their professional iPad applications, as well as handle large data sets.

App renaissance

Over the last year we have noticed an increasing number of AEC software developers targeting both iOS and iPadOS with new applications. Perhaps the most significant is Trimble with its dedicated, written from the ground up, version of the highly popular SketchUp modeller (see page 22). It includes almost AEC tools all of the features of the desktop version, There are a number of professional AEC- and can be used with touch, Apple Pencil focused tools already available for iOS or mouse and keyboard. and an increasing number for iPadOS. Spaces from Cerulean labs (www.tinyurl.

Historically, the vast majority have been com/spaces-AEC) is another conceptual for viewing and markup of drawings, as a design application created specifically for consumption device on site - Autodesk the iPad (with Apple Pencil).

BIM 360, Procore and PlanGrid, for It seems the reason for these applicaexample. These are dedicated apps with tions appearing now is the combination limited tools, versus accessing these SaaS of Pencil, plus power, portability and the platforms directly via the web, which can iPad’s increased addressable memory easily be done by using Safari or Google for applications. In a world where things Chrome iPad applications. are becoming increasingly Many of these dedicated cloud-driven, and the workapplications have seen a ing environment more flexiFor years we lack of investment since ble, designers are looking have been their introduction, as develfor devices which allow crying out for them to work ‘whenever oping once for the browser low cost, makes more sense than inspiration strikes’, as maintaining an iOS app.

Trimble points out in its accurate They were created when the SketchUp for iPad marketmethods for addressable memory via ing. Added to this, there is verification on also the fact that AEC conthe operating system was just 3 - 4 GB. The negative ceptual design tools have site. The comments left on the Apple answer will be still to be perfected.

App Store for the last generSketchUp for iPad and the phone in ation of iOS AEC applicaSpaces follow on from other your pocket tions are a testament to the exemplary iPad applications frustration of having cut for AEC professionals, such down feature sets and the as the collaborative massing risk of crashing while getting near the application from Arkio (see page 60), BIM memory limits of iOS. review and analysis tool Revizto (www.

For many large dataset applications, revizto.com) and Ares Commander (www. cloud and streaming has helped to cir- graebert.com), Graebert’s DWG-based 2D cumnavigate the memory limitation, drafting tool.

Archicad’s BIMx eXplorer is good a case Then there’s a whole smorgasbord of in point, using a connection to large data- AR applications for the iPad that either sets on Microsoft Azure servers. And place your as-designed BIM model conhere, the arrival of 5G, providing a data text on site, or provide a window into rate of 10Gbps (10 to 100x speed your design from the comfort of the meetimprovement over 4G and 4.5G net- ing room. These include Unity Reflect works), also opens mobile devices up as (unity.com/products/unity-reflect), Gamma the streaming of data become more com- AR (www.gamma-ar.com), ARki (darfdesign. mon, but we are still in the early days of com) and many others. its roll out.

Undoubtedly the software delivery Reality Capture landscape is changing, as so many devel- Arguably the biggest new developments opers are looking at browsers as their for the iPad and iPhone are coming in delivery mechanism for SaaS business reality capture. Apple recently added a models, which iPads are perfectly adept structured light sensor to its ‘Pro’ grade at, as well as running dedicated apps. iPhone and iPad. While low in resolu-

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tion, it has the potential to put a LiDAR enabled device into the hands of every construction worker or architect.

When combined with advances in photogrammetry, that’s taking photographs and videos and turning them into 3D models, soon everyone will be able to create reality models and send them to each other, documenting asbuilt conditions on site, flagging up construction issues, or capturing existing buildings for redesign.

There are many commercial apps designed specifically to take advantage of the LiDAR sensor on the iPad and iPhone for AEC workflows. This includes SiteScape (page 26), which can scan multiple rooms and stitch each point cloud together. Others include Canvas (www. canvas.io), Matterport (matterport.com), Roomscan LiDAR (www.locometric.com), OpenSpace 3D Scans (www.openspace.ai) and Zappcha (www.zappcha.com).

Then there are those that do a similar job with photogrammetry, including Bentley Systems ContextCapture Mobile (bentley.com/contextcapture), PIX4DCatch (www.pix4d.com), and RealityScan (www. capturingreality.com) from Epic Games.

Everypoint (page 30), with its suite of tools for developers, uses a fusion of LiDAR and photogrammetry to create accurate reality capture models.

Conclusion Why Apple and why now? The raw power now available in a mobile device is really quite incredible. Combine this with portability and a LiDAR sensor, and you end up with some magic. While there are obviously other phones out there and other operating systems, such as Android, the main benefit of the Apple ecosystem is that the phones are a known and predictable entity.

Unfortunately for Android, with so many developers and so many phones, using different optics and configurations, developers have a nightmare quality testing and checking for every target device. This is especially true for photogrammetry.

We are two years on from Apple adding in LiDAR to its mobile devices, but only now are we seeing the potential revolution they could bring to the AEC industry. For years we have been crying out for low cost, accurate methods for verification on site. The answer will be the phone in your pocket. www.AECmag.com

21/05/2022 07:28

Software

SketchUp for iPad Trimble’s popular conceptual design tool gets an impressive port to the Apple iPad, plus potential to dramatically change the way AEC firms bring site data into the design process, writes Greg Corke

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ketchUp has legendary status in the AEC sector. You’ll find it on the desktop of most architects, especially those that don’t feel the need for BIM authoring tools like Revit and Archicad, or want to learn how to use them.

With its simple push / pull approach to modelling you can knock up a simple design in minutes. And without the parametric constraints of BIM, it’s ideal for the conceptual phase where the design is still fluid.

SketchUp has gone through many owners over the years. Launched in 2000 by @Last Software, it was acquired by Google in 2006, then sold to Trimble in 2012. For many years, the beauty of SketchUp was that the capable base product was free.

While a free version still exists today, it runs in a browser, and has limited interoperability with CAD / BIM software.

For professional use, and access to the desktop app on Windows or Mac OSX, you’ll need a ‘Pro’ subscription.

Last month, Trimble introduced a brand-new version written specifically for the Apple iPad. Unlike many AECfocused iPad apps that have previously made the move from desktop to Apple iOS, SketchUp for iPad features nearly all the functionality of its Windows and Mac OSX counterparts, but through a brandnew user interface that has been optimised for touch and the Apple Pencil.

The software is included in several different levels of SketchUp subscription. In SketchUp Pro (£235 per year) you can work across iPad, desktop or browser with full compatibility between the different versions. SketchUp Studio (£549 per year) adds support for point clouds and rendering with V-Ray. We tested out the software using the 5th Generation iPad Pro, together with the 2nd Generation Apple Pencil, which attaches magnetically to the side of the iPad. Here it charges incredibly fast 15 seconds of charge will give you around 22

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The SketchUp for 30 minutes of use. 30 minutes can be done by eye, by punching iPad interface will charge it fully and it will last in dimensions, or double tapping is minimal and for around 12 hours. to pull it the same distance as the clutter free Despite officially being one before. For a really quick conclassed as a tablet, the iPad Pro is an cept design, length snapping allows you to extremely impressive piece of hardware. model at 0.1m or 1m increments.

Powered by Apple’s M1 chip, it’s fast and Of course, interaction through the responsive and the Liquid Retina XDR Apple Pencil is completely different to display a thing of beauty. It also has keyboard and mouse. While using an plenty of storage, up to 2 TB, incredible iPhone is second nature to many, if you’re front and rear facing cameras and a new to iPad (and Pencil, in particular) it LiDAR sensor built in. The top end mod- takes some getting used to. els, however, will set you back close to The other thing to note is users don’t get £2,000. direct access to the wealth of third-party SketchUp for iPad will run on any iPad add-ons that are available for the desktop with iOS 15, although Trimble recom- versions, particularly on Windows. mends the most powerful M1 models.

Even though the software was developed Getting started for the 2nd Generation Pencil, it will still On startup you’re presented with a home work with the 1st Generation Pencil. screen where you can see all your recent The SketchUp for iPad workflow is very models, including a preview. These can be similar to the desktop version - simply stored locally on the iPad, or in the cloud. sketch out 2D geometry, then push and Trimble has put a lot of effort into conpull it into place to create 3D objects. This necting SketchUp for iPad to Trimble

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Connect, its cloud-based collaboration platform. The idea is that it allows users to move seamlessly between multiple flavours of SketchUp, whether that’s iPad, browser, or desktop.

If stored on Trimble Connect, you’ll see a little Trimble Connect icon in the model details card. If local, there’s a little file apps icon. Users can also sync files to other cloud services, such as Google Drive, Box and Dropbox.

The home screen also provides access to a few self-paced tutorials. These introduce you to the key concepts and run directly inside the SketchUp environment, guiding you through step by step. It’s quite a smart way of doing things, as it shows the end result on the left, while you model on the right. The SketchUp YouTube channel also has a tonne of excellent tutorials to introduce the many different tools. More are being added all the time.

The user interface The UI is very clean, and only serves up the on screen controls as you need them.

The measurement box, for example, only appears when the software expects a measurement.

There are three main sets of controls.

Top left is home / save, undo and redo, file import and settings.

The main toolbar is on the left and here you’ll find twelve of the most commonly used tools, such as lasso select, eraser, line, rectangle, circle, push/pull, move, rotate, scale and AutoShape (see later).

Some come with secondary options, which appear when you click the icon.

With the line command, for example, you can lock to a specific axis or parallel / perpendicular to a selection or the last line drawn. This is different to the desktop version, where you don’t have to lock before you draw the line.

There are no tooltips for these controls, so it can take a little while to work out what’s what. However, some include a ‘learn’ button that instantly plays a short video to show you the basics. We found this incredibly useful compared to scrolling through pages of help files.

At the bottom of the toolbar there’s an icon with three dots. When clicked it reveals an expanded toolset of 26 more commands, such as polygon, dimension, arc, freehand, and markup (see later). The three most recently used will appear at the bottom of the toolbar. Everything is fully customisable. A ‘long press’ allows you to drag and rearrange their order.

On the right there’s a panel toolbar where you can control things like materials, shadows, styles, tags and entities. www.AECmag.com

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Click an icon to open up the relevant palette of commands, then click again to close to keep the UI clutter free. If you can’t remember which is which, swipe left to show the labels and swipe right to hide. As with the left-hand toolbar, you can drag and drop to re-order.

then the radius. With AutoShape, you just roughly sketch a perimeter.

The system supports rectangles, circle, arcs, and polygons, all of which appear as SketchUp geometry about a second later.

Rectangles can be drawn within rectangles, automatically snapping when in close proximity, so you can build up a Multi-input simple floorplan in seconds, then push / The primary method of interacting with pull the geometry to create a 3D shape.

SketchUp for iPad is with the Apple Pencil.

3D primitives, including box, cylinder, There are two modes: ‘Just Draw’ extruded polygon, pyramid, sphere, tube, works in much the same way as a pencil and torus can also be sketched directly. A and paper, whereas ‘Click-Move-Click’ box is just a square with a vertical line, a takes advantage of the Pencil’s pressure cylinder a circle with a line. The length of sensor, so you can infer things in the the line defines the length of the extrusion. model before hard-pressing to start and / It’s a very quick way to play with simor complete an operation. ‘Click-Move- ple shapes and explore relationships Click’ provides more control but, as the between forms. If you’re new to 3D CAD, name suggests, requires more clicks. it’s a very nice way to ease you in.

Multitouch is also supported, but fat AutoShape also extends to basic parafingers and modelling aren’t always the metric architectural objects, including best bedfellows. four different types of windows and four Things feel most comfortable when different types of doors. Here you sketch using a combination of Pencil and touch: out basic architectural symbols that the Pencil for precision input and touch you’d see in an elevation. A left-hand for navigation - one finger swipe (orbit), operable door, for example, is a rectangle two finger (pan), pinch to zoom in and with a small door knob on the right. out, and a quick pinch for zoom extents.

All of the sketches are very intuitive You can also attach a Bluetooth key- but to get you started there’s an interacboard and mouse to use SketchUp in tive learning guide with sketches and much the same way you animations that show you would the desktop version. how to draw all twenty of With Apple’s Magic different shapes that While SketchUp the Keyboard, which has a AutoShape can recognise. for iPad doesn’t built-in trackpad, you can Going from doodle to essentially turn your iPad parametric object takes a include all the Pro into fully fledged laplittle longer, around five features of the top. secs. This can be a little desktop product frustrating as it can break Furthermore, as all the it certainly keyboard shortcuts and the creative flow. The reamodifiers work with the doesn’t feel like a son for this lag is that software, it would theoretiand doors are cut down version windows cally be possible to use all actually pulled down with limited three input devices at the from SketchUp’s Live functionality same time, invoking comComponent library in the mands with the press of a cloud, so you have to have button, sketching out geomto an internet connection etry with the Pencil and manipulating for this feature to work. the model with your hands.

Once placed within SketchUp you are presented with a range of parametrically AutoShape – shortcuts for objects configurable options. For a multi-unit AutoShape is a new machine-learning window, for example, you can mess feature designed to transform doodles around with height, width, depth, mulinto 3D shapes and configurable compo- lions, and colour. For a door, this extends nents. This includes standard 2D and 3D to handle height and handle type. primitives, as well as a range of doors and AutoShape can be a little hit and miss. It windows that can be parametrically edit- didn’t always recognise our sketches, and ed and configured. occasionally caused the software to crash.

AutoShape mimics how users natural- We expect this will improve over time. ly draw objects with a pencil, and not Of course, you don’t have to use how they model them with a mouse on a AutoShape to bring in objects. The same desktop app. In CAD, for example, a cir- parametric Live Components are also cle is defined by setting the centre point, available for users to simply download

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directly in the 3D Warehouse, via the online content manager.

The 3D Warehouse includes a wide range of SketchUp textures, including bricks, metals, glass and tiles. There are even more from third parties, including wallpapers. Once downloaded, each collection remains resident on the device in the materials library. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, you can also create your own materials using the iPad camera.

Connecting physical and digital

from SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse, which can be accessed via the left-hand toolbar.

Currently, the number of objects that can be generated via AutoShape is quite limited, but we expect this to grow in the future.

We asked Mike Tadros, senior product manager at Trimble SketchUp, if this was on the roadmap. He remained tight lipped, but it was clear it had been discussed internally, “I imagine a world where users could doodle anything from a tree to a faucet to a chair to a park bench, to whatever, and have that be a way that they might go about bringing objects into their SketchUp model,” he said.

It’s still very early days for AutoShape, but our imagination is already running wild. Wouldn’t it be great if you could teach the system to recognise your own custom doodles, as a kind of a modern day keyboard shortcut?

made, so even though they are two dimensional, they can be clearly seen by anyone who works on the model.

In a collaborative environment, SketchUp files can be shared, and users can choose to draw on top of existing markups or start their own. This could leave you with a very basic audit trail.

The software doesn’t automatically record who made which markup, but this can be added manually in the scene name, along with more detailed notes in the description.

While markups can be viewed in the free version of SketchUp for iPad, you’ll need a full licence to add them.

Of course, there’s nothing to stop users taking a screen grab and using the markup capabilities of iOS, but then you don’t get the benefit of having the markups resident in the SketchUp file.

Markup mode

Rather than storing models locally in a component browser, or materials in the materials library, all content is downloaded from the vast online repository that is SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse.

There are over 4 million pre-made SketchUp models of all different types, including over 600,000 real world products that have been published by building product manufacturers. From masonry and lighting to textiles and acoustic panels, there really is something for everyone.

With so many items to choose from, searching for content on the 3D Warehouse can be a bit bewildering.

However, official building product content is generally well categorised, and Trimble is actively making is easier for users to manage and curate their preferred content

The iPad with touch or Pencil is the perfect device for annotating drawings and models, so it’s no surprise that Trimble has built a markup workflow to capture feedback.

Activating Markup mode causes the rest of the UI to disappear, leaving you with Apple’s pencil kit interface. This gives you the ability to sketch over the top of the 3D SketchUp file and write notes using a variety of pens.

SketchUp automatically saves each markup to a scene in the scenes panel, which is date and time stamped. Markup scenes can be toggled on and off as required and layered on top of each other.

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The 3D Warehouse

There’s an augmented reality (AR) feature which allows you to view your 3D models in the context of the real world.

You can either ‘place’ your design on a tabletop for a bird’s eye view, or view it at 1:1 scale, aligned to a physical space.

Accurate alignment between the physical and digital worlds is the holy grail of AR. In SketchUp for iPad it’s a manual process. Trimble’s advice is to first position a camera in the SketchUp model at eye height, at the location where you plan to stand in the real world. Then, when you hit the ‘View in AR’ button, it should be fairly well aligned, although you can still fine tune the model to better fit the space using the move, scale and rotate tools. Alternatively, move the iPad a degree or two in the real world, and then reactivate the scene.

To improve accuracy, and for limiting drift that users typically experience when walking about in a physical space, SketchUp for iPad can use the LiDAR sensor of the iPad Pro. Of course, the LiDAR sensor can also be used for scanning, to generate a point cloud of a room, to provide context, or to be used as a starting point for new designs.

Unfortunately Trimble has not announced any plans to add a scanning capability into the software, but we think this would be a killer feature for architects working on retrofit projects. And, given Trimble’s heritage in reality capture, it’s not out of realms of possibility that it’s already on the roadmap.

As it stands, you can use a third-party application for this, such as SiteScape (see page 30), but the workflow is disjointed.

Point cloud data would first need to be converted to a mesh before it could be brought into SketchUp for iPad. Point clouds themselves can only be viewed on SketchUp for desktop using the Trimble Scan Essentials extension, part of SketchUp Studio.

SketchUp for iPad can be used to import satellite imagery and terrain data of existing site locations. www.AECmag.com

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1 Shadows can be toggled on and off to see their impact at different times of the day 2 AutoShape transforms doodles into 3D shapes and configurable components 3 AutoShape can pull down parametrically configurable components from SketchUp’s Live Component library in the cloud 4 In context ‘learn’ buttons play short videos to show you the basics of select commands 5 Markup Mode can be used to capture feedback using Apple’s pencil kit interface

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Conclusion Trimble has done an excellent job of bringing its legendary push pull modelling tool to the iPad. While SketchUp for iPad doesn’t include all the features of the desktop product (in terms of modelling) it certainly doesn’t feel like a cut down version with limited functionality that has tarnished many AEC-centric iPad apps in the past.

The best thing about SketchUp for iPad is the flexibility it gives you. With a £235 per year Pro licence, you get access to SketchUp on any device. Start on iPad, move to Windows or Mac OSX, back to iPad, then on to a browser. It really doesn’t matter. With keyboard and mouse, you can even use SketchUp for iPad in desktop mode, which for some workflows might be preferable.

Then of course, with the Windows desktop app, you can also tap into the vast number of third-party plug-ins, from building performance analysis and 3D printing to visualisation and VR. And with a SketchUp Studio subscription, you can import point clouds or render scenes with V-Ray. This isn’t just a concept design tool to be used in isolation; it can be part of an extended AEC workflow.

The most exciting thing for us is to consider where SketchUp for iPad might go in the future. If Trimble taps into the power of the LiDAR scanner on the iPad Pro, it could transform the way SketchUp is used at those preliminary phases of design. With a quick site survey, and access to a vast library of building components from the 3D Warehouse, it could bring new levels of efficiency to early stage design on retrofit projects.

■ www.sketchup.com/ipad

www.AECmag.com

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EveryPoint It’s been a long time coming, but we are about to enter an era where we will all have the ability to quickly and easily make 3D reality captures of environments or objects using the phone in our pockets.

Martyn Day explores EveryPoint

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he LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) laser scanning market moves at a glacial pace. For years, it was hoped that the price of laser scanners would drop to below $12,000 to democratise reality capture.

Typically, laser scanners have cost $40,000 and have been large and heavy devices. And for long range scanning, this is still the reality. When range isn’t such an issue, there has been some movement.

In 2010 there was a significant release from Faro with the Focus3D at $20,000, which qualified for hand luggage on a plane. Then in 2016 Leica launched the BLK360, which could fit in a handbag. This brought the price to scan down to $15,000, but that’s pretty much still the lowest entry 26

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point for professional laser scanners.

While we have been waiting for vendors to move from the top, down to the entry level, similarly there have been multiple attempts to enter at the low end and move up.

Microsoft’s Kinect for the Xbox was a low cost, low resolution structured light scanner, which served as the basis for a lot of research into portable and lightweight scanning solutions based on the exploding tablet market.

This small format, low power technology developed rather slowly and had trouble gaining traction when brought to market. The solutions we saw at AEC Magazine were all best suited to scanning individual objects or small areas as opposed to buildings or whole interiors.

Different bits of mobile hardware came and went, none really leaving any impression, even when firms the size of Intel got involved. Then, Apple decided to include a small structured light sensor in its high-end iPhone and iPad products.

One of these was for face recognition and security purposes, while the rear facing LiDAR scanner was there for developers to mainly experiment with Augmented Reality (AR) apps and, for some time in the future when Apple realises its much-vaunted AR Glasses.

Apple’s sensor is not high-fidelity, and the depth data just doesn’t offer the resolution needed for detailed 3D scanning. On the face of things this didn’t appear to be a platform for professional AEC solutions. www.AECmag.com

21/05/2022 07:37

While the hardware side of reality cap- US firm called Stockpile Reports cost scanner and cameras, was an obviture was developing slowly, software pro- (www.stockpilereports.com) which set up ous target platform. cessing applications were rapidly refin- back in 2011. The company based its The US firm’s early experiments with ing image-based photogrammetry. Here, business on helping firms locate and esti- the built in LiDAR scanner proved that multiple photos, or videos of an object or mate inventory (stockpiles) to help opera- it wasn’t industrial strength, but there scene, are processed to identify the posi- tions and financial control. were a number of on-board systems that, tion of the camera relative to the object Using photogrammetry from installed when combined, could deliver interestand can then compute 3D models from (fixed cameras), hand-held devices (origi- ing results. many contrasting views. nally on the iPhone 4s) or drones, Stockpile “Apple gives us all kinds of delicious By 2017, photogrammetry was easily Reports delivers dashboard reporting on data that helps our pipeline. Even if rivalling laser scans for accuracy. This not material stored around a building site, using the [Apple] AR kit, even without only challenged the established hardware indoors or at remote locations. the sensor on an iPhone 12, I still get estilaser capture market, but also enabled The software automates real time volu- mated camera poses from AR kit. anything with the ability to “Apple AR toolkit protake photographs to be a vides visual odometry, reality capture ‘scanner’. accelerometer data, gravity It won’t be too long before snag lists come Now if only we all had a sensor data - there’s about with 3D models, or verification issues on site six different sensors that go device which could capture video and / or photographs, can be captured and sent to the design teams into estimating camera and perhaps had some basic pose. We can compare our for comparison against the original model scanning capability, I wonin-house camera, track with der what would be possible?

Apple’s and make it even more accurate and robust.

Photogrammetry meets LiDAR metric analysis of materials and provides It’s just incredible sensor fusion.”

EveryPoint combines photogrammetry tracking and verification. Customers As of yet, the EveryPoint toolkit does techniques with the iPhone Pro’s LiDAR don’t get a 3D model, just the result of not support Android devices - and there scanner to fill in the gaps, as well as utilis- how much material is there and a contour are very good reasons for this from a ing the positional / accelerometer data map. All the inventory can be linked to a developer’s point of view. With Android, from the Apple AR toolkit. When com- company’s ERP system completing the there are many different manufacturers, bined, this delivers colour 3D models that material loop. with many different devices, with many are said to be more accurate than simply CEO David Boardman admitted that different specifications. It’s almost using the iPhone’s LiDAR scanner alone. the company was a little slow in incor- impossible for the developers to cater to EveryPoint is not an end user product porating drones into their solution, so every camera and physical variation. in itself, but a technology layer on which when new technologies came along, Because Apple makes a handful of developers can create their solutions, in which might disrupt their core market, LiDAR capable devices, it’s easy for construction and other industries. they vowed to evaluate them much earli- EveryPoint to work on a stable platform, The origins of EveryPoint go back to a er on. The Apple iPhone, with its low- where the core physical information

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Nvidia’s ‘Instant NeRF’ Jonathan Stephens, the chief evangelist and marketing director at EveryPoint has been experimenting with Nvidia’s ‘Instant NeRF’ (neural radiance fields) developer tools.

This is code which Nvidia has put on GitHub to allow Windows users to run neural network code on the CUDA cores of Nvidia GPUs. This powers neural radiance fields to generate and render photogrammetric models, really fast. This means it can take the process of capturing and getting a high quality rendered model down to minutes.

It’s worth connecting with Jonathan on Linkedin and twitter (@EveryPointIO) to see his posts on the results from his experimental work ■ www.tinyurl.com/Nvidia-NERFS

required for photogrammetry calculations is constant from device to device, as Boardman explains, “An iPhone is an iPhone is an iPhone. Even the same phone generation can have different series of glass in the manufacturing process. If you’re trying to optimise and calibrate for the lenses and all that stuff, it’s just a nightmare to try to do something really accurate and precise in the Android world.”

pull the right parts together. But again, using EveryPoint, you could send fifty people running through the airport with iPhones to get all that data into EveryPoint and then kick off the process to turn all into one unified model of the airport.”

Boardman told us that one firm beta testing the software had already swapped out their BLK360s to move to a solution using iPads. Leica’s BLK is accurate to 6mm at 10m and 8mm at 20m, so this could be the ballpark accuracy to expect.

It won’t be too long before snag lists come with 3D models, or verification issues on site can be captured and sent to the design teams for comparison against the original model.

EveryPoint has yet to publish its pricing model, but this would be included in whatever service charge a developer builds on top of their application.

Boardman explained that the cloud portion will be configurable for Google, Amazon, Apple and can even be integratReal world applications ed with Nvidia.

Applications based on Everypoint are Conclusion Boardman thinks that in the future, now starting to come out, the first being Apple has been putting LiDAR sensors everything that we’re looking at is going Recon-3D (www.recon-3d.com) for scene of in the iPhone (12 Pro) in 2020. This year to be digitised every second of every day crime and forensics. One from lots of different sencould imagine when a first sors. With all these sensors responder arrives at the You could send fifty people running through capturing the world 24/7, we scene of a crime, the applicathe airport with iPhones to get all that data asked Boardman if the ultition could be used to quickly goal could be to have an into EveryPoint and then kick off the process mate capture a 3D scene before automatic live Digital Twin to turn all into one unified model anything is touched. being built and changed.

EveryPoint is already “If I were Facebook, or a being used by some very satellite company, I’d be startlarge AEC developers to build applica- it will release the iPhone 14. In these two ing with the planet first,” he says. “We are tions, so fingers crossed we’ll see some of years, there has been relatively little use going from the bottom into spaces people those soon. of the LiDAR sensor and Apple’s care about - ready mix plants, quarries, Many architects we talk to share frus- Augmented Reality glasses are still railyards. We’ll start getting more and trations at getting quick surveys done for some way off. By combining photogram- more and more and maybe someday we big refurbishment projects like airports metry with point clouds and the AR will be blessed to cover the entire planet. or hospitals. So, could EveryPoint tech- toolkit, EveryPoint seems to have creat- But in the meantime, we might just cover nology offer a new near instant ed a technology layer which will revolu- stops in the supply chain for a bulk mateapproach? tionise the way data can be captured on rials company and we have digitised 1,000 Boardman certainly thinks so. “It’s abso- site, reducing the need to use special and of their locations and across their customlutely possible,” he says. “It’s not there yet, expensive equipment and using a device er sites to the rail yards to their shipyards.” someone will have to put some muscle to that almost everyone has.

■ www.everypoint.io

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RTK surveys from your phone Attach the rover to your mobile device to scan your site or digitize objects with ease • Handheld RTK rover • Centimeter grade accuracy • Fast and safe site documentation

Use viDoc and the free terrestrial scanning app PIX4Dcatch for data capture Process your data with PIX4Dcloud to create digital twins of your site and immediately calculate precise volumes and measurements

“High-quality 3D scans, geospatially accurate and easy to share. Workflow is intuitive and seamless, at a fraction of the cost of other multi-part solutions available on the market.”

Shane Shi, HSC Pipeline Engineering, Singapore

Learn more & book a free demo at: pix4d.com/vidoc

Software

SiteScape Multi-Scan With SiteScape Pro AEC professionals can now use the iPad Pro or iPhone Pro to scan buildings up to 5,000 sqft by merging ten neighbouring scans into a single point cloud. Greg Corke caught up with company founder Andy Putch to find out more

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iteScape was one of the first construction-focused mobile apps to take advantage of the LiDAR sensor built into the iPad Pro and iPhone Pro. The software was designed to make LiDAR scanning more accessible to AEC professionals. It raised the question: why use an expensive laser scanner or handheld SLAM, or make do with a Disto and pencil and paper, when you can use a commodity device to capture a site or building very quickly?

SiteScape launched as a free product in Autumn 2020. It was followed in Autumn 2021 by SiteScape Pro, enabling AEC professionals to sync their 3D scans to the cloud, share them with collaborators on any device and annotate with comments and measurements. Export support was expanded to take in .RCP, as well as .PLY and .E57 formats, so data could be more easily brought into CAD, BIM, point cloud and collaboration tools such as Revit, AutoCAD, Archicad, SketchUp, Navisworks, Recap, CloudCompare, Revizto and many others.

At the launch of SiteScape Pro, founder Andy Putch told AEC Magazine that while the software could be used on retrofit projects, for early-stage design, he saw a bigger role in construction, for capturing as-built conditions, or for resolving issues on site. The focus was on scanning small areas of interest. “You’re not going to go through and scan an entire commercial building and try to piece that all together,” he said.

But, as it transpires, SiteScape’s customers didn’t listen. Putch explains that power users started sending in examples of scans of large-scale projects, “Once they got comfortable getting the scan data into Revit, or whatever product they wanted to use, they were hooked. It was like, ‘I just want to get more and more 30

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[scan data] from different times, from different parts of the site, larger scans.’”

Requests started coming in for a workflow that enabled multiple scans to be easily stitched together. The SiteScape team quickly ‘cobbled together’ a ‘hack’ that used open-source software CloudCompare. “It was a way to get to an end result, if you needed to brute force it,

but the learning curve and manipulating the data in 3D [in CloudCompare] is quite difficult,” he says.

Putch recalls that, much to his sur-

1 Multi-Scan capture on the iPhone Pro 2 Merging of scans with simple alignment

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Generally, measurements are within 1%. So if I was going across ten feet, I would be accurate to within one tenth of a foot; 100 feet I would be accurate to within plus or minus one foot

Sitescape case study: Illinois Institute of Technology

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prise, every SiteScape customer he mentioned this workflow to immediately adopted it, but he knew this couldn’t be a longterm solution. “I was thinking the amount of time it took, and just the uninviting nature of CloudCompare, was going to really push folks away.

“We knew we needed to streamline the process within SiteScape, because we know exactly how to make this much more approachable and put in the guardrails to make sure that users are not going to go in the wrong direction or capture data in the wrong way.”

This all led to the development of SiteScape Multi-Scan, a streamlined workflow that allows for the capture and alignment of segments in a single scan.

Users quickly capture up to ten neighbouring scans on a single floor, sync them to the cloud using background uploading, and then manually align them in the browserbased software to create a single point cloud that encompasses the entire building.

The registration process works by constraining the scans in plan view, as Putch explains. “First you line up the walls to the grid, get everything in parallel, and then just go piece by piece correcting those little local inaccuracies.”

“Walls, and in particular corners, make such easy references to immediately get the plan and get to that really accurate end result.”

[This video does a good job of demonstrating the process tinyurl.com/SiteScape] For each scan section Putch advises that users go no bigger than 500 square feet, and to keep the spaces as square as possible — so no long corridors. With ten scans stitched together this makes 5,000 square feet, a highly significant number, according to Putch.

“This is already 50% of existing US commercial building stock, and the vast majority of residential. So most folks can capture www.AECmag.com

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Since 1995, Illinois Tech’s Interprofessional Projects Program (IPRO) has provided an alternative to traditional undergraduate education and remains one of just a few programs of its kind in the country. In the program, multi-disciplinary student teams are tasked with finding solutions to problems impacting business, industry, or the world at large.

Early in the pandemic, Prof. Ankit Srivastava was experimenting with agentbased simulations to model potential Covid transmission on the IIT campus.

To model the IIT campus for these simulations, he started with data from Open Street Maps which gave rough geometries of the building exteriors on campus but to simulate transmission more accurately, detailed maps of the building interiors would be needed. So, in the Fall of 2021, under Prof. Srivastava and Prof. Mohammad Heidarinejad, whose research is in digital twins for architecting and operating smart cities, students began the fantastically ambitious IIT Digital Twin, a new project with the goal of creating a digital twin of the entire IIT campus.

Manually documenting the contents and then measuring the dimensions of every room of the 40+ buildings on the 120-acre campus would be a gargantuan task.

But, without the resources for traditional tripod-based laser scanners, which start at $30,000 per scanner, with high-end models going into the six-figure range, the class looked to leverage LiDAR on the latest iPad Pros.

“In the beginning of the project, the students tried out pretty much all of the LiDAR scanning apps available on the iPad, and

they universally settled on using Sitescape for their scans,” explains Srivastava.

The class used SiteScape to 3D scan building interiors and capture point clouds that could be used in Autodesk Revit.

However, scanning at this scale is extremely challenging, as just one building scan can be billions to trillions of points, creating terabytes of data.

In addition, in any mobile scanning system, tracking a device’s location in space creates drift over time - meaning the longer you scan, the less accurate the results.

Students had to develop a workflow where they would scan a building in smaller, more accurate sections (more than 200 for some buildings!) and then combine these sections into a single model with CloudCompare and Revit.

This workflow was effective but cumbersome, as scans needed to be aligned in a specific manner and special care was needed when organising and managing large numbers of scan files captured in different locations at various times.

Despite these challenges, the project has had major successes and over 50 students fully mapped seven buildings with more than a thousand scans, totalling over 445,000 square feet.

“Students were happy on how the app was able to preserve the geographic location of rooms, allowing a speedy merging of the scanned files and exporting them to different file extensions,” concludes Heidarinejad.

“I’ve used professional LiDAR scanners and I’m very impressed with the quality of SiteScape scans for indoor spaces.”

■ ipro.iit.edu

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the entirety of most buildings.”

Some companies are scaling this up considerably. The Illinois Institute of Technology, for example, has fully mapped seven buildings, totalling over 445,000 square feet, as part of its IIT Digital Twin project.

The right tool for the job As the iPhone / iPad Pro is an entry-level device, it doesn’t deliver the accuracy of a high-end laser scanner. Putch explains it is important to set the right expectations when using SiteScape, to understand its limits and the types of decisions that can be made with the data.

He refers the manual data entry problem that firms often encounter at the early design phase. “There are so many facets and dimensions to a space that, as a designer, I want and need to document and take account of, but each one takes a lot of effort. Doing that manually with a tape measure is hard to do consistently and accurately. There’s even only so much you can do with a laser Disto.

“For us, the end goal is really a seamless way of going from capture to a machine-readable model that you can just start using immediately, whether it’s on the design side, co-ordination or con-

flict resolution, but also for construction for estimation.”

Putch believes SiteScape can help get firms off paper drawings, enabling them to go seamlessly from site to CAD, and make BIM a lot more applicable and viable. “The devices are already in their pockets, the cost of the software is comparatively cheap,” he says. “The added investment in having more BIM capability in house is going to pay huge dividends, because I can actually get more out of it, because I’m not adding this huge cost every time I need to digitise the space.”

Tracking any scanner’s location in space creates drift over time - meaning the longer you scan, the less accurate the results.

To minimise build-up of drift, SiteScape has an area cap of 2 million points in a single scanning session, which Putch says delivers an accuracy to within +/- 1 inch.

When it comes to combining scans, with good references, such as corners, he says manual registration can be very accurate, but acknowledges that when going across wider areas, accumulated errors can creep in.

“Generally, measurements are within 1%,” he says. “So if I was going across ten feet, I would be accurate to within one tenth of a foot; 100 feet I would be accu-

rate to within plus or minus one foot.

“The thing that we’ve been hearing is, ‘as long as I can get a consistent view of the entire plan view, that unlocks so much in terms of then drilling into the details,’ because it’s more about getting a complete sense, at that LoD 200, to just start going at your schematic level design.”

The future SiteScape has come a long way in a short space of time, but Putch is continually looking to improve the software.

The next step is to add more scan segments, to capture even larger areas, and to also capture across different floors. His team is developing better compression to support larger datasets in a web browser, plus to make it easier to move data around.

Work is also underway on an auto alignment capability, currently in closed beta, as Putch explains. “The goal is to transfer from the manual process being the starting point, to being a backup.

The hardest part is being able to address every single scenario. So, we need to round out our edge cases and that’s where the manual flow will always be a valuable alternative.”

■ sitescape.ai

More reality capture apps for the iPhone / iPad

Zappcha from Veesus combines an iOS app with a cloud platform and CAD/BIM plug-ins for an end-to-end reality modelling workflow.

Users can capture 3D scans with a LiDAR-enabled Apple device.

According to Veesus there is no limit on scan size. It is governed only by the available storage on the iPad/iPhone.

Once scanned, the resulting VPC file is sent to the Zappcha Cloud for storing and sharing.

Accessed via a web browser, users can view and analyse their point clouds, adjust colours and clip, as well as take measurements, including heights, lengths and

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volume. Point clouds can also be shared with others without having to download large files.

With plug-ins for Rhino and Revit, data can be streamed to CAD and BIM applications without translation, offering an optimised workflow from construction site to design office.

VPC files are indexed and compressed, so the plug-ins can ‘easily identify and retrieve’ only the relevant data that a user needs for a task. According to Veesus, this allows users to work with point clouds of any size natively in Revit and Rhino using standard computer hardware.

The Zappcha app is free to use and the Zappcha Cloud includes 1GB of storage free. Paid plans start at £10 per month for 20 GB of storage.

■ www.zappcha.com Pix4DCatch from Pix4D is a ground image capturing app that uses photogrammetry to turn images taken with a mobile device into a 3D model.

It can be used for construction or

mapping underground utilities.

The Android and iOS-compatible app takes photos with overlap and tags them with geolocational data, captured with a viDoc RTK rover, a real-time kinematic GNSS device that is attached to the phone or tablet.

LiDAR equipped iPads or iPhones can get ‘live augmented reality’ feedback of the site and see a 3D mesh overlay. Data capture can be paused at any time, while the scene feedback shows what has been covered so far.

Once captured, data is automatically uploaded for processing on Pix4Dcloud to generate ‘highly accurate’, geolocated 3D models.

According to Pix4D, measurements are centimetre accurate.

Alternatively, data can be exported to other photogrammetry software such as Pix4Dmatic or Pix4Dmapper, or third party applications.

■ pix4d.com

Other iOS scanning options Canvas: LiDAR 3D Measurement www.canvas.io Matterport for Mobile www.matterport.com Roomscan LiDAR www.locometric.com OpenSpace 3D Scans www.openspace.ai Polycam www.poly.cam Scaniverse www.scaniverse.com

www.AECmag.com

24/05/2022 17:19

Opinion

Construction Verification I Given the digitisation of the AEC industry, and the effort that firms put into designing and documenting projects ahead of construction, there is a general feeling that not enough is being done to verify and document what actually gets built. A new initiative aims to promote better work practices

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s a magazine we are always wary of the fact that our excitement for new technology can often lead to selling the utopias promised by our friends in software and hardware development.

BIM has undoubtedly delivered benefits over drawings, but it has also created its own problems. Many of these technologies also fail to get out to the construction site. So, while architects may get lost in detail modelling, Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DfMA) and digital twins, in the real world what gets delivered does not match the original design intent. Buildings are not currently delivered by robots.

Despite digitisation, errors on site still occur, undocumented changes happen in the white heat of compressed delivery

schedules, and nobody really wants to own them or the associated liabilities.

As digital deliverables increase and, perhaps, digital twins become more relevant, capturing the as-built for documentation and use downstream needs to become part of the standard practice of construction work. But this currently comes at a cost.

This becomes easier, however, as technologies develop and evolve. While we might not all be able to afford a Spot robot to roam a building with a scanner, iPhone solutions, as we have covered widely this month, mean that anyone can capture and document building elements, or rooms, using a device that everyone has easy access to.

The Construction Verification Initiative is a LinkedIn group set up by

professionals working across all construction disciplines, to promote the functional benefits of construction verification and establish good practice for its use. The aim is to educate clients and practitioners to understand the full value of verification and to support the industry in its adoption, align standards and evolve the landscape of legislation around improving construction quality.

This month we highlight the opinions of four active members of the Construction Verification Initiative (CVI), coming at the issue from different directions, relative to their roles in the market.

Construction Verification Initiative Linkedin Group ■ www.tinyurl.com/CVI-LinkedIn

Construction verification in Verity Image courtesy of Jacob Down

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21/05/2022 07:43

n Initiative Adam Box Business Development Manager Topcon

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echnology and the construction sector are very uneasy bedfellows. You have a ‘traditional’ industry that has had centuries of doing things in a certain way, supported by tried and tested standards, contractual protocols and good old-fashioned experience.

When you align this with new technology, which often doesn’t

construction phase. However, most people would agree that when the large, unexpected costs appear it is nearly always during the delivery phase.

Technology is working hard to try and manage the risks and mitigate the errors. On-site data is more freely available than ever before and automation continues to arrive on the job site. Despite all the changes going on, one question has always remained the same, “Have you built it right?” It is here that we at the Construction Verification Initiative believe lies one of the biggest challenges to overcome. Just answering basic questions like “Is it in the right place?” or “If not, then what else has been affected?” can often reveal huge potential future costs implications through rework, redesign or, in the worst cases, demolition. All of which are not

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Digital capture devices have become ever more affordable, smaller, more mobile.

Data processing and model verification is much more accessible than ever before

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care about the way things used to be, rewrites the delivery process and drops a grenade into traditional processes, then it is always going to be difficult.

Despite this latency, change is happening. Having been fortunate (if that is the right word) to see electronic drawings, 3D models and cloud-based information distribution become accepted, I am still a believer in the increasing value that technology can bring to the construction process. And I do mean increasing value, when I see the transition of focus from the design and planning stages to handling the on-site delivery side, then this is where the real gains are to be had.

I certainly am not discounting the advantages provided through having a well costed, clash-free 3D model in place prior to the www.AECmag.com

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healthy to remaining on program and within cost.

The good news is that the right tools to do just that are readily available and getting easier to utilise every day. Digital capture devices have become ever more affordable, smaller, more mobile. Data processing and model verification is much more accessible than ever before, with tools such as Verity allowing for clear informed decisions on identified deviations.

Implementing the right tools and baking them into the project process as ‘business as usual’ is one of the primary goals that the CVI wants to help achieve. We are under no illusions that this will take some time, but for help with your journey we are a passionate group who want to support and facilitate this change.

Ben Raybould Associate Director, Technology, Turner and Townsend

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or many, construction verification is associated with main contractors and their respective surveying teams. However, we’re seeing an increase in the opportunity to specify construction verification at a much earlier project stage, at the hands of the client.

Better information management driven by industry standards such as ISO 19650 means clients are becoming more aware of the opportunities to design and construct their assets in a smarter, more organised way. Whilst construction verification in its true form is highly technical and requires specialists at each end of the data, the outputs are becoming more presentable and user friendly for clients and their project delivery teams in assessing many aspects of the construction process.

The opportunity to identify how the programme is proceeding, or the accuracy of the build, has long been an interest of the client but is often managed using traditional methods. Replace this with an accessible dashboard that is able to draw from near-time site data, 3D models and construction programmes, and you’ve got an incredibly useful tool and process to manage a project effectively.

However, whilst we see lots of opportunities and positives in construction verification, we find ourselves in the debate of “Who should pay for this service?” and “Just get it correct in the design and build it properly”. These are fair questions, but often cause

verification to be omitted from the construction process entirely.

If we think about these questions, as an industry, we’d like to assume the design is coordinated. It’s designed against the background of a validated model, and it gets installed exactly how it’s designed!

Even with the greatest efforts this really isn’t possible, mainly due to the varying nature in which construction moves! However, to give ourselves a chance, which includes accepting that things change, we can apply the progressive verification logic to all of our projects, and we will gift greater awareness of the true reality.

Opportunities for clients: • Reduce the traditional risks associated with visiting a construction site, by reducing stakeholder site visits, inductions, and the associated environmental impact.

• Support commercial management, digitally, for the valuations and final account.

• Support operational readiness activities by capturing a record of equipment at the point of installation, archive information in one location, and increase construction and asbuilt awareness.

• Support avoidance of disputes, rather than dispute resolution by keeping accurate recordings throughout the construction and handover programmes, enabling early warning and effective issue management.

• Support progress validation and assurance by connecting directly to the digital design process, enabling users to understand near time site conditions from anywhere, anytime.

• Validate and assure progress against the programme (using advanced 4D programming).

• Control quality of construction by enabling virtual site tours, effective and informed change control, organised and navigable progress photography, and a platform for completion reviews and sign off.

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Opinion

Robert Klaschka Founder and Principal Consultant @evrbilt

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hile the product options for software construction verification continue to grow, the process itself remains poorly defined, and so, like many digital support processes in the built environment, references to it are starting to appear in contracts without clarity of what the author is expecting.

To successfully deploy verification, we first need to understand what we are trying to achieve. At its heart, the construction verification process involves comparison of laser scan or photographic record data collected on site to a 3D design BIM. Within this there are three functional use cases that we generally seek to support: Progress monitoring: This process uses photography or laser scan data to track the progress of site work against a digital model.

It has a lower requirement of accuracy because it is primarily about establishing the presence of objects. This approach does require frequent collection of data to ensure a meaningful record.

Using this approach could allow a site to track the progress of planned work against real activity on site and anticipate emerging programme or logistical problems that otherwise remain unnoticed until they cause delays or disputes.

Accuracy of as-built conditions: Comparing laser scan data with models at or near the end of a project can serve to assist in the production of more accurate asbuilt information. This process can involve a series of scans throughout a site as a project 36

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reaches completion to capture what has been built and to make a comparison. The site may need to be scanned and re-scanned as works are concealed, for example, when a suspended ceiling goes up.

Accuracy in as-built models should be defined by the reason for the as-built information. This could be to help an operative find and maintain a system concealed above a ceiling which arguably could mean opening the correct ceiling tiles. Or to allow a client to know that the designed lettable area has been achieved in the completed project, in which case the expectations could be dependent on the square footage value.

Using this approach can support contractors or subcontractors when they are documenting the changes that have occurred during an installation to ensure the as-built record reflects what has been built.

Accuracy during construction: Like accuracy of as-built conditions, this process involves comparing models with laser scan data. However, to verify during construction many more increments of data collection are required throughout the project because this follows the construction as it occurs.

To be meaningful, data collected for this approach requires a high level of positional accuracy.

Using this approach can check the position of installations during construction and identify differences from the design.

Establishing the impact of these differences can reveal future clashes with following work much earlier and prevent delay from re-work that would be required without this insight. This process also provides the information required for progress monitoring.

At this point it is worth observing that generally contractual references to verification focus on improving the poor quality of as-built records.

This could be viewed as a byproduct of the general direction of travel towards better more accurate digital handover of buildings. The other use cases are more relevant to supporting the management of the site, both in monitoring progress and that construction

tolerances are being met.

To understand the challenges of the process we need to consider the relationship between the physical site and the documentation from which it was derived. Whether in a 3D model, or 2D documentation, every construction element has an absolute positional relationship with every other element. Columns and walls are snapped to grid lines and line-through perfectly vertically up the model, floors are perfectly flat. The resulting real buildings, whether well-built or not, will differ in ways that we hope deviate within acceptable construction tolerances.

So why does this go wrong?

While arguably there are many human factors that cause problems on site, including poor positioning of installations and undocumented changes during construction, we should ask, ‘are we setting up our sites to enable the quality of installation that a perfectly coordinated model or drawings have led us to expect?’ Arguably, establishing accurate position anywhere on a site relative to the originating model would mean that there was no excuse not to build in the right place. Yet, as with many of the dysfunctional consequences of pushing risk down to specialist subcontractor and installers, this results in shortcuts, such as using parts of the construction that have already been built to set out relative to.

Real world examples of this could be measuring a relative height from an as built slab that might have a tolerance of +/-25mm, or setting out a wall from a structural column that might have a similar tolerance. In each case the result is that one is setting out an element that anticipates high accuracy from another element with an acceptable low accuracy. If you work this way, the low accuracy becomes baked into everything that is positioned relative to it.

There is some irony that the same problems affect attempts to verify site work when something is identified as going wrong. Reestablishing accurate reference points on site to carry out positional verification locally is costly and so often the poor practice of best

fitting site data to as-built columns and levelling from as-built floor is substituted. Ask yourself, what you are measuring from at this point?

It’s entirely arbitrary and, more importantly, isn’t going to stand up in a dispute.

So how can we move beyond this piecemeal approach to position, and can we identify the points where the risk is greatest during a construction project? As is so often the case, when responsibility is passed from one party to another, the information flow breaks down. This is true for positioning, whether at the point that a design is being passed to a contractor or a package is being passed from a contractor to the subcontractor who will install the work.

An example of this is where a survey is commissioned by the designer, but the reference points are not preserved for the main contractor to set out from who commissions their own.

Two surveys, both separately georeferenced, could quite possibly misalign by 50mm. It is self-evident that this minor cost of planning and installing permanent stations, documenting them in a witness statement and providing them as digital coordinates as part of the contract documentation to be taken on by the main contractor, will very quickly pay dividends to any project.

When the build progresses, extending these reference points inside the building and, again, documenting them and providing them in digital form to subcontractors both to set out from and to be used to verify work, will result in smoother installation, and enable meaningful tracking of progress and accuracy.

Unlike many of the more esoteric wants that we have from digital construction, all the technology required to do this now is available, we simply choose not to do it. More importantly, if we start to plan for all parties working on site to have easy access to accurate position, there is every chance that the verifications we perform will be focused on high value activities such as digital progress monitoring and digitalising technical sign-offs and handover, instead of trying to correct poorly built work. www.AECmag.com

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Andrew Evans Senior Product Manager Digital Construction Works (DCW) Not only that, but the input doesn’t have to be from a static scanner. We’ve proved it out for mobile and for drone derived data as well.

Kirsten Lamb of the Centre for Digital Built Britain presents the following statement about the Built Environment usage as part of a broader overview of the development of Digital Twins (DT) over time.

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here does construction verification fit with the other project stakeholders, such as the planning teams and the clients – those paying for the job?

Any form of digital documentation is going to support increased confidence in the project schedule. If that documentation is geospatially enabled and capable of quantifying build quality to high tolerance, then that can only be a good thing.

Mistakes and design issues caught early can be planned out of the build entirely. Snagging becomes an almost non-event. If that feedback cycle between site and office can be implemented in real time, with high quality measured data or deeply informative geo-located visuals, then construction automation is getting closer to being Business As Usual.

Back in 2014 I wrote about tools and technology to enable quick and easy construction as-built (www.tinyurl.com/ construction-as-built).

Construction verification was then (and is now) a reality, but what if I told you we had also managed to use the output from the verification routine to automatically update the project plan so that all project stakeholders could be informed of construction progress in their familiar planning environment?

Not only is there the capability to do detailed planning and digital rehearsals, but there is also a proven method to enable a fast-feedback of in-field asconstructed status. www.AECmag.com

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In the built environment, the use of digital twins is just beginning to take off. Fully realised examples are rare, even at the level of individual assets. A great deal more technological and organisational maturity is needed for a National Digital Twin of built assets and services.

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If the feedback cycle between site and office can be implemented in real time, with high quality measured data or deeply informative geo-located visuals, then construction automation is getting closer to being Business As Usual Andrew Evans, Digital Construction Works

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She notes in her recently published Scoping Review of Principle-based Digital Twins (www.tinyurl.com/ KirstenLamb) that the concept is far from new.

First used by NASA, and commonly in place for manufacturing, she highlights that the majority of publications discussing the motivations and uses for DT do not really focus on their use in the Built Environment, except in the realm of Smart Cities.

As you would imagine the ideas of how a DT would work in Smart Cities is well-aligned to the Gemini Principles, serving the public with secure data that is enabling sustainability and collaboration.

It would appear that, at this early stage, the focus is really on the ‘how’ of DT rather than focusing on the ‘why’.

This is great news for digital construction, as it seems that we are still early on in the implementation of these concepts for what could be termed the construction digital twin, and, as a group, we’ve got a very good handle on the how, and that is considerably more than just creating a pretty visualisation.

What I’m hinting at here is that we also have a pretty good picture of the ‘why’.

Leica BLK360

May / June 2022 laser scanner

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Feature

HxDR for reality capture In 2005 Leica Geosystems, maker of laser scanners and surveying devices, was acquired by Hexagon AB. In 2010, Leica launched the revolutionary BLK360 small format scanner.

Since then, it has steadily fleshed out a complete BLK ecosystem. Martyn Day visited the company at its HQ in Zurich, Switzerland, to learn about the latest developments

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rands (and people’s perception of them) are interesting things.

Historically, Leica Geosystems, being Swiss, would probably fall into my stereotype of high-value engineering, coming at a premium cost.

But, given the company introduced the BLK360 laser scanner in 2018 for £15k, bundled with Autodesk’s Recap, this would be wrong.

Leica’s offering was aggressively priced. At the time, its smallest and lowest cost competitor, the Faro Focus3D, came in around £22k. It seemed that Leica was simply testing the market, but with hindsight, that assumption seems to have been completely incorrect!

Leica has gone on to continue to deliver new form factors for the scanning market, building up a range of innovative and beautifully designed scanning products. BLK2GO is a handheld portable scanner, which utilises SLAM (simultaneous localisation and mapping) technology to capture interior and exterior laser scans through the simple act of walking around.

BLK2FLY is a drone variant of the BLK2GO – but, in saying that, it completely underestimates the engineer38

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ing work that has gone into its design (see box out for more info).

Next to be released was the BLK ARC, which again leans on the BLK2GO design but is a module for autonomous reality capture, initially destined for Boston Dynamics’ Spot robot.

In just a few short years, Leica has a fully productised its range of portable scanners, which can be carried by hand, flown and even by robot. They all share the same beautiful industrial design and all feed into the company’s Cyclone 3D point cloud processing software, although more and more of the processing

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(cleaning up, registration) is becoming automated on device. This is a long way from historical tripod-based scanning strategies which take way longer to capture and process. However, the larger nonSLAM scanners still benefit from range and accuracy.

With a now-obvious product evolution plan moving to mobile scanning, the next part of this, seems to be to connect the Leica data capture devices to a central cloud backbone. For this, Leica has developed a cloud-based, WebGL-based service that is called HxDR.

The HxDR platform Launched in January 2020, the concept of HxDR is to connect the sensor hardware directly to the cloud. Whilst in the cloud, all the processing is carried out, all the holes within the point cloud are filled up to get coherent mesh, and then brought back to the user through a thin client, such as web browser, so the user can view the data, perform measurements, etc.

There’s no human intervention; it’s all automatic.

As part of the processing, HDxR subdivides and multi-levels the data automatically. Similar to game engine technology, on initial load, you get a lowwww.AECmag.com

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fidelity version, and then, over time, more and more detail is streamed in. The app never requires the user to fully download the entire dataset, just for viewing purposes, although if you do want to, there is a download button for the assets.

All rendering is done on the client side, not on the cloud server, but it’s optimised for fairly standard laptop graphics. The more video memory your system has, then the more of the data it can cache, smoothing movement.

As HxDR also supports terrestrial scans, not just point clouds and the automated meshing, it also supports panoramic images / viewpoints. The cool thing about using viewpoints is that while they are an image, they still use the 3D data in the background, enabling accurate measurement. Measurements can get stored so other team members can see persistent areas and lengths than have been investigated.

It’s also possible to add 3D annotations inside HxDR and this can be shared inside an asset with multiple collaborators logged into the system. Flying around the model, you can carry out dynamic ‘tours’, which can be shared with someone, or recorded as an Mp4 video. If your scan has an exterior and an interior scan, it’s possible to remove the www.AECmag.com

1 The BLK ARC module: outer skin and instantly get a ture files to upload them into autonomous reality ‘doll’s house view’ of the inteHxDR, and then the automatcapture with Boston rior space. ed meshing functions process Dynamics’ Spot robot HxDR is not just a viewing the point clouds. This is an 2 An HxDR supermesh, a and markup tool for point extremely significant develcombination of data from multiple different sensors, opment, connecting users on clouds / meshes. It’s also a all blended together platform. Leica allows users site who are scanning, with to create custom applications an ever-present cloud-based using the power of the HxDR platform. In processing and display engine. the example we were shown, a scan from Utilising handheld SLAM scanners a BLK ARC (hosted on the back of the with airborne drone SLAM scanners, Spot robot), was merged with the CAD data capture will see huge productivity model for the office floor, putting the two gains. If the processing moves from next to each other to check for differenc- expert users on desktop workstations, to es. This brings the processing close to the using the cloud to automatically clean up dataset, which means you can have your and register, you’re talking orders of BLK ARC running around a construction magnitude in productivity savings. Then zone, for instance, and ‘change detection’ there’s the additional benefit of the cencan be done automatically in the cloud, trally-hosted model which can be viewed with the results being sent directly to the and shared by everyone in the project. client. The intention of the HxDR platFrom our conversations with archiform is to enable any group, both within tects, who have one major project and as well as outside of Hexagon, to deliver need to start with a survey of the existing their technology and embed that into a building or infrastructure, this can take more powerful pipeline weeks and at significant cost.

HxDR isn’t just for the BLK series of Theoretically HxDR could provide the services but for 3D mapping data from all scan data to the architect on the same day. sorts of inputs. Airborne imagery, laser Extending this to technologies not yet scans, indoor and outdoor terrestrial scan perfected, but in development from a data, as well as mobile mapping data gets number of firms, including Hexagon, the seamlessly combined using HxDR. elusive Scan-to-BIM automation could Users drag and drop their reality cap- then be the next part of this process. By

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Feature

using machine learning to identify architectural features in the mesh, such as walls, doors, windows, ceilings, floors, stairs etc. and to build an IFC version from the mesh. I don’t think this is far away - perhaps in the next few years.

Hexagon Content Program HxDR is also a lot more than automated Cyclone in the cloud. Leica has been busy building a library of scanned cities and landscapes, which customers can license (2D and 3D data), a bit like Ordnance Survey Maps. So far Leica has over 3.6 petabytes of towns, cities and landscapes.

This can be used for modelling in context or to drive smart city platforms for urban planning. The quality of the city scans has to be seen to be believed - it’s really excellent, especially considering the amount of reflective surfaces in the city, which is a notoriously unfriendly material for light-based scanners.

While the standard settings are impressive, HxDR is capable of what Leica calls a ‘supermesh’. But what makes supermesh, a supermesh? According to Leica, it’s the combination of data from multiple different sensors, all blended together and rendered on the local laptop. From a bird’s eye view, the models initially look the same, but as you zoom in the detail is incredible; you can see all the cars, details in the facades, and there’s 3D depth to tunnels / parking access.

The creation of supermeshes is also 100% automatic if you have the data, automating the blending between rooves and the facades. The supermesh model of Munich we were shown took up 360 GB on the HxDR system.

Once you have a HxDR city and you

are an architect working on a project, you might want to bring in your model to see it in supermesh context. That is also possible. With the excellent fidelity of the city model, you can look at your design from any angle, whether that be street views or purely aerial. With materials in the IFC, the system also produces an environment map to match the shading to the lighting of the city capture. It’s also possible to be inside the proposed building and look out from any window and see what actually would be seen from that view.

In the final demonstration, Leica showed an IFC model of a factory, in a supermesh of the city of Delft in The Netherlands. Not only did you have access to the BIM data, but it was also possible to add animations - in this case a Spot robot walking around the site performing a scan with the BLK ARC. But that robot could really be at the factory and what HxDR would be showing would be live data from the IoT sensor on Spot. So, Leica sees HxDR as also a potential platform for dashboarding for digital twin management of sites.

Burkhard Boeckem, CTO of Hexagon explained the evolution of HxDR, “Development started in 2017 with some ideas. By 2018 we set out to build it, and the first version was shown at CES in 2020. There are basically four business tracks to HxDR. One is the content programme, where customers can actually buy parcels with a credit card. Then we have the Capture model, where customers upload, mesh, collaborate and do things with others. Then there’s the what I would call ‘white label’ business, where companies use HxDR as their platform for build-

ing their applications - then it’s maybe ‘powered by HDR’. And, finally, where Hexagon builds its own cloud solutions.

“You will see a lot of new products coming out, that have a nice cloud architecture because we think that HxDR has a fantastic cloud architecture. It’s scalable, we’re in close cooperation with Amazon. That’s why we built a corporate platform, so every Hexagon division can benefit.”

Conclusion Leica’s BLK and HxDR developments have been a multi-year journey to what now is a coherent ecosystem – LiDAR data capture any way you want it, automated pipelines to enable one button registration and clean up - all centred on a cloud service which enables hosting, collaboration and city model licensing, with the digital twin market being lined up in its sights. This is the product of joined up thinking.

Boeckem was the CTO of Leica Geosystems for twenty years but, in 2020 was elevated to CTO of the whole of Hexagon, which is a huge $14.7 billion market cap company with many, many brands. In AEC, it owns firms like Leica, Bricsys, and Intergraph, and has always appeared more of a holding company than a known brand. I asked him what his goal was in his new role and he said ‘convergence’. With so many Hexagon brands’ CTOs reporting in to him, it’s important to not keep reinventing the wheel, where all divisions can benefit.

HxDR is a case in point - a platform for all Hexagon firms to build on. I fully expect to see many more of these kinds of products come out of Hexagon.

■ www.leica-geosystems.com

BLK2FLY: the design of Leica’s autonomous flying laser scanner The design of Leica’s drone is really something else. To the uninitiated it looks like a BLK2GO with a frame and rotors on it but that belies the huge amount of engineering that has gone into the design, materials and manufacture.

The vast majority of scanning firms, looking to get into drones, would just license or build on top of an existing drone chassis - because what’s the point of reinventing the

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wheel? It would save a huge amount on development and would mean being able to get to the market quickly. This is not the Leica way.

The company set up a team, hiring from the local Zurich talent pool, which is rich in drone technology developers, and they set about the challenge of creating a flying BLK2GO. Obviously, it’s an expensive scanner and so it had to be reliable and strong,

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yet light to provide decent flight time. The frame is made of a special carbon material, which is woven, embedding the drone’s essential sensors.

Using Finite Element Analysis (FEA) software to explore stresses and strains in the design, material is added in the production process in areas that need it most.

It’s a highly optimised design and using cutting edge manufacturing methods.

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www.AECmag.com

techtoday.lenovo.com/workstations

Technical report

Technical report - ThinkPad P16

Lenovo ThinkPad P16

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he ThinkPad P16 is one of the most ambitious mobile workstations to come out of Lenovo in recent years.

It marks the convergence of two different form factors – the 15-inch and 17-inch – into an innovative high performance 16-inch chassis.

But it’s not just its size that’s different.

With a brand new industrial design, the ThinkPad P16 brings Lenovo’s legendary mobile workstation family bang up to date with a sleek, modern aesthetic and premium materials, including an anodised aluminium ‘storm grey’ cover.

With a 16:10 aspect ratio on the display, which includes a 4K OLED option, and thin bezels on each edge, the chassis is equivalent in size to a more traditional 15.6-inch laptop.

Optimised performance

The high-end mobile workstation is designed for the most demanding

Produced by

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professionals, including product designers, architects, engineers, and visualisation specialists.

Performance is up front and centre.

Powered by the new 12th Generation Intel Core HX processors, the ThinkPad P16 delivers processing performance that can rival desktop workstations.

With up to eight ‘Performance’ cores and eight ‘Efficient’ cores, for a total of 16 physical cores and 24 threads, the processor excels in both single-threaded workflows, such as CAD and Building Information Modelling (BIM), and multithreaded workflows, such as engineering simulation, ray trace rendering and reality modelling.

In addition, the ThinkPad P16 offers a choice of high-performance professional GPUs up to and including the NVIDIA RTX A5500 (16 GB) for the most demanding real-time visualisation and VR workflows.

Other specs include up to 128 GB of DDR5 memory, up to two high performance NVMe SSDs and the very latest in wireless connectivity including Intel WiFi 6E AX211 and 4G.

Cool operator

Despite offering similar core specifications, not all mobile workstations are the same.

Due to cooling constraints, processors can be fed different levels of power and can sometimes be ‘throttled’ to stop them getting too hot. This is not the case with the ThinkPad P16.

Thanks to its innovative dual vapour chamber, the powerful mobile workstation excels in its thermal design, delivering exceptional performance while running cool under heavy loads.

SCREEN IMAGE COURTESY OF ENSCAPE

The new ThinkPad P16 packs the high-end performance of a 17-inch mobile workstation into a compact 16-inch form factor, powered by new 12th Generation Intel Core HX processors

Learn how the ThinkPad P16 was designed tinyurl.com/ThinkPadP16

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14/05/2022 17:20

Technical report - ThinkPad P16

techtoday.lenovo.com/workstations

ThinkPad P16 - tech highlights With a brand new industrial design, the ThinkPad P16 delivers exceptional performance in a stylish, strong and durable 16-inch form factor

FHD camera The FHD (1,920 x 1,080) camera delivers a higher resolution for better video conferencing and comes with hardware noise reduction. There’s also a ThinkPad Webcam Privacy Shutter and an IR option for Windows Hello support

16-inch pro display

SCRE EN IM

AGE

COUR TESY

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SCAP

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With a 16:10 aspect ratio, the 16-inch display has 11% more pixels and a significantly greater viewable working space. It also creates a ‘deeper’ system which allows for thinner bezels and an improved screen-to-body ratio.

Resolutions go up to WQUXGA (3,840 x 2,400). There are IPS or OLED options for exceptional colour saturation and dark blacks, up to 600-nit peak brightness, 100% Adobe RGB colour gamut, X-Rite colour calibration, and low-blue light for reduced eye strain

ThinkPad keyboard The ThinkPad keyboard has been enhanced with a ‘soft landing’ design that provides more shock absorption for smoother and more responsive typing. The keyboard is backlit, spill resistant and also aids cooling, by drawing in air between the keys to increase air flow through the fans

Power and security Touchpad & TrackPoint For improved control, the 115mm wide touchpad is 15% wider than before, while a new ‘glass like’ mylar surface decreases friction for a more premium experience. The TrackPoint cap has also been improved to deliver ‘more certain and precise movement’ and decrease wear

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Strength and style

The power button features an integrated on chip fingerprint reader for enhanced security and a cleaner, less cluttered design. Engineering simulation was used to optimise the shape and spring force of the button

The palm rest is crafted from ABS plastic and polycarbonate. To echo the aesthetic of the anodised aluminium ‘A Cover’, it is coated with advanced anti fingerprint paint. Meanwhile, a solid magnesium sub frame or ‘roll cage’ gives the laptop its renowned ThinkPad strength and rigidity

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techtoday.lenovo.com/workstations

Antenna performance The ThinkPad P16 comes with a range of options for wireless connectivity, including Intel WiFi 6E AX211 and 4G. To optimise the performance of the antennas, a window is cut out of the anodised aluminium ‘A Cover’

Technical report - ThinkPad P16

Serviceability To minimise downtime in the rare event of a failure, or to extend product life through easy upgrades, the ThinkPad P16 was built with serviceability in mind. A service hatch with a single screw gives easy access to one of two NVMe drives and two (out of four) memory slots, while the second NVMe drive, Wi-Fi and 4G modules can be accessed by opening the entire bottom cover

Premium frame For strength and rigidity the ‘A Cover’ features a magnesium subframe, finished in anodised aluminium for a premium look and feel, with a ‘storm grey’ finish

Tough cookie To help ensure long term durability, the ThinkPad P16 goes through a rigorous process of in-house ‘torture tests’, including thousands of open-close cycles for the zinc alloy hinges. To demonstrate its toughness, the ThinkPad P16 is also put through the US Department of Defense’s MIL-STD 810G standards, which include tests for mechanical shock, humidity, cold, heat, sand & dust, vibration and more

Sustainability

Rear connectivity Many of the ThinkPad P16’s ports, including HDMi, power and Intel Thunderbolt 4, are located to the rear of the machine for a clutter free desk

The ThinkPad P16 follows Lenovo’s commitment to environmental sustainability, utilising 30% postconsumer recycled plastic material (PCC) in the speaker enclosure and 97% PCC in the batter pack frame and FSC certified materials used in the carton and accessory box. Lenovo has also launched a CO2 Carbon Offset Service based on ‘realistic’ five year product emissions covering production, shipment and typical usage

Thermal exhaust The ThinkPad P16 features an advanced thermal design to keep the system running fast and cool. Cool air is drawn in from the bottom and through the keyboard, then expelled at the rear, rather than the side, so it does not heat up the user’s hands

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14/05/2022 17:20

Technical report - ThinkPad P16

techtoday.lenovo.com/workstations

Game changing performance With a new hybrid architecture, the Intel ‘Alder Lake’ HX series of mobile processors, at the heart of the ThinkPad P16, give a phenomenal performance uplift in multi-threaded workflows like ray trace rendering

N

ew 12th Generation Intel Core processors are different to all previous Intel processors.

They are the first to feature a hybrid architecture with two different types of cores: Performance (P) cores for primary tasks and Efficient (E) cores, which are heavily focused on maximising performance per watt. Intel calls this its biggest architectural shift in a decade.

The idea behind Intel’s hybrid architecture is that critical software, including your current active application, runs on the P-cores, while tasks that are not so urgent run on the E-cores. This could be background operations such as Windows updates, anti-virus scans, or hidden tabs on a web browser. No processing power is ever wasted. If the software is highly multi threaded then it will run on both sets of cores.

P-cores are not only faster than E-cores, but they also support hyperthreading, Intel’s virtual core technology. This means every P-core can run two threads at the same time, which can help boost performance in certain multi-threaded workflows, such as ray trace rendering.

12th Gen Intel Core HX

The Lenovo ThinkPad P16 features 12th Generation Intel Core HX processors.

Specifically designed for high-end laptops and mobile workstations, they offer more cores than the 12th Generation Intel Core H processors, found in the super slim Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 5.

With 8 P-cores and 8 E-cores, for a total of 16 physical cores and 24 threads, 12th Generation Intel Core HX processors are designed to take performance to new levels.

They offer a significant performance uplift compared to 11th Generation Intel Core processors, which maxed out at 8 cores and 16 threads.

The performance benefits are likely to be felt most strongly in highly multithreaded workflows such as ray trace rendering. Here, applications such as Luxion KeyShot and Chaos V-Ray should

be able to harness the full processing capabilities of both sets of cores.

That’s not to say 12th Gen Intel Core HX processors won’t deliver improvements in single threaded workflows. With a higher Instruction Per Clock (IPC) than 11th Gen Intel Core processors, the ThinkPad P16 should also deliver a significant uplift in Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Building Information Modelling (BIM) software, in applications including Solidworks, Inventor, AutoCAD and Revit.

Optimised cooling, optimised performance The Lenovo ThinkPad P16 features an advanced thermal design to help it run cool and quiet and maintain exceptionally high levels of performance over extended periods.

The system is built around a dual vapour chamber cooling solution that balances the thermal load between the CPU and GPU. So, if you have a workflow that

Produced by

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stresses the CPU, such as ray trace rendering, but hardly uses the GPU, the system can automatically borrow some of the GPU’s thermal budget so more power can be delivered to the CPU. In the ThinkPad P16, each processor has its own fan and vapour chamber, which are connected to one another by a copper plate and a shared heat

pipe. This effectively creates one very large cooling assembly which can spread heat very quickly.

According to Lenovo, using this vapour chamber design can increase the total Thermal Design Power (TDP) capability of the system by 10W to 20W, leading to a 6% to 12% improvement in thermal performance.

In other words, it can pump more

power into the CPU and GPU as and when required, to increase frequencies for faster processing.

In fact, it can deliver up to 55 watts to the Intel Core HX processor and up to 125 watts to the GPU, the kind of power traditionally associated with a larger 17-inch mobile workstation and way above that of a typical 15-inch mobile workstation.

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14/05/2022 17:20

AEC Magazine any way you like it

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23/05/2022 19:40

nxtbld.com

The digitisation of construction Many firms are experimenting with off-site construction and modular design whilst exploring if their current tools are fit for purpose. With no real defined industry workflows, NXT BLD will explore emerging technologies and lots more

W

e all know the construction industry needs to change. And many agree that industrialised construction is the answer (or off-site construction, design for manufacture and Assembly (DfMA), Modern Methods of Construction (MMC), call it what you will). The question remains, how do we get there?

With Urban Splash shutting its offsite factory this month, the industry continues its quest to get off-site right.

One man who has experienced the many challenges first hand is entrepreneur and investor, Michael Marks, one of Katerra’s original co-founders. We are deeply honoured that he will be delivering the keynote at NXT BLD this year to share what he has learnt from investing in disruptive construction technologies.

Regular readers of AEC magazine will have noticed our recent focus on exploring the many new start-ups coming to the industry, looking to take on the old guard.

It’s great to see so many fresh ideas each month. Having clearly identified the pain points and limitations with the current BIM products and methodologies, the next generation of developers are sublimating their ideas.

Fresh ideas are also coming from indus-

workstations and a very special appearance by Oskar Stålberg, the developer of digital town building toy, Townscaper.

We sincerely hope you join us for what promises to be our best NXT BLD yet.

Event details Tuesday 21 June 2021 8:30am - 7:00pm (conference starts 9:20am) Queen Elizabeth II Centre Westminster, London

For all the latest information visit www.nxtbld.com

Felipe Manzatucci Skanska

Mollie Claypool Automated Architecture

Exclusive 2-for-1 offer for AEC Magazine readers

Tasked with improving productivity through the adoption of new technology, Manzatucci oversees the digitalisation journey of Skanska UK. In leading the Innovation Strategy, he engages with forward thinking developers. He will explore how technology can improve real-time decision making in construction projects.

Claypool is a leading architecture theorist, focused on automation in architecture and the built environment.

She is director of AUAR (Automated Architecture), a spin out from the Bartlett School of Architecture.

Claypool will highlight AUAR’s work on robotically assembled dwellings.

For readers of AEC Magazine, we are offering a strictly limited number of tickets on a special 2-for-1 offer.

Simply use the promotional code 241AEC and you can pick up a pair for £69.

Tickets include full access to the conference and exhibition, refreshments, lunch and drinks at the networking reception.

When they’re gone, they’re gone! www.nxtbld.com/tickets-2022

• Construction / AI 46

try itself. At NXT BLD 2022, Greg Schleusner, principal / director of design technology at HOK, will give a second instalment on his vision for better and more open data workflows. At last year’s event he identified the problems; now he has coded solutions and invites you to join him on the journey.

Elsewhere on the speaker roster we have another excellent and diverse selection, covering robotic fabrication and assembly, VR design systems, 3D printed interiors, applications of AI in construction work flows, off site modular construction of factories, the future of IFCs and open working, the latest in powerful

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• Robotics / architecture

2-for-1 tickets

www.AECmag.com

24/05/2022 16:40

London 21 June 2022

Circular architecture ondemand platform Aectual was used to fabricate a 3D printed pavilion for the Floriade Expo 2022 in The Netherlands

Games developer Oskar Stålberg will showcase the technology, design and aesthetics behind Townscaper, the amazingly simple colourful digital town building toy that could have some lessons for the AEC software industry

www.AECmag.com

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nxtbld.com Transforming building production Michael Marks, Celesta Capital In Michael Marks’ experience, market disruption centres around the question, “Why not?” Large, mature industries are usually set in their own ways of doing things: thus the reason that companies he has invested in or led such as Tesla, GoPro, Flex, and Katerra have had the opportunity to disrupt these billion-dollar industries.

This session will cover Michael’s experience as an operator and an investor, leveraging patterns in businesses and industries that are ripe for disruption.

From driving hypergrowth at Flex, interim leadership at Tesla, early investment in GoPro, and spotting unlikely successes, such as Crocs shoes, Michael has helped to transform entire industries.

He will share what he has learned from investing in construction technology, and why he firmly believes that industrial methods, coupled with innovative software, might deliver buildings in months, not years.

From interim leadership at Tesla, to early investment in GoPro and driving hypergrowth at Flex, Michael Marks has helped to transform entire industries

Designing [with] Machines Maria Yablonina Assistant professor, University of Toronto Designing [with] Machines aims to investigate and establish design methodologies that consider robotic hardware development as part of the overall design process and its output. Through this work, a design practice emerges that moves beyond the design of objects towards the design of technologies and processes that enable new ways of both creating and interacting with architectural spaces. The practice specifically focuses on the development of task-and task-specific robotic devices and systems that are inherently suitable for in-situ fabrication as architectural intervention within the context of existing building stock.

Reda Masarwa Intel

Emma Hooper Bond Bryan Digital

Chris Mcleod Nvidia

With surging demand for semiconductors, Intel is thinking differently about the way it engineers and constructs its factories. Masarwa, VP of global construction engineering, will explain how scalable pre-fabrication and repeatable design are being applied to Intel’s semiconductor manufacturing Mega-Projects.

Associate director of Bond Bryan Digital, Hooper’s expertise in information management and OpenBIM is second to none. She believes that the use of standardised data models is critical for us to have any chance of coping with, and connecting to, the huge amount of complex data which is coming our way. The future is open. .

OpenBIM / IFC / interoperability

Mcleod, a senior solutions architect on Nvidia’s Professional Visualisation team, will present the latest updates in Omniverse Enterprise (VR, measure tool, Navigator, etc.), explore how simulation data can be tied into your design, and demonstrate how you can collaborate in real-time on any screen.

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• Visualisation / collaboration / VR www.AECmag.com

24/05/2022 16:40

London 21 June 2022 Circular Architectureas-a-Service Hedwig Heinsman Aectual / DUS Architects Creative director & Co-founder Aectual co-founder Hedwig Heinsman will show how the company’s proprietary parametric design software, combined with advanced manufacturing with XL robotic 3D printers, can enable designers and builders to create tailor-made architecture on any scale in a sustainable way using bio-based and recycled materials.

The Lenovo ThinkPad P16: high-end performance in a sleek 16-inch form factor

Dr. Fang Xu Foster + Partners

Conor Black Arup

Mike Leach Lenovo

Xu is an associate sustainability designer / analyst at Foster + Partners. He is concerned with person-environment relationship research, computational design, and real-time design technologies. He will present on in-house development of Project Fission and Downtown Explore to enhance the design process. .

Computational design

Black is an associate computational design engineer at Arup. He specialises in techniques for the simulation and generation of the built environment and believes computational optimisation is due a step change in approach for pushing the boundaries of how we design for better, more sustainable outcomes.

Learn from Lenovo and its performance engineering team, how to maximise new workstation investments, avoid mistakes, optimise the latest hardware setups for modern AEC workflows, and best enable your workforce with an ever-increasing movement to mobile and hybrid working.

•

www.AECmag.com

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• Workstations May / June 2022

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nxtbld.com On a Road to Nowhere?

Greg Schleusner Principal/Director of Design Technology, HOK

AEC data structures: how data can be linked to a slab node

Schleusner returns to NXT BLD this year to deliver the second installment of his 2021 presentation about the need for better and more open data (see - www.nxtbld.com/videos/ greg-schleusner/).

In his presentation this year, entitled ‘On a Road to Nowhere?’, he will explain how AEC is at an inflection point. It’s clear that something is wrong.

The industry is awash with proposed paths but where do they lead? It turns out we don’t have to invent a path. We just need to copy and adapt it to AEC. Schleusner will focus on the path to copy, how to adapt it to AEC and where to start.

Decision making latency - data silos within the AEC industry

Richard Harpham Slate.Ai

Oskar Stålberg Townscaper

Ken Pimentel Epic Games

Originally an architect but having worked at Revit, Autodesk and Katerra, he has seen the construction market from all angles. He will join Skanska UK’s Felipe Manzatucci on stage looking at the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in streamlining the construction process.

A look at the technology, design and aesthetics behind Townscaper, the colourful digital town building toy. Block by block, build the town of your dreams with curvy streets, soaring cathedrals, small hamlets, canal networks, or sky cities on stilts. Perhaps some of it might even be useful in real world?

Pimentel is AEC Industry Manager in the enterprise team at Epic Games, the developer of Unreal Engine. With real time visualisation now a reality and Unreal Engine 5’s capacity for large world models, Pimentel will predict where architectural visualisation is going next.

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• Game design

• Real-time viz / digital twins / VR www.AECmag.com

24/05/2022 16:40

London 21 June 2022 Architecture-specific distributed robotic systems Samuel Leder University of Stuttgart Autonomous construction using distributed robotic systems features a large number of small, agile construction robots that can produce complex, functionally adapted assemblies from individual parts in highly parallel processes. This represents a fundamentally different approach to the current trends of automating individual predigital construction machines. As such, the application of distributed robotics systems on construction sites, where the machines required can fit in a suitcase, would require a shift in the current state of building construction. The system comprises a team of single-axis robots which leverage timber struts for locomotion, manipulate materials and assemble architectural structures.

Moving beyond DfMA to Design for Constructability Joel Hutchines, Slate.ai How to build what you’re designing, is emerging as a new baseline of knowledge for an architect. Understanding the physics of moving materials, labour resources and equipment needs to make your design easy to construct, now has a profound impact on decisions that can leverage industrial preconstruction methods.

Getting the right decision data in the right people’s hands, as early as possible, is fundamental to the success of DfMA. In this session, Hutchines, former founder of Splash Modular, will share his experiences of providing the correct, quantified and unseen contextual data before, during and after prefabrication decisions, and the resulting success in adopting IC/MMC solutions successfully.

Get hands-on with the latest technology NXT BLD isn’t just about its inspirational conference; it’s an incredible opportunity to get hands on with the latest technology in our exhibition.

Whether you’re starting out in arch viz / VR, want to push your workflows to the limits, or simply explore new tech for collaboration and more, then you’re in for a treat. Here’s a rundown of the key exhibitors you’ll see on the show floor.

Lenovo will showcase the latest in powerful desktop and mobile workstations, including the new ThinkPad P16 with 12th Gen Intel Core HX processors and Nvidia RTX GPUs. Unreal Engine is the ‘world’s most open and advanced’ real-time 3D tool.

Oasys has more than 40 years in software development within three product areas: structural engineering, geotechnical engineering, and pedestrian simulation.

Enscape is a real-time rendering and virtual reality plug-in for Revit, SketchUp, Rhino, Archicad, and Vectorworks.

Arkio is a collaborative design tool for working together on buildings, interiors and urban plans using VR, AR, PCs and tablets.

Sensat is on a mission to revolutionise the way the industry plans, builds and manages construction and infrastructure.

Topcon provides end-to-end business solutions by integrating high-precision measurement technology, software and data.

Kenesto helps customers with document and file management problems that could not be solved with traditional methods.

Xinaps specialises in software solutions for AEC, including Verifi3D, a cloud-based (SaaS) model checking solution.

Graphisoft says its award-winning solutions provide unrivalled open BIM workflows.

Alice Technologies is an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered construction simulation platform.

By taking a granular by object approach to data, Epic Games can get incredible performance on massive datasets in Unreal Engine 5, as demonstrated in Matrix city

Cadline’s Digital Engineering team specialises in engineering consultancy, delivering 3D design and BIM to customers.

3D Repo will show how its digital construction platform can transform workflows using live collaborative tools in a web browser.

Spaces by Cerulean Labs is bringing sketchbased conceptual design to the iPad. Revizto is an integrated collaboration platform that helps teams drive accountability, mitigate risks, improve timelines and maximise savings.

Gamma AR brings Building Information Models directly to the construction site through augmented reality.

For more info visit nxtbld.com/sponsors-2022

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Software

Qonic: accurate BIM While BIM has changed the way architects work, it hasn’t necessarily benefitted all project participants equally. The lack of trust, and the need for different types of information to be included at different phases, has brought in new inefficiencies. New start-up Qonic aims to help, writes Martyn Day

I

n AEC Magazine over the last few The co-founders — Erik De Keyser, Mark direct modelling capabilities and can years, we have looked at how BIM Van Den Bergh, Tiemen Strobbe, Tjerk handle NURBS. modellers were originally devel- Gauderis and Sander Scheiris — are all This adherence to solid modelling is oped to automatically produce formerly from Bricsys (developer of not unique (Vectorworks is also powered drawings, and therefore provide produc- BricsCAD). In some ways calling Qonic a by Parasolid) but it’s exceptionally tivity savings. In isolation, in a utopia, start-up is a misnomer, as the group has important to one of the vertical niches to this has been the case so long as you don’t worked together as a team for many which Qonic wants to appeal - those edit them in a 2D drawing application years. This is a re-start-up and it has working with estimates of quantities. like AutoCAD, as changes to the model already grown to twenty people.

As the majority of BIM models are will need to be manually edited again.

De Keyser has a long history in AEC inaccurately modelled, taking quantities The idea of a single building model, on software. He was an architect, got into off them has always been a problem and which all companies would collaborate software development, developed would lead to more work than was origihas not come to fruition, with the stan- TriForma, which was licensed to Bentley nally intended. dard practice being multiple models cre- Systems, and when that deal soured he In a Qonic model, concrete volumes, for ated by multiple project participants for formed Bricsys to develop BricsCAD, an instance, will be accurate and details will different purposes.

AutoCAD clone that eventually outgrew be modelled and intelligently applied This has led to the need for Common that constraint and became a complete throughout a model at 1:1 accuracy.

Data Environments (CDEs), complex file development platform for BIM, manufac- Qonic’s role is about beefing up the bits of management and much BIM models that support duplicated effort. It also downstream processes to extends into fabrication, alleviate the pressure on where detailed 1:1 models Qonic isn’t like anything I’ve seen before. It seeks remodelling by sorting to address common problems that affect and drawings are created. the problems earlier on in All these issues comeveryone in the industry for which there are no the golden thread. bined have left many in real solutions other than remodelling, re-drawing Hybrid BIM the industry pondering what comes next. And One of the key aims that with a new generation of this industry needs to design tools, what functionality and turing and civil design in itself – all address in the next five years is how capabilities will we need? based on DWG (www.bricsys.com). Finally, design information flows from architect The flow of data from concept design to in 2018, De Keyser sold Bricsys to to fabricator. fabricated building is interrupted many Hexagon and after spending a short Currently all BIM systems have been times. Somehow, we need a system that amount of time there, he left. developed for a traditional workflow. can talk openly throughout the design Now free of BricsCAD, as well as the And while there has been considerable and construction process. constraint of developing with a DWG investment in skills and software, for envelope, the team has been able to start architects, MEP engineers and some The re-start-up anew on a fresh, contemporary BIM structural engineers, the contractual endStartup Qonic is developing what it prom- engine. De Keyser has always used solid results get squashed down to 2D drawises to be a unique take on ‘upscaling’ BIM, modelling in his applications to define ings in PDF format. while taking it to the next level of accuracy, 3D geometry – TriForma used Parasolid, As firms look to benefit from digital both in geometry and depth of data.

BricsCAD used ACIS and now Qonic fabrication and off-site construction, Based in Ghent, Belgium, there are a features a top secret new lightweight Qonic looks to play a role as an intermefew familiar faces to be seen at its HQ. kernel of origins unknown, which has diary system capable of understanding

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1 Qonic is designed to be intuitive, for non-technical users (LG’s North American headquarters, designed by HOK) 2 Qonic uses a scalable cloud infrastructure for the heavy calculations, with little chunks of information streamed when required 3 Direct modelling supports push / pull operations 4 ‘Accurate and complex’ solids help make the software suited to a range of AEC professionals, from architect to contractor (model courtesy of open source Project Soane projectsoane.com)

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and absorbing traditional BIM files, at various levels of detail, together with highly accurate solid representations of parts to be manufactured, or materials to be procured for construction.

The development team is committed to utilising open standards and the demonstration we saw in Ghent, was heavily biased towards importing IFC models and displaying them in Qonic’s cloudbased viewer.

Many people are unaware that IFC now has the capability to capture and display high resolution geometry. Qonic parses the IFC and generates a solid model version of the data. This can be from one IFC or multiple contributed models.

Even when launching a multi-gigabyte dataset, it was very fast to move about the model and access the underlying BIM data. And this is still alpha code. The team has utilised streaming games technology to ensure that geometry closer to the point of view is full definition, while model data that is far away is rendered in lower detail. As one moves around the model it’s possible to see a slight shimmering of distant geometry, as the software streams in additional detail as it gets closer to the field of view.

Models are stored locally and shared via the cloud, the initial transaction taking the longest time and, from there on in, only the changes are sent. It’s possible to work offline and synchronise on demand, with the system tracking changes and keeping the history of edits.

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Devil in the details Viewing is the basic functionality. Qonic aims to drastically reduce errors by taking the strain out of performing tedious tasks which are error prone - tasks such www.AECmag.com

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Software

Qonic is multi-platform with versions for web, desktop and mobile (IFC model attribute: Autodesk openifcmodel. cs.auckland.ac.nz/Model/ Details/308)

as manually placing lintels for a specific quickly isolate and see IFC classified problems that affect everyone in the type of window across an entire model. groups, such as columns, beams, MEP industry for which there are no real If the window varies in size, then Qonic etc. Every element contains material lay- solutions other than remodelling, recomes with a library of detailed parts ers, so complex filters could be set to find drawing. The level of detail that its datawhich will find and replace the low detail columns made of a certain material. This base can hold demonstrates that it’s windows in the model and adjust the lintel works very much like hash tags and is exceptionally performant. for each one. This will also apply to details very easy to use.

To model to this level of detail would such as sills, roof caps, interior finishes, Qonic is cloud-based enabling collabo- kill any of today’s BIM systems. This is wall composition for all spaces in the ration, which here means sharing the benefit of being able to start from building. If using a spaces designation - designs with colleagues and teams, or scratch with a clean sheet and being able e.g. for a hospital design - then to use the latest technologies. the correct room fit out can be The team is adamant that it applied, or fire doors detailed. will keep the system open, The level of detail that its database can This is aimed at turbo charging with commitment to IFC at the hold demonstrates that it’s exceptionally core, together with APIs for the process of adding in details to benefit all stakeholders. performant. To model to this level of detail open access.

All this means Qonic can be Unfortunately, the applicawould kill any of today’s BIM systems used as a tool to collate data tion will not be out in beta from different systems, at difuntil later this year. However, ferent levels of detail. It beneif you like what you’ve read fits from automated detail generation having access in the field. The viewer can here and are interested, the team have throughout components. And because be accessed on a web browser, on a invited firms to get in touch by reaching IFC is at the very heart of it, it can be mobile phone or on desktop. Having said out to them via LinkedIn. exported and brought into any other IFC that, some capabilities will be reserved Finally, one for the details folks - the compatible applications. This is a lot for the desktop version, requiring local name Qonic originates from a Ghent more than your typical common data processing power for modelling etc. conical sweet delicacy, the Cuberdon. environment application. This is a design Unfortunately, the cone domain wasn’t Conclusion refinement tool. available, which introduced the need for The viewing app is very impressive, Qonic isn’t like anything I’ve seen some creative thinking. and comes with several smart filters to before. It seeks to address common ■ www.qonic.com

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Infurnia India is proving a furtive territory for new BIM development. In the March / April edition of this magazine we covered Snaptrude. Now we explore another BIM modeller taking aim at the Revits of the world, with a specialism in interior design. Martyn Day spoke with co-founder Lovepreet Mann

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n March we investigated two new that we can do more for this business.

Interior Design and Kitchen Design variBIM modellers with new codebases, “When you’re doing interior design, ants. It’s impressively quick to model from fresh, young entrepreneurs you’re competing against AutoCAD and with and automatically allocates rooms / aiming to take on the establishment. SketchUp. In India, Revit is used in the spaces once the wall encloses a space.

While it’s exciting to see new ideas as to larger projects. For buildings lower than The user adds doors, windows, colhow design and modelling could be done fifty storeys high, AutoCAD and umns, beams, slabs, roof elements etc. 2D in the 21st century, the software is cur- SketchUp occupy the market completely. / 3D is seamless and custom properties rently embryonic when compared to the The reasons Revit isn’t in our space are can be added. As it’s cloud-based, collabtools they are aiming to replace. twofold – it’s way too expensive for India, oration is built-in. There is also a sizable This month we have a new cloud-based and it’s also too complicated for smaller component library for kitchen and furcontender, Infurnia. While its aspirations projects. It has become too bloated. nishings, and you can create and store for the market are equally bold, Infurnia “Through research, one of the problem your own. All these catalogue items can has the additional benefit of already hav- areas that we found was interoperability. contain pricing information, so Bill of ing a cash positive income, being estab- You can’t really have Revit files and open Materials (BOMs) can be generated along lished as an interior design solution. them in other software. We want to build a with total cost of a design.

Infurnia was co-founded in 2014 by software, where we don’t really have a file It’s possible to work in 2D or 3D and Lovepreet Mann and Nikhil Kumar. format. We wanted to build something save particular views (these appear as Neither studied architecture; they are in like Google Docs was in 2000 when com- tabs on the bottom of the screen). fact electronics/electrical engineers and pared to the Microsoft world at that stage - Clicking on them takes you to the views originally started developing limited feature set, cloud native, no form you want (plan 2D, angled 3D, whatever).

Augmented Reality (AR) applications to file format of their own, but truly collabor- Any edits are reflected in all views. simulate furniture layouts in the home. ative. So that’s what we started.

Dimensioning is incredibly easy, being After conversations highly automated and with furniture manufacdynamic, with changes to turers, the pair realised the model. Options range that there was a gap in You can’t really have Revit files and open them in from radial, angular, XY, other software. We want to build a software, the market for interior aligned and can be cusdesign software, as there tomised (fonts, colour, where we don’t really have a file format was nothing out there line type etc.).

Lovepreet Mann, Infurnia co-founder that was built on modern Rendering is built in computing technology. To and by current standards date they have raised $1.5 is a bit limited. Infurnia million in funding from investors and are “Revit has RVT, SketchUp has SKP. will either render the view in medium for in the process of going for an Initial Infurnia doesn’t have a file format for it, no cost (480 pixels), high (720 pixels) for Public Offering (IPO). we support downloads to some open for- $0.10, presentation quality (1080) for “We started building very simple tools mats, right, but we don’t have any propri- $0.20 or 4K for $1.00 an image. You can to create walls and buildings, so that you etary format, per se. All of our data is also select the view as it is, a 360 panoracould do interior design,” explains Mann, accessible via open APIs.” ma or render a ‘VR view’ (stereoscopic).

“That was [the] only architectural element Management and catalogues in our app, but while doing this we kept In use on researching, and there was something Infurnia is a cloud-based app, and runs Mann explained some more of the core nagging us in the back of the head saying in a browser. It comes in Architectural, concepts of Infurnia, “We have two dif-

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As the product stands, it’s great fun to use and, if conceptually you want to model a building with a fleshed out interior fast, it certainly beats SketchUp

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ferent portals, two different apps. One is the designer where you’re actually creating these designs and one is Admin, which is management focused.

For example, if you have twenty architects or designers working with you, you need to know which designer is working on which project and when did they last work on it?

You need to assign or reassign projects to people. You can do all that, you do all the project management here too, also for catalogue management, which includes a default catalogue that we provide for furniture and accessories, building elements, lots of finishes.”

The idea is that this is only a starting point. Mann explains that users will be able to control their own catalogue and create their own components and save them, “If you are a product organisation, which sells architectural products, you can create your catalogues and then you can publish it so that others can essentially add it to this source, but right within the authoring software itself.

Think of it like what figma is doing for UX, compared to let’s say, Sketch or Adobe Illustrator.

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Software

tion is based on working in your own software, on local files. We don’t work that way, there are no two separate files.

Everyone is truly working on the same file.

“We have introduced a lot of different concepts from different industries. From the coding industry, where we have something called versioning and branching.

“In Infurnia, every single save that you’re making is getting stored as a different version. Any version you want to go back to, you can just click and go back to. If you want to cut a branch from there, you can create as many multiple parallel branches to work on. Even different people can work on different branches.

“There are multiple use cases where you’re not sure whether you want to include it in your final design - just cut off a new branch, do your explorations in that, and if you don’t like it, discard that branch altogether. Your master branch still has all the good design. If you want to merge it back, just do a simple merge.”

Cash injection Soon after speaking with Mann, the company announced its intention to go for an www.AECmag.com

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Initial Public Offering (IPO) on BSE Startup Platform, explaining to potential investors “Infurnia is to Autodesk what Google Docs is to Microsoft Office”. It’s hoped the shares will raise in excess of $5 million. The company’s pre-IPO funding round was backed by entrepreneur Yogesh Chaudhary of Jaipur Rugs.

Conclusion The Infurnia founders have been on quite a journey. While the product is currently aimed at more residential projects, the scope and aim is to scale it up and keep rapidly developing it.

Having established a profitable business in India mainly in interior design, the move to go for an IPO is certainly a strong message as opposed to looking for traditional VCs. Given Infurnia, to date, was created on $1 million, it will be very interesting to see what they would come up with, having an injection of many times that investment.

As the product stands, it’s great fun to use and, if conceptually you want to model a building with a fleshed out interior fast, it certainly beats SketchUp. Geometrically, it is currently challenged,

no Grasshopper or lovely curves, but the vast majority of buildings are rectilinear, and for those smaller jobs, Infurnia may well become a competitor.

For a single licence, Infurnia is free but comes with limitations. It omits render credits, BOMs, custom catalogues and other advanced features. $600 per month will get you ten seats, omitting the custom elements (this works out at $720 per user per year). Enterprise is $7,500 per month for 100 seats with everything (this works out at $900 per user per year).

Additional licenses for business and enterprise (beyond the initial ten or hundred bundles) are $50 per month.

There are some common themes emerging from conversations with these ‘upstart’ BIM developers. Cloud applications like Figma and coding methodologies are influencing all the next generation of tools, and the historical limitation of working individually on files is set to become history. This won’t be for a few years yet but, with hindsight, current workflows that involve shunting huge slabs of data around, and using dedicated project file management systems, are going to look horribly inefficient.

■ www.infurnia.com

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Arkio in the metaverse of madness Collaborative spatial design developer Arkio had an unusually quiet 2021. Little did we know the team was storing up a huge pile of new features for its official launch on Meta’s Quest App store. Martyn Day looks at the new capabilities

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1 Arkio has adopted meta-style avatars 2 Arkio has boosted its support for BIM data

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t’s been almost five years since we first met Johan Hanegraaf at NXT BLD (www.tinyurl.com/johan-H), where he gave a demonstration of a personal project that explored what a VR design system for architects would look like.

Now a professional product called Arkio, with users all around the world, the greatly refined application allows teams to share models for collaborative VR sessions, supporting data from Revit, Rhino, Unity and other 3D tools, and providing basic modelling capabilities.

While firms could access the application on the Meta Quest store if they searched for the exact name, the app was still in the development category (‘Applab’). This month, however, Arkio made its official debut with version 1.2.

And what an update this is! It’s a significant leap in capability.

Avatars and hands

And if enhanced precision wasn’t a good enough indicator of Arkio’s modelling ambitions, the new release contains the first draft of an architectural components library.

Previous releases were limited to creating prismatic shapes and then editing them. This was good enough for massing studies but, when it came to architectural modelling, the lack of accuracy and the need to model with basic shapes limited the outcomes.

The introduction of architectural components is a significant milestone. If anything, it’s probably the most significant part of this release which is packed full of fantastic new features.

Arkio now has a library of windows, doors, stairs etc. — over 100 parametric components. In the last release one would simply punch a hole through a wall to create a door or a window. Now The basics it’s possible to draw with components.

There has been a lot of work done on the Simply by placing them, they automatiUI as you enter the application, making it cally cut through walls and generate to fit more of a personal experience and easier the space required. to sort through collections of previous I’ve been told that there are capabilities models and access training. There is a not unlike Revit families underpinning new ‘meta’ concept of the Arkio HQ, this, which will eventually be fully which are virtual buildings in the Arkio exposed for users to create and customise VR - a gallery building, an auditorium their own libraries. and a training centre.

This capability is a marked improveThe gallery building conment and is a demonstratains exhibits of work done tion of delivering a tool by people using Arkio, which with real design intent. The For me, the most important new feature is the combination of component will continue to evolve. The auditorium will be used to inclusion of a component library, which points library with greater feedhold live demonstrations towards taking the product beyond SketchUp back of dimensions takes from the development team, Arkio to another level. levels of architectural modelling while the training space will Pass-through modelling contain lessons to see what’s possible with Arkio.

When I first saw the new The concept of the exhibition space is accelerated by low power mobile CPUs/ pass-through modelling feature demonparticularly interesting. While it’s a dem- GPUs, it’s frankly quite amazing. Unlike strated, I wondered how on earth I was onstration of work that’s been done by games geometry, BIM systems are much going to explain it in words. So here goes. users of the application, I wonder if it’s less optimised for graphics performance, The Oculus Quest headset has what is possible to have your own Arkio exhibi- or rely on having powerful CPU and called a pass-through camera. This is a tion building, where firms could store GPUs. Arkio is doing a sterling job. low resolution black and white camera and exhibit models of their past work, or which is primarily used to help the user even perhaps projects currently on site. Precision and components initially set up a safe zone and spatial All those competition entries which fail The lack of precision editing in geometry barrier in which to move around. to get built could find a home in a perma- has also been addressed. While it’s still As you are completely blind while nent virtual exhibition for perspective possible to grab and pull faces, for typi- wearing a VR headset, pass-through is a clients, or employees, to see the practice’s cally inaccurate massing editing, it’s now way to connect to the real world. Arkio work in 3D. also possible to edit by typing in the 1.2 has introduced the concept of passWhile there is a lot of rubbish spouted dimensions to drive the geometry. This through modelling. about the metaverse, currently the market- feature has been highly requested by From within the VR environment, it’s ing of architects’ work resides on websites, users and pushes the direction of devel- possible to toggle the pass-through camin photos and sketches. Given we’re all opment from addressing simple massing era. This will display the room you’re in making 3D models, Arkio can reuse that to becoming more of an all-round archi- and allows you to model the walls, floor data for everyone else to experience in VR. tectural modelling solution. or ceiling.

In the previous version, avatars were pretty shapeless forms. Now Arkio has adopted the Meta-style avatars, bringing some sense of personification to the individuals in a collaborative session. If you have set up your avatar in Meta already, then this is the version that will appear in Arkio automatically.

In the Oculus and Rift environments hands are now ‘a thing’ that appear in the view and support for hand tracking is enabled. This might sound like an odd thing, perhaps a waste of polygons, but it’s a massive update and helps anchor the user in the VR environment.

The Arkio team have been working very closely with Meta to improve performance. Now models which are 3x larger can be imported to the Quest. The frame rate has doubled and scenes can be over twice as complex. This has required a large amount of work from the development team and has meant the replacing of the graphics rendering pipeline.

When using Arkio for simple massing, obviously you’ll not be pushing the system particularly hard, but those who want to import complex models from Revit or SketchUp will appreciate the additional headroom. Considering standalone VR headsets like the Quest are

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Pass through modelling in Arkio

Arkio has a new transparent material scenes being able to be round tripped Conclusion called pass-through, which allows you to between them.

This has been a massive update for the see the edges of the geometry in passUp to 2,000 game objects can be collaborative VR software. It’s clear to see through camera mode. If you punch a brought into Arkio, moved or modelled that now the groundwork has been done hole through any of these walls, the view on top of, and then sent back to Unity. It on the base system, the development is of the VR world beyond. So you’re in a seems game developers are also interest- teams are fleshing out and refining more real room, seeing a live feed from a cam- ed in using the software for level design. advanced capabilities, across a wide era, but the view through the window is While this may seem not important range of functionality. For me, the most of the Arkio VR world. This is mildly dis- for architecture, expanded usage will important new feature is the inclusion of concerting. It’s also possible to model rec- also drive improvements. To get perfor- a component library, which points tangles around the furniture in your mance, games developers heavily utilise towards taking the product beyond room and literally SketchUp levels of delete it and replace architectural modelthe furniture with ling. Massing is great The addition of meta-style avatars and hands might Arkio components. So but I had always sound like a waste of polygons, but it brings some now you can edit the hoped for more, and real world, and place now it’s here. sense of personification to the collaborative session virtual furniture Arkio also looks set and helps anchor the user in the VR environment within it, while lookto become the gateway ing out into the virtutool to repurpose al world beyond! architectural models The next generation of headsets will level of detail (LoD) techniques, so mod- for the metaverse. The team has obviously have full colour pass-through and, hope- els are displayed with higher fidelity been working very closely with Meta and fully, higher resolution. This blended real- nearer the viewpoint, and lower fidelity I’m sure it’s not lost on the Meta team that ity capability is really at a formative stage further away. this is a great bridge to get the industry but gives an indication of where Arkio is While Arkio currently doesn’t support into the metaverse - should we wish to heading. The development team said they LoD optimisation, it will be coming at cross it. While I am not sure about 99% of always envisaged the product to be both some point. For architects this means the the hype around the metaverse, I can buy VR and AR, so as AR glasses come out, possibility of loading bigger models and into the concept of there being a virtual expect to see Arkio models blending in. having faster VR. space where architects can collate and There are also a range of smaller indi- repurpose their historic 3D projects and Unity vidual features, like the addition of sticky allow customers, students or fans to expeThis release sees a lot of effort put into notes, the incorporation of more Revit rience their built and unbuilt work in VR. connecting Arkio with Unity, with data and the ability to sketch in 3D. ■ www.arkio.is

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Comment

The dos and don’ts of mail retention With email being the letter of today and employees increasingly working remotely, managing emails in the age of compliance and litigation has never been more difficult, writes Tim Setchfield, head of product for email management software Mail Manager

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he world in which we work has short because the effective filing, classify- 4. Lack of governance: No organisationchanged dramatically in the last ing and finding of emails requires too al change, no accountability few years, and the new hybrid much effort for employees who are workplace has come to the fore, focused on their jobs and not motivated Some businesses solve one of these chaleven in the Architecture, Engineering and to file or delete an email. lenges, but most struggle to manage Construction (AEC) industries. With With email being the letter of today emails properly and ensure companyemployees working remotely and the sup- and employees increasingly working wide standardisation holistically. ply chain across the AEC sector becoming remotely, managing emails in the age of increasingly strained, excellent communi- compliance and litigation has never been Why does email retention cation has become vital in delivering pro- more difficult - especially as everyone matter in the age of litigation? jects successfully. Between clients, part- manages their email differently, creating Given what is contained in emails and ners, suppliers and contractors, there is no potential risk in years to come. the vast number of emails sent and method of communication more imporRemember, you don’t have a process if received each day, email retention tant than written. And in today’s world, everyone is doing it differently, and email should be an essential part of reducing that is usually in the form of an email. is the one thing in the business everyone the business risk associated with accessWhile Teams chat is the dominant typically manages differently. ing information, privacy controls, and force for internal communidispute resolution. In the cation, email is the letter of AEC industries, disputes today. Emails are sent and are often won or lost on Remember, you don’t have a process if received at an unprecedentwho has the better records everyone is doing it differently, and email is management. Additionally, ed level in the digital age.

They contain important reducing storage costs as an the one thing in the business everyone documentation, such as important element of email typically manages differently contracts, proposals, client retention (and disposition) correspondence, building ensures compliance with plans, and more, and the regulations and Records context behind a project – who agreed The underlying email challenges Management Policies. on what? Why was it agreed? When was for AEC businesses today As you know, many AEC projects last it agreed? What’s the latest communica- When it comes to the don’ts of email years and quite often things need going tion with a client? management, there are four main chal- back to, sometimes ten years after the So, with email communication being lenges I see companies facing: project has finished. Retaining the corvital, it makes sense to consider emails as rect records from when the project was a record. And records need to be kept for 1. Inconsistent email filing: Operational active is vital, especially when you need compliance and complete audit trails, a inefficiencies, poor productivity, to go back to an old email from someone proper Golden Thread of Information, incomplete audit trails who was previously working on the proand a single source of truth. But, there is 2. Conflicting retention strategies (or ject to see what was agreed or what was a difference between email archiving nothing in place): Non-compliance, said to the client. (keeping everything indefinitely) and over retention, data breaches email retention (keeping important 3. Poor eDiscovery capabilities: Time The dos of effective email management emails for an appropriate period of time). and cost-intensive eDiscovery, inabili- 1. Filing: Ensuring emails move from an Unfortunately, email retention and ty to find information, non-standardindividual’s inbox into a centralised management strategies too often fall ised email management processes and secure location

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Regularly review your policies with legal counsel and communicate policies effectively: All email management and retention policies should be reviewed with legal counsel. One of the most important features of managing emails properly is the ability to access information quickly for the duration of any litigation proceeding.

The success of email policies can often be down to the implementation across the business. As a general rule of thumb, write the policy down (with the legal stamp of compliance approval), communicate it company-wide to set expectations, keep it as simple as possible, and get buy-in from all business leaders.

As part of the legal documentation and establishing the business need, the requirements of what should be filed and what shouldn’t, plus where to file and find information needs to be set out for all employees.

2. Standardising: Boost information governance and records management with a standardised approach to email management, so every person in the business becomes the best filer. Reducing the burden on employees helps ensure compliance with email policies 3. Discovering: The ability to find emails quickly and efficiently with effective search tools Aside from software to help standardise the time-intensive process of managing emails, you can do several things before investing in an email management solution.

Establish the business need: What are your legal and regulatory requirements?

Do you have a definition of what constitutes a ‘record’ and why? What’s your organisational culture around information management? Do you and your employees understand your existing retention policies? What does your diswww.AECmag.com

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pute resolution strategy look like?

Defining what constitutes a record will likely conclude that emails do need to be treated as records of information and, therefore, need managing just like any other information and data generated in the built environment. Equally, from a regulatory perspective, the proper management of project-critical emails helps maintain QA and ISO Standards, and meet BIM requirements.

From an organisational culture point of view, all employees should understand the importance of email retention and email management policies and those policies benefit the entire organisation.

Policies and processes that result in a change in existing behaviour – i.e. going from filing no emails to filing almost all emails – need proper change management and training for success. Some employees will still try to subvert the email management policy, so ensuring staff understand the key benefits of properly managing emails is vital in ensuring they do not evade the processes in place.

Automate where possible: Most organisations we speak to allow their staff to accumulate an unlimited and unwieldy number of emails, with no controls over what should be filed, what should be deleted, and what needs to be categorised. Some tackle this with automated features built within Outlook, such as mailbox size limits and Outlook rules.

Others take it a step further and invest in an email archiving solution. Regardless, the one constant problem we encounter is the reliance on human input. Simply put, if the process requires the employee to meticulously look at and then file/delete every email they receive, they’ll never get any actual work done. In which case, the email will either get filed to the wrong folder, or the employee will begin to circumnavigate the process.

And if everyone in the business isn’t following the process, then when it comes to eDiscovery, you’ll only find half the picture. When a dispute arises, that won’t help you.

Why emails should be managed like every other piece of information Email management helps businesses in many ways. Firstly, it ensures all the regulatory compliance is followed and reduces the cost of non-compliance and risk of sanctions. Secondly, it helps businesses find important emails that will help them win the litigation. And, thirdly, it results in improved access to information for all staff which in turn increases innovation and productivity.

■ www.mailmanager.com

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Opinion

Real-time viz: transforming design Real-time visualisation is doing what sketching never could, bringing inclusivity to the design process and empowering stakeholders to better collaborate. Roderick Bates, Head of Integrated Practice of Enscape, shares his thoughts on how the industry is harnessing technology to create a more effective design process and a more inclusive future

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he need to communicate is a constant of the architectural design process with the techniques of communication changing over time.

Replacing or augmenting architectural sketching, digital modelling and design tools have catapulted the design process into a new realm, enabling the many stakeholders in the architectural design process—from the designer of a building to its owner and future occupants—to not only experience a building before it is built, but to have a hand in creating it.

The impact of digital visualisation is substantial. Teams can work together and receive real-time project updates regardless of their geographic location.

Tighter collaboration provides them with workflow efficiencies, helping to avoid delays and change orders, and ultimately leading to lower costs, happi64

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ate their own unique future of architectural communication.

The rich history of sketching

1 er clients, and more impactful outcomes.

These technological contributions provide the industry with a glimpse of what’s to come and give its stakeholders a role in creating the change and evolution they’d like to see. This article takes a closer look at the progression of the design process from the perspective of architectural sketching, how technology has fortified its shortcomings, and how design constituents are leveraging and adapting real-time visualisation to cre-

It’s believed that sketching has existed since Paleolithic times, before the invention of written language. There’s evidence of it being used to convey architectural ideas as far back as the Mesopotamian era, the world’s oldest recorded civilisation. The craft has served, and continues to serve, its purpose, quickly clarifying and displaying an idea.

Not only does a sketch communicate a concept, but it’s also seen as a treasured art form, valued for the skill behind the work as well as the permanence of its nature. Just last year, a miniature Leonardo DaVinci sketch sold at auction for more than $12 million, a record amount for the Renaissance artist.

While architectural sketches from modwww.AECmag.com

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Not only does a sketch communicate a concept, but it’s also seen as a treasured art form, valued for the skill behind the work as well as the permanence of its nature

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ern-day contemporaries don’t fetch as high a price, they are well regarded in art collections around the world.

Despite their beauty and longevity, these early drawings require an artistic expertise that belies their visual simplicity, relegating the practice to those skilled in the art, placing a hard limit on the number of images that can be produced. In contemporary design processes, the result is sketching remains a niche process, and some would say a lost art.

Making design more inclusive Technology shifted the methodology of design from a pre-digital phase being primarily defined by sketching, watercolour paintings, and physical models, to computer-generated renderings.

With the advent of GPU-enabled realtime visualisation, the function of visualisation changed. It was now possible to www.AECmag.com

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1 The Glass House by create a shared understandunderstanding of a design, Philip Johnson. (Image ing and up-to-the-minute updated to the minute and courtesy of Jenny Cestnik updates on a project design entirely faithful to the www.jcestnik.com) in real-time. All design team design model, is a technolo2 The Dancing House members, from architects to gy-enabled twist that repliby Vlado Milunic in cooperation with Frank project managers, princicates the function of sketchGehry (Image courtesy of pals, consultants, and cliing. While sketching is a Brigitte Werner) ents, can share a common skill held by very few, realvisual reference based on the underly- time visualisation is accessible by anying design model. The role of real-time one with the right hardware and softvisualisation thus assumed the mantle ware, introducing a far more inclusive once held by sketching, but without the process. skill bottleneck of providing the visual While 3D design tools and real-time basis for communicating and collaborat- visualisation are powerful enablers, ing during the design process. leading to better communication and Real-time visualisation had the added ultimately improving end products, benefit of speaking to the full diversity there’s room for new advancements. The of stakeholders on a project in a common opportunity is for designs, and perhaps visual language, effectively lowering the more importantly, the emotional impact barrier of participation during design of a design, to be shared in ways that go and enabling everyone to contribute as well beyond what is possible with equal participants. sketching or rendering alone.

This process of creating a shared

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Opinion 3

3 Sketch style visualisation created using an Enscape render that was heavily edited in Adobe Photoshop using filters and handdrawn elements 4 High-quality Enscape render of the same scene

4

Seizing the opportunity The best way to understand a space is to interact with it. Real-time rendering and virtual reality enable interaction with 3D modelling tools, bringing emotion, opinions, and agency into the equation, and allowing project stakeholders to collaborate throughout the entire lifecycle of a project.

The power of that inclusive experience transforms projects. Through real-time architectural visualisation tools, stakeholders, including a structure’s future occupants and neighbours, can experience a building as it is being designed in a high-quality immersive experience.

They are able to verbalise their opinions, suggesting, for instance, a window for a better view, and collaborating to collectively create what will become a part of their daily lives and their community.

Real-time visualisation provides a type of rapid, informal communication that is so essential for an effective design process. And, it introduces an opportunity for the Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) tools that are becoming standard in the industry, challenging users to create designs and, perhaps more importantly, to share the emotional impact of designs in ways that go beyond what is now possible.

This results in a future where the design process can be truly inclusive, where real-time visualisation means the ideas, opinions, emotions, and feedback of all project stakeholders can be generated and incorporated into a design.

Potential future technology to further push visualisation as the modern equivalent of sketching include: 1) Instead of jumping between sketching and rendering design tools, a singular tool can combine rendering and sketch66

May / June 2022

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ing workflows into one software solution, enabling designers to create visuals that will allow just the right type of communication, without interrupting the design. Designers are already using sketch style visualisations like the one in figure 3, in order to better communicate the state of the design and to draw their clients’ attention to certain aspects of the design. However, creating such images can be time consuming and hard to replicate, indicating a need for a more streamlined workflow that would allow for highly communicative images to be generated easily and intuitively.

the real world and applying it to a rendered object to create a more realistic visualisation.

2) Enabled by VR, innovation can allow for collaborative sketching. Rather than just verbalising a contribution, a person can “draw” over a model in VR with other participants simultaneously viewing and participating in the feedback.

From sketching through the evolution of digital tools, the architectural industry’s needs have evolved, and innovation continues to find new and better ways of meeting them. The opportunities for advancement are endless, empowering designers to more accurately convey concepts, gather valuable feedback, and strengthen relationships through more immersive, inclusive experiences.

3) Leveraging open source tools, the design process can take a mixed media approach, for instance, capturing the texture of a material such as a rock from

4) Looking further down the innovation pipeline, designers can train an artificial intelligence (AI) engine with samples of their preferred sketching style—essentially imparting their unique language and fingerprint on a project—and a rendering can then be automatically modified to reflect their style. AI-enriched workflows can bring emotion to design renderings, creating evocative experiences for participants in the process.

■ www.enscape3d.com

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is the International logo.

These logo guidelines refer to this logo mark but can also be applied across the full buildingSMART International logo suite.

The full logo suite can be viewed on the logo map on page 17 and all logos are available to download on request.

Examples of additional logo marks in the buildingSMART logo suite: Example of Chapter logo:

tinyurl.com/buildingSMARTUKI

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Example of Qualification logo:

Example of Member logo:

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buildingSMART International brand identity guidelines – Version 3.0 – March 2021

Enabling interoperability in the AEC0 industry

1.0 Primary logo The primary buildingSMART logo is the International logo.

These logo guidelines refer to this logo mark but can also be applied across the full buildingSMART International logo suite.

The full logo suite can be viewed on the logo map on page 17 and all logos are available to download on request.

Produced by

Examples of additional logo marks in the buildingSMART logo suite: Example of Chapter logo:

Sponsored by Example of Qualification logo:

Example of Member logo:

imary logo

3

buildingSMART International brand identity guidelines – Version 3.0 – March 2

ry buildingSMART logo national logo.

o guidelines refer to this but can also be applied full buildingSMART nal logo suite.

go suite can be viewed o map on page 17 os are available to on request.

Examples of additional logo marks in the buildingSMART logo suite: Example of Chapter logo:

Example of Qualification logo:

Example of Member logo:

FEATURING Why IFC matters and the basics of the schema IFC 4.3 for infrastructure IFC at Hinkley Point The buildingSMART Certification scheme Department for Education’s Gen Zero project BlenderBIM and the IFC open-source community

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Industry convergence From sustainability to new business models, and from wellness to emerging technologies, IFC can be a force for good, driving the AEC industry to new levels of achievement, writes Casey Rutland, Chair of buildingSMART UK&I and founding director of Digital Green

T

here’s much to be said about convergence. In our particular sphere of influence, we’re living through a convergence of need, technologies and capabilities. It’s an exciting time to be influencing the direction of a sector.

There’s a lot of chatter online and in person about data, about IFC (Industry Foundation Classes), and about the challenges people are experiencing when it comes to data use and translation.

We say this is a good thing! If people are openly discussing the use of a globally recognised data structure for the built and natural environment (IFC), it means people are using it.

But many more could be using it, if only they were aware of its uses. It’s much more than a 3D model that you can open in different software. IFC is a data model, one that can be opened in a text editor, linked, interrogated and presented in many different ways to meet your particular use case.

IFC special report AECMAG.indd 2

To be serving this industry of ours as it undergoes this digital transformation is an honour. It’s exciting to be promoting better information management and the use of open standards to an industry where some are blissfully unaware of their existence. Every day, we can see the improvements that result from these efforts.

WHERE IS THE NEED? The need is relative. It ranges from ‘I just want to finish my work and go home on time’, to ‘How can we meet the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals?’, and everything in between.

The need can be (and is) driven by individuals, projects, companies, industries, governments, economies and by nature.

Global awareness of the environmental challenges we’re facing, the pandemic we’ve all been living through and continue to deal with on a day-to-day basis, and the current increase in the cost of living are all issues that

can be better understood and solved with data-driven decisions and actions.

The situation couldn’t be more urgent. Put simply, the time is simply not available for us to approach these challenges in an analogue manner. The need for us to use data to solve them is here, right now. But how do we create the data we need, ensure it can be trusted and use it positively?

When it comes to sustainability, it’s clear from many indicators that the industry – and society at large – is more aware than ever that we need to take immediate action. The impact our industry can have on this issue is huge. Data is needed across a vast range of topics in order to better understand how we can change and what the benefits might be. Whether it’s decarbonisation, material selection, post-occupancy evaluation, flood analysis, historic preservation or energy system specification, a standard data language reduces duplication, increases interoperability and standardises validation.

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1.0 Primary logo The primary buildingSMART logo is the International logo.

These logo guidelines refer to this logo mark but can also be applied across the full buildingSMART International logo suite.

The full logo suite can be viewed on the logo map on page 17 and all logos are available to download on request.

Examples of additional logo marks in the buildingSMART logo suite: Example of Chapter logo:

tinyurl.com/buildingSMARTUKI

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Example of Qualification logo:

Example of Member logo:

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buildingSMART International brand identity guidelines – Version 3.0 – March 2021

In terms of health and safety, the recent Building Safety Act that gained Royal Assent in May, along with its accompanying secondary legislation, calls for information in a ‘golden thread’. During design & construction stages, information exchanges include the information (including evidence) relied upon to demonstrate that a building satisfies all the applicable building regulations. During occupation, meanwhile, the information relied upon in making the safety case and to demonstrate that building safety risks as defined are identified, will need to be exchanged, checked and managed.

Moving on from safety, wellness is an increasing concern. Particularly as we continue to emerge from the pandemic and into recovery, some organisations are now prioritising the health of their people and spaces. Through an ESG (environmental, social & governance) approach, data is central to providing and sharing the proof that their efforts are achieving the desired results. In

doing so, these organisations are contributing to financial savings and wider benefits for the communities in which they operate.

Then there’s the economic climate and its impact on doing business. Material, product and energy prices are spiralling, making data not just a ‘nice to have’, but also an asset in itself. Data (and information management) is vital to the operation of any business.

When treated as an asset, it can be linked and used throughout all business operations - providing clarity and offering the ability to make more informed decisions. Being able to interrogate IFC datasets across multiple projects to spot trends and to better quantify or calculate their impact, assured data can quickly prove its worth at an organisational level.

Finally, there are new business models to consider. If data is indeed the ‘new oil’ (or, as David McCandless puts it, the ‘new soil’), then being the guardian of valuable data offers the opportunity for traditional businesses in our

industry to become more data-centric in the services they offer. Stepping into a new world of digital business models that exploit data and serve it to clients as insight is an option that would have previously been impossible.

Structured data and information management is at the heart of that.

TECHNOLOGY MATTERS In the construction and built environment business, the data model and schema used is called IFC. IFC is an international standard, ISO 16739, and is governed by buildingSMART International.

The IFC schema has been developed through an international effort over a period of 25 years, to achieve consensus about how assets are described and what properties are required to adequately describe them.

Emma Hooper explains more about IFC in What is IFC article on page B6.

The risk of course, is that organisations beginning their journey are developing their

Using a standard data model approach means that the data we create is not locked into proprietary software, or indeed locked into one company’s systems. It can instead be exploited by other technologies for greater insight into built environment assets, helping to achieve better outcomes

How do we create the data we need, ensure it can be trusted, and use it positively?

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In the software industry, the maturing understanding of OpenBIM benefits are also more apparent. There are open source applications being developed for all sorts of uses. For more on this, read Dion Moult’s article on BlenderBIM on page B10.

When it comes to individuals, our industry is fortunate to have many thought leaders, champions and grafters. I’m lucky enough to work with many of them in the buildingSMART UK & Ireland chapter.

For those who want to demonstrate their experience and understanding of the whole process, professional certification is now available through approved training providers, delivering courses specific to the UK & Ireland market and with openBIM at their core. If you’d like to learn more, see Phil Read’s introductory article to certification on page B16.

Some members of the buildingSMART UK&I team at Digital Construction Week in May

‘own’ data model – one that does not connect to others, one that is less secure and one that the supply chain would need to learn. From our point of view, this could be a disaster.

Using a standard data model approach means that the data we create is not locked into proprietary software, or indeed locked into one company’s systems. It can instead be exploited by other technologies for greater insight into built environment assets, helping to achieve better outcomes.

The proven ability of standards to generate trust is of utmost importance here. Our industry has a patchy history when it comes to trusting data and many are hesitant to rely solely on something they may not fully understand - even if they appreciate that it is ‘probably’ a better way of working. A transition period is required for familiarity to build and for trust to grow.

Many aspects of that trust lie in security without a thought given to just how insecure some of our traditional working practices have been. People are quick to assume that ‘open’ data is somehow less secure. In reality, a standard data model will be more secure, given that security-sensitive data can be filtered (it’s always where it should be and easily searchable) and redacted prior to publication.

Open standards could also help

companies in our sector to achieve their longer term technology ambitions. Sensors, apps, services, solutions and other inputs and outputs are being developed in initiatives (some may view them as silos) around our industry. The heavily invested-in worlds of proptech, contech, machine learning, artificial intelligence, digital twins, robotics and smart ‘things’ are all hugely active in our industry. Yet relatively few companies are aware of the rich stream of structured data that could help them develop much more scalable solutions.

Now is the time to act. We’re spreading the word to include these other digital transformation initiatives and helping to support their uptake.

But while general awareness is increasing, there’s still so much to do, so many more people to reach. In an ideal world, we wouldn’t need to work so hard at spreading the word. Professionals could simply go about their business and the technology would take care of the data side. But we’re not in an ideal world - not yet at least. And at the same time that we’re busy digitally transforming an industry, we’re also working hard to retain the hundreds of years of experience that already exists and ensure it gets passed on to the next generation of people and tools.

NEXT STEPS While the majority of people may first encounter IFC as a way of exchanging 3D model data in a construction project, they soon realise that the benefits are far wider reaching.

We recognise there are both perceived and real challenges in adopting an IFC approach.

And we know we must continue to address these, by providing resources and help where we can. But we must also progress the discussion about data and its benefits in the short, medium and long term – that’s where the value lies.

As an organisation reaching out into industry, we do still see resistance to adoption in places, but there are also people and companies on their own OpenBIM journeys already making significant changes to their working methods. There are also pockets of excellence, with demonstrable proof in the buildingSMART International Awards submissions. You can see past finalists and winners in the yearbooks at www.tinyurl.com/ bsi-awards.

So this is our call to action: Get in touch with us to discuss how IFC and OpenBIM can help you work more effectively, with better outcomes.

BuildngSMART UK&I would also like to thank everyone for their contributions to this IFC Special Report.

In memory of Richard Petrie, CEO of buildingSMART International In April we learned of the sudden and sad passing of Richard Petrie, CEO of buildingSMART International.

Richard not only took forward buildingSMART

IFC special report AECMAG.indd 4

to become a serious player in digital construction, by bringing together a global industry with the goal of using a common data language, but provided constant

encouragement and help to many individuals. He will be missed and fondly remembered.

We dedicate this special report to you Richard.

23/05/2022 17:46

1.0 Primary logo The primary buildingSMART logo is the International logo.

These logo guidelines refer to this logo mark but can also be applied across the full buildingSMART International logo suite.

The full logo suite can be viewed on the logo map on page 17 and all logos are available to download on request.

Examples of additional logo marks in the buildingSMART logo suite: Example of Chapter logo:

tinyurl.com/buildingSMARTUKI

Sponsored by

IFC SPECIAL REPORT

B5

Example of Qualification logo:

Example of Member logo:

Inside buildingSMART 3

buildingSMART International brand identity guidelines – Version 3.0 – March 2021

What is buildingSMART and what can it offer industry practitioners? Casey Rutland, Chair of buildingSMART UK&I and founding director of Digital Green, explains the set-up

I

nformation about our environment is key to unlocking the many challenges that we encounter as an industry. At buildingSMART, we help asset owners and the extended supply chain to work more efficiently and collaboratively throughout the entire project and asset lifecycle. buildingSMART is a neutral, international forum for initiating, developing, creating and promoting adoption of open digital standards for BIM processes. We lead a global community of chapters, members, partners and sponsors.

That global community is committed to creating and developing open digital ways of working for the built asset industry. Since incorporation in 1995, buildingSMART has focused on solving industry interoperability challenges.

In the UK and Ireland, buildingSMART International is represented by its own local chapter, buildingSMART UK & Ireland - or more succinctly, bSUKI. This chapter is responsible for gathering industry requirements and representing the region’s needs at an international level. In this way, we ensure that the UK and Ireland are catered for when standards are being developed.

DELIVERING VALUE As a chapter, bSUKI is dedicated to providing value to our industry. We do this by adhering to what we call ‘our four Vs’. In this way, we ensure our activities are vast, vibrant, vital and valuable (see figure 1).

On a global level, buildingSMART International divides its work into ‘rooms’, a practice that bSUKI mirrors. Wherever possible, our chapter has two co-leads for each room, who are practitioners in our sector. There are also ‘projects’ within these rooms. The purpose of these projects is to deal with specific topics, such as OpenCDE, decarbonisation and safety.

As an organisation, our role is to reach

IFC special report AECMAG.indd 5

BuildingSMART International’s eight rooms

out to industry groups, organisations and individuals, in order to gather industry needs and coordinate responses at an international level. So please get in touch if you would like to contribute to any of the rooms or projects, or if you have experienced any specific interoperability challenges.

EXTENSIVE RESOURCES BSUKI also delivers a wide range of resources to support the implementation of buildingSMART and COBie standards in the UK and Ireland. In our most recent publication, Vice Chair of bSUKI Nick Nisbet and Technical Director at OSCRE International Chris Lees have together created a technical report that addresses the integration of risk, information management and asset management based on existing standards. Your feedback and comments are welcomed.

We also host an extensive library of resources developed between 2021 and 2017. These remain valuable for ongoing projects, although terminology may have shifted or been superseded by more recent developments. These include: COBie For All. This includes a review of the challenges raised relating to the use of COBie in infrastructure and worked examples of five specific cases. It was produced as a collaborative project by a number of infrastructure partners, for London The including bSUKITransport four V’s (TfL) and Highways England (HE).

COBie for all Download. COBie templates.

These illustrate the information required for specific component and product types as web pages, COBie spreadsheets and IFC files.

They were prepared to support the COBie pilot implementations in 2012.

COBie templates for Download. COBie property sets. These summarise the additional property sets recommended in BS1192-4:2014 clause 7 for use with COBie in the UK. The property sets are presented as web-pages and as buildingSMART PSet definitions in XML. We hope you find these resources helpful and we’ll be announcing new publications and resources as they become available. In the meantime, if you have any particular requirements or ideas for projects or resources, please do let us know.

As with the UK BIM Alliance (our parent organisation), the work we do is by the community for the community, and the strength of our chapter relies on successful engagement with the industry. So if you’d like to chat about your project delivery challenges or join more detailed discussions about developing standards and solutions, we’re here for you.

GET IN TOUCH Email us at: bsuki@ukbimalliance.org Join the conversation on Twitter: @buildingSMARTUK #bSUKI Find us on LinkedIn: buildingSMART UK & Ireland

Figure 1 - BuildingSMART UK’s four Vs

Vast. Vibrant. Vital. Valuable.

Awareness Engagement Communication Commitment

Encouragement Applicable Support Enthusiasm

Being productive Meeting industry needs Having a voice Concise

Represent the UK& Ireland Targeted involvement Timely advice Not just for ‘experts’

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IFC: what is it and why is it needed?

Information management ecosystem

Emma Hooper, Associate Director and Head of R&D at Bond Bryan Digital, provides a useful overview of the IFC data model specification

MANAGEMENT LAYER

Cycles of: Specify

Procure

Deliver

Assure

Store

Present

Exploit

INFORMATION LAYER

ASSET LIFECYCLE The information management ecosystem

O

ver the course of a facility’s life, information is created and goes on a journey in which it is constantly exchanged by people using technology.

From the initial idea to construct a building to the deletion of this asset from a map following its demolition, a building creates a trail of information that follows it from cradle to grave.

This trail is invisible. Some call it a ‘golden thread’. I prefer to call it an ‘information layer’, which forms part of an information management ecosystem. But whatever you call it, this trail is currently fragmented and, quite frankly, a mess.

The purpose of information management is to view information as an asset in its own right. To get the full value from information, it must be rationalised and joined up - both processes entirely separate from software.

TWO LAYERS AT WORK The information management ecosystem is made up of two layers. First, there’s the management layer, which includes recurring cycles of information management activities, based on appointments. This is covered by ISO 19650.

Second, there’s the information layer, where the complexity of the different facets of information are broken down, structured, ordered and joined up, in order to provide a base data language for the activities in the management layer outlined above and for the technology to plug into.

The information layer is complex. There is no escaping that. Try describing one component in a facility: its type, performance,

IFC special report AECMAG.indd 6

materials, location, name and all the other data related to it, plus the data about the data.

And that’s just one component.

Now, multiply this to cover tens of thousands or millions of components and how they all connect to one another. The task is utterly mind-blowing in its complexity!

So, the only way we can produce connected, machine-interpretable data is to use data models as part of the information layer.

WHAT IS A DATA MODEL, ANYWAY? Essentially, a data model is a way of structuring and joining up data. It creates order and enables complex connections to be made. A data model is not a BIM model in the traditional sense, and it doesn’t have to contain geometry.

But we also need a standardised data model to provide a single data language throughout, otherwise we quickly encounter interoperability issues. Do we have something already? We do! It’s called Industry Foundation Classes, or IFC. IFC is an off-the-shelf data model specification. It is managed by buildingSMART International (see buildingSMART article on page B5) and is an international standard, ISO 16739.

IFC provides a data framework for most of the parts of the AEC industry, allowing information to be connected. For example, a boiler might be connected to a pipe and associated with a particular system, along with the space and building in which it is located, a construction programme, commissioning certificates, performance properties, a cost plan, classification and

so on. In fact, I could go on and on. What’s important is that there is nothing in the industry, besides IFC, that can accomplish so much in terms of connecting information across so many domains.

IFC is a digital representation of a built asset for a computer to understand.

WHY DO WE NEED IFC? Each proprietary software application has its own data model running in the background.

These are typically packaged up in custom file formats for exchange purposes.

But these data models are bespoke and often poorly created, with the sole objective of serving the software. Therefore, when we exchange data between software packages, we run into interoperability issues, because these packages speak different languages. If software packages can read and write to a standard data model, they only have to create the mapping once, rather than a point-to-point solution for every permutation of software exchange.

It’s also not just delivery and the exchange of design information where IFC can play a part. Going back to the information management ecosystem, IFC is at the heart of the information layer as the standardised data model. Therefore, it can be used to provide data foundations to underpin ISO 19650 activities. IFC can be used to structure exchange information requirements, deliver them and assure the delivered data against the original requirements and store data during and after the project (see Gen Zero project article on page B14) Because the data model is so big, it has to be broken down to exchange information. This is

23/05/2022 17:46

1.0 Primary logo The primary buildingSMART logo is the International logo.

These logo guidelines refer to this logo mark but can also be applied across the full buildingSMART International logo suite.

The full logo suite can be viewed on the logo map on page 17 and all logos are available to download on request.

Examples of additional logo marks in the buildingSMART logo suite: Example of Chapter logo:

tinyurl.com/buildingSMARTUKI

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Example of Qualification logo:

Example of Member logo:

all done using filtered parts of the IFC schema called model view definitions. This approach is being redeveloped by buildingSMART to make it more flexible using information delivery specifications, or IDS. The more we digitise, the more data models organisations will create. If we don’t have a standardised starting point for these, they will be structured in completely different ways and, as a result, sharing information between them will be as difficult as it is now between authoring software, just on a much bigger scale.

Technology will not provide a magic solution!

3

text editor such as Notepad.

Other exchange formats include XML and JSON and there are others in development.

These include RDF/XML,Turtle and JSONLD, where the emphasis is less on exchanging files and more on exchanging the data.

buildingSMART International brand identity guidelines – Version 3.0 – March 2021

IFC BASICS The IFC standard is free and can be accessed via the buildingSMART website. There are currently two official versions: 1.

IFC2x3 TC1 (IFC2x3) – this is aligned to ISO 16739:2005.

2. IFC4 ADD2 TC1 (IFC4) – this is aligned to ISO 16739-1:2018.

IFC2x3 is the predominant version used in the UK. However IFC4 implementation within software has recently accelerated and, together with the proposed release of IFC4.3 in 2022/2023, we need as an industry to start the transition to IFC 4.3 in the next year (see IFC4.3 article on page B8).

Communication of the data model is carried out using a schema. This provides a data modelling language to represent a data model often in a graphical way, enabling a viewer to see what the data model contains and work out which parts are connected.

IFC can be visualised using several schemas. Currently, the principal one is EXPRESS-G, but the plan is to move to UML (unified modelling language) in IFC5.

On top of this, when transferring data from a data model, you need an exchange format to transport it. IFC typically uses the STEP physical format (SPF) which is text-based.

(Because it has the ‘.ifc’ file extension, this has led to the misconception that IFC is just a file format.) Being text-based means that model files can be opened using a standard

IFC DATA MODEL COMPOSITION In simple terms, IFC is made up of three parts: entities, attributes and relationships.

Entities are the main classes and, in the data model, act like nodes. In other words, it’s the entities that get connected. Most entities can be considered as objects – not just physicalbased objects such as walls and boilers, but also objects such as geometry, processes, properties, materials and so on. This means there is potential to perform cost schedules, resource planning and construction using IFC. A particularly important entity is IfcBuildingElementProxy, which can be used where there is no appropriate entity. This acts like a template entity, identifying all the appropriate attributes and relationships.

There is also the ability here to define the object further (see section below on predefined types).

Attributes define entities further by including basic data such as ‘name’, ‘description’ and ‘globalID’. Attributes also allow connections to be made to other entities by acting like hooks.

Relationships connect entities via attributes, and in the IFC schema, are objects themselves. It is the relationships that are key and will become even more important as we move into a more connected future.

PREDEFINED TYPES, PROPERTIES & EXTERNAL REFERENCES There are a few more terms with which users need to familiarise themselves.

For example, one important attribute is the predefined type. This allows an entity to be described further; for example, for IfcSanitaryTerminalType, predefined types include TOILETPAN, SINK, WASHHANDBASIN and so on. These are listed in capitals, just as they are on the

IFC representation of a boiler

documents

zone

boiler

storey facility

IFC special report AECMAG.indd 7

system

(identity)

•

•

In summary, I would not claim that IFC is perfect – but as an industry, we need to team up and help to support, improve and evolve IFC across an ever-changing digital landscape. Those working in the digital information space need to know the basics.

But the majority of people shouldn’t even know it’s there, because it operates seamlessly in the background. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that the more I understand IFC, the more I come to think of it as one of the greatest achievements in digital construction.

Free, off-the-shelf and ready to be used for almost any purpose, IFC brings big benefits. These include its ability to: •

Provide the data framework for information management activities

•

Enable repeatable processes and software configurations during delivery

•

Deliver longevity and sustainability of data

•

Side-step intellectual property issues and vendor lock-in

•

Support more complex querying, via relationships, providing better insight for decision making

•

Provide easier connection to external data sets via standardisation, for complex use cases like smart cities

•

Accelerate advancements like machine learning

properties

programme site

Classification, which allows classification systems such as Uniclass to be associated to objects.

Libraries, which allow data from external databases to be associated to objects (for example, product data manufacturers).

Documents, which allow documents to be associated with objects (for example, a commissioning certificate can be associated with a boiler).

•

IFC’S BENEFITS

type connections

space

predefined pick-list.

The USERDEFINED predefined type should be used only where there is no appropriate predefined type.

USERDEFINED still needs to be entered at the predefined type, but the entity can be defined further by using the ElementType or ObjectType attribute.

IFC also enables properties to be associated with objects. Before the association can take place, the property has to be assigned to a property set. A property set is a container of properties that have something in common; within the IFC schema, property sets are characterised using the ‘Pset_’ prefix.

Custom properties can also be added using custom property sets, but it is first important to check that the properties don’t already exist in industry dictionaries or lexicons.

Finally, let’s look at external references.

IFC recognises that not all information will be captured within IFC models, so it also has the ability to associate externally referenced sources of information to IFC objects. The three external references are:

classification

(geometry)

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IFC for infrastructure Perhaps the most significant update to the IFC standard is the inclusion of extensions for infrastructure entities in IFC 4.3, as Emma Hooper, associate director and head of R&D at Bond Bryan Digital, explains

IfcFacility

IfcBridge

IfcBuilding

IfcMarineFacility

IfcRailway

IfcRoad

Figure 1 - IFC extensions

I

FC has received many updates over the years. This year sees the finalisation of the much-anticipated IFC version 4.3, a major update of the IFC4 schema.

It’s a significant milestone in the history of IFC and has been a huge team effort, involving many countries and organisations.

Highlights of the updated standard include: •

•

•

A more agile process and, for the enduser, full transparency of the live schema through development; Updated IFC documentation (found online), with much clearer definitions and a new search function; The inclusion of extensions for infrastructure entities – the most significant update and the main focus of this article.

From an infrastructure perspective, IFC provides that standardised digital language to be used throughout the facility’s lifespan, as it already does for buildings. This will help to reduce the variation in conventions that currently exists across the globe (for example, in rail alignment).

Ultimately, it will mean wider collaboration and knowledge-sharing, particularly for cross-border projects. It gives a standardised method for information exchange and managing processes.

Despite the common perception that infrastructure is just ‘a building on its side’, it really isn’t. It’s so much more.

Infrastructure, in fact, is what joins up the vertical world of buildings.

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There is also a big focus in IFC 4.3 on the integration between IFC and open standards such as GIS (geographic information system).

Previous versions of the IFC schema could be used for infrastructure projects to a certain extent. IfcBuildingElementProxy could be used in lieu of any predefined entities, for example. However, fundamental updates to the schema were needed to make it more infrastructure-inclusive. These include alignment, entities with specific relationships, and a review of the overall hierarchy which was previously very building-focused.

WORK TO DATE IFC Alignment was critical to establish early on in the journey, in order to extend IFC into the infrastructure sector, enabling linear definition of horizontal assets, such as the centreline of a road, the kerbline or rail track. This allows offsets for associated assets to be defined, as not all positioning in infrastructure is carried out using Cartesian (x, y, z) coordinates.

For example, an engineer can place street furniture such as a road sign a set distance to the right of the centreline of the road rather than giving the coordinates. Should the road profile move, the sign (and other elements such as lighting and barriers) can subsequently be repositioned according to that offset, and not by calculation of new cartesian coordinates.

Similarly, the use of an alignment definition helps where linear and vertical constructions intersect; for example, a road/railway bridge.

THE IFC TIMELINE The following dates indicate roughly when work was finished, but it’s worth remembering that each task took many years of hard work to complete.

2011 – IFC for infrastructure project is conceived 2013 – BuildingSMART InfraRoom is established 2015 - IFC Alignment is developed and published as IFC 4.1 2016 – Collaboration with Open Geospatial Consortium (OCG) brings alignment between the IFC and GIS schemas (in particular OGC LandInfra / InfraGML) 2017 – IFC Alignment is updated as IFC 4.1 v1.1 2017 – Work is undertaken to update parts of the existing IFC schema that share common definitions with infrastructure 2017 – BuildingSMART Railway Room is established 2018 – A common schema is established to harmonise IFC 4.3 infrastructure extensions 2022 – IFC extensions are developed for IFC 4.3, including IFC Rail, IFC Road, IFC Bridge and IFC Ports & Waterways (IFC Tunnel IFC 4.4 extension is currently in progress) 2022 – BuilidngSMART International final IFC 4.3 standard is established 2023 – ISO 16739 release 3 status expected for IFC 4.3

The bridge construction is analogous to a building, where there are retaining walls and beams to support the deck – but all of this has to follow the profile of the road/rail that it is supporting. If engineers decide to move the road/rail, then through use of a shared alignment, the bridge moves to meet the new position of the road/rail.

IfcAlignment has been substantially updated during the development of IFC

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1.0 Primary logo The primary buildingSMART logo is the International logo.

These logo guidelines refer to this logo mark but can also be applied across the full buildingSMART International logo suite.

The full logo suite can be viewed on the logo map on page 17 and all logos are available to download on request.

Examples of additional logo marks in the buildingSMART logo suite: Example of Chapter logo:

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Example of Qualification logo:

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3

MODELS COURTESY OF AUTODESK

4.3 from its early 4.1 release to reflect new considerations such as cant, segment, horizontal and vertical alignment (see box, Further Information).

The Infrastructure Room led a series of further collaborative projects involving industry specialists, owner representatives, software providers and buildingSMART experts. During the early definition of requirements for infrastructure extensions IFC rail was identified as a substantial domain and due to large engagement from the owners was spun off into a separate Railway room. Significant work also took place between the Infrastructure and Railway rooms, focused on defining common schema elements such as embankments or drainage.

A final necessity was to also modify the vertical extensions. One such update is that IfcBuilding has been moved down the hierarchy and replaced by the new entity IfcFacility, as seen in figure 1.

buildingSMART International brand identity guidelines – Version 3.0 – March 2021

ONLY THE START This is only the start, and the work will keep developing. Further work on the IFC Tunnel project is underway, as well as work to improve the interoperability between IFC and geotechnics to make use of the XML data from geotechnic models, in particular OGC Geoscience Markup Language (GeoSciML).

There is also work underway on aligning properties and feeding into data dictionaries and developing more extensions.

In order for IFC 4.3 to be finalised as a builidngSMART standard (hopefully by Autumn 2022), a final project is underway for the development of the base MVDs (model view definitions) which enable the IFC schema to fulfil defined exchanges, to enable consistent implementation within software and subsequently for software to be certified against the schema.

Software vendors have been part of the IFC 4.3 process throughout; for example, Autodesk Civil 3D has beta support for IFC4.3 import and export available, which can be updated to meet agreed exchanges once the MVD project is finalised and certified accordingly.

A further dependency necessary before clients can confidently specify IFC 4.3 for project information exchanges is for it to complete its ISO 16739 approval. This process is currently underway and is expected to be completed in 2023.

The IFC 4.3 series of extensions has been a huge collaborative effort that has led to some owners in Europe and China preparing to adopt it. For example, in the European rail sector, the likes of ÖBB of Austria and SBB of Switzerland have been very active, as has the China Rail BIM Institute, where there is a plan to complete 30,000km of high-speed rail investment in

IFC special report AECMAG.indd 9

a timescale an order of magnitude faster than has been achieved before. By adopting standardisation of rail element definitions, which IFC 4.3 provides, these owners and their projects can reduce risk through greater consistency and reliable exchange of information.

There is a huge opportunity in the UK to utilise IFC4.3 for infrastructure. To date, IFC 2x3 has been successfully trialled on larger infrastructure projects, such as Hinckley Point C and HS2. With the introduction of infrastructure-specific definitions, these pilot benefits can increase substantially. In fact, due to how infrastructure projects are procured using alliances and frameworks, there is the opportunity for the infrastructure community to really embrace IFC and take it to new levels.

Over the next 18 months, the official release of IFC 4.3 and its ISO certification will be the catalyst the industry needs to move from trials with the IFC 2x3 schema to infrastructure helping to lead the way. BuildingSMART UK&I sees itself as fundamental to helping the UK and Ireland in this transition.

Acknowledgement: Author Emma Hooper would like to thank Marek Suchocki, global business development executive at Autodesk and Lawrence Chapman, lead information manager on HS2, for their input on this article.

FURTHER INFORMATION IFC Alignment - www.tinyurl.com/alignment-IFC IfcBridge – www.tinyurl.com/ifc-bridge IfcRailway - www.tinyurl.com/ifc-rail-project IfcRoad - www.tinyurl.com/road-IFC buildingSMART InfraRoom: www.tinyurl.com/InfraRoom buildingSMART Railway Room: www.tinyurl.com/IFC-railway If you would like to understand more about the technical aspects of IFC for infrastructure, this whitepaper is also useful: www.tinyurl.com/IFC-infra

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Native OpenBIM, and the rise of open source in AEC OpenBIM can deliver on the promise of a digital world for the built environment where information and data are truly valued, writes Dion Moult, emerging digital engineering manager at Lendlease,

B

elieve it or not, our current digital collaboration is relatively primitive.

It is as if we are collaborating by exchanging spreadsheets, but every stakeholder is using a different spreadsheet template. Even worse than spreadsheets, in fact – because while anyone can access a spreadsheet, our data is typically locked in a proprietary format.

Spreadsheets don’t expire, but models authored in older software versions cannot be opened or may lose data with current software. Spreadsheets don’t require subscription fees, but most BIM users merely rent their data. Spreadsheet formatting is controllable, but we have limited visibility over how our data is structured.

In short, we have very little control over the data we produce and manage.

However, over the past year, there has been a significant increase in interest in OpenBIM and open source – two distinct but complementary concepts. OpenBIM provides the freedom of our data to be vendor-agnostic and structured in a standardised manner using open standards like IFC. Open source, meanwhile, gives users the freedom to learn, share, and customise vendor offerings to suit their needs. The common thread that links the two is the handing back of control to users.

A DIGITAL LANGUAGE IFC is the only data specification available today that integrates all the disciplines in our industry as a single, cohesive digital language.

IFC can describe elements as diverse as: 2D annotations, complex 3D forms, textures and materials, project libraries, structural analysis, MEP system connectivity, civil infrastructure, welding details, construction sequencing, cost scheduling, light and photometric data, space boundaries for energy simulation, environmental impact data, risk assessments, parametric constraints for code compliance, facility management data, document registers, asset maintenance schedules, purchase order tracking, smart building sensor events, device procedures, and time series data. (see IFC: what is it and why is it needed? on page B6) Today, virtually all software in our industry has at least partial IFC support. Governments and building owners are now demanding higher quality IFC data. IFC support by software vendors is also growing in response.

and academia are constantly reinforcing our workforce to revolve around software. We need to change into a data-centric culture and invest in digital literacy.

If we want meaningful digital collaboration, we need to put the data first and look at alternatives to historic proprietary data, replacing our foundations with open data standards as a native language throughout the life of what we build.

OPEN SOURCE FREEDOM When software controls users, the software is traditionally known as proprietary software.

When users control the software, the software is given a special name: open source.

Sometimes, it is also called free software; this is not referring to price, but to the freedom it provides to users. There are four specific freedoms, enforced by licences:

THE INTEROPERABILITY BOTTLENECK Despite the vast capabilities of IFC, its implementation within software is hit and miss. The limitations and complex workflows to translate the data using export and import leads to huge frustrations. The outcome of which is that users are only exposed to a small fraction of IFC’s capabilities and users believe that IFC is dumb geometrical model, which is the equivalent of a PDF, but IFC has so much more about it and is fundamental when it comes to managing data.

This is not just a technology issue but more importantly a people issue. Culturally, our industry has adopted a ‘software first’ approach. Our digital workflows, contracts

1.

Users have the freedom to use the software for any purpose, without restrictions from the software licence.

2. Users have the freedom to study how the software works. The code is available with the guides on how it is built. This fosters cooperation between academia and industry and encourages the growth of technical specialists.

3. Users have the freedom to change the software to suit their needs. This puts our industry back in control to design the capabilities for our future cities.

4. Users have the freedom to redistribute the software with any changes. This helps even out inequalities in technology adoption across our industry. If one person across ten companies each make one improvement to the tool, then the industry benefits from ten improvements.

As coding becomes a basic skill taught to all, this freedom will become the norm. The software industry has already made this change – the internet, security, software development, and more already rely on open source and open data standards. Open source in AEC is just getting started!

One of the earliest related developments was in geographic information systems (GISs). In 1984, the GRASS GIS project was created as a solution to non-communicating commercial tools, much like the proprietary BIM problem

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1.0 Primary logo The primary buildingSMART logo is the International logo.

These logo guidelines refer to this logo mark but can also be applied across the full buildingSMART International logo suite.

The full logo suite can be viewed on the logo map on page 17 and all logos are available to download on request.

Examples of additional logo marks in the buildingSMART logo suite: Example of Chapter logo:

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Example of Qualification logo:

Example of Member logo:

we are facing today. This project paved the way in interoperability, creating the term OpenGIS, and leading to the formation of the OpenGIS Foundation. Nowadays, this is known as the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), and it has helped develop many of the open data standards that are fundamental to the GIS industry. Modern projects like OpenStreetMaps help provide OpenGIS data to over 7 million users.

More recently, Blender has provided mesh modelling, computational design, and CG visualisation to the masses. FreeCAD is doing the same for parametric solid modelling, industrial design, and computer-aided manufacturing. OpenSourceEcology has provided open hardware designs for the built environment, including the latest Seed Eco-Home 2, an open-source, sustainable, modular design for a 1,000-square foot house that you can build for only US$50,000 in one week with a friend.

3

buildingSMART International brand identity guidelines – Version 3.0 – March 2021

MAKING NATIVE OPENBIM ACCESSIBLE Bringing together OpenBIM standards and open source software, we can start to put data first and expose the full functionality of the IFC schema.

Open-source software like IfcOpenShell, xBIM and IFC.js are platforms for the development of native IFC tools. These open data platforms have helped start-ups develop new products for our industry. Increasingly adopted in academia for OpenBIM research and teaching, they offer the most advanced OpenBIM capabilities in the market. With these, IFC is no longer a static snapshot.

Models can continue to be manipulated using simple scripts freely accessible to all.

For users without programming experience open-source, off-the-shelf software like the BlenderBIM add-on – initially started as an experiment at Australian multinational construction, property and infrastructure company Lendlease – has demonstrated that it is possible to natively author IFC from scratch with a graphical interface.

Multiple disciplines can create models directly in a single IFC database without importing or exporting. Blender can be used to access the entirety of IFC’s capabilities with no data loss. The user experience of authoring IFC directly does not need to be complex, or dissimilar to existing BIM tools with which we are already familiar.

IFC models can now be authored and edited for free – this is game changing for the industry!

A combination of open data and open source means that all the systems used to design, build, operate, audit, analyse and

IFC models can now be authored and edited for free – this is game changing for the industry!

IFC special report AECMAG.indd 11

prototype our built environment can be made accessible to everyone, from leading design and construction companies to smaller firms, single practitioners, non-profit organisations, hobbyists and concerned citizens.

Open source is not just a software licence.

Open source is a culture that promotes users to be in control. The Open Source Architecture community or OSArch is an umbrella society born from the congregation of existing open-source users and developers in the Blender, FreeCAD, and OpenBIM communities. Despite the name, it covers all disciplines. Over 100 open-source software systems are being documented, a world of new technologies is ready to emerge.

This is true collaboration born out of a similar passion to improve interoperability, accessibility and quality of data.

Two years ago, viewing IFC data on Linux would be complex, writing scripts to manipulate data would be complex, and native IFC authoring was unheard of. Now, IFC can run locally on any browser. IFCs are editable, disciplines are parametrically merging datasets, and users are starting to question the quality of data outside their silos. This is the result of the volunteer efforts of dedicated individuals investing in open standards and open source: learning together, writing code, agreeing to standards, teaching others, and publishing research.

(Left) The bucolic Tram Station by Dedouze (dedouze.com) CC-BY-SA 3.0 geometry created with 3D sketching, enriched with IFC information and translated into Autodesk Revit using bespoke workarounds to overcome lack of support for curves (Top) FreeCAD offers parametric solid modelling, similar to Autodesk Fusion 360 or DS Solidworks. FreeCAD is used for the design of the OpenSourceEcology Seed Eco-Home2 (inset picture) (Above) IFC.js showing a dense rebar model at 60 frames per second on a regular web browser. IFC.js is unique in that it allows you to process BIM servers on the web without the need to run a web server

By all of us – vendors, developers and users – working together, we can build a new digital built environment where we truly value information and data.

Acknowledgement: with contributions from Emma Hooper, associate director and head of R&D at Bond Bryan Digital

RESOURCES IFC.js - https://ifcjs.github.io/info xBIM - https://docs.xbim.net IfcOpenShell - http://ifcopenshell.org BlenderBIM - https://blenderbim.org/community.html FreeCAD - https://www.freecadweb.org OSArch community - https://osarch.org

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IFC at Hinkley Point C

By Tim Davies, digital engineering manager, BYLOR JV - Hinkley Point C

H

inkley Point C (HPC) is the first new nuclear power station to be built in the UK in a generation. The Bylor Joint Venture (Laing O’Rourke and Bouygues Travaux Publics) is delivering the civil engineering contract using 3D, clashfree, buildable models.

We are proud that we have made Industry Foundation Classes (IFCs) business-asusual and that we have shown it is a highly capable standard for use across the whole Architectural Engineering and Construction (AEC) sector. For us, IFC is not just something we are talking about, or trialling, or that gets issued as a nice-to-have alongside native models; it is the primary model data structure through which all our digital model workflows happen. If someone needs to view a model, it’s the IFC model everyone goes to – first time, every time.

To me, nothing quite indicates just how business-as-usual IFC is in Bylor like the fact that using IFC is so rarely questioned.

Discussions are certainly not discouraged, but everyone understands and sees firsthand the benefits it brings. Outsiders are often surprised to see the scale at which we use IFC, but this surprise is usually based on either misconceptions or a bad experience with IFC years ago.

Once we demonstrate how we use it, they quickly come around to our point of view.

I’m delighted to present this case study on how IFC is helping Bylor deliver one of the largest civil engineering projects in the world.

From the very early days of the project, it was recognised by all that having a 3D, clashfree, buildable design was going to be crucial to delivering the civil engineering contract efficiently. The large supply chain would have meant design and construction information coming from a variety of businesses and many different platforms.

While one approach could have been to mandate a single piece of software or platform for everyone, this goes against the principle of allowing people to choose the best tool for their job. Instead, we standardised on the data layer and the natural fit was the ISO standard for data in construction, IFC. Having a consistent data structure means we can federate models from many platforms in many platforms.

PEOPLE Our engineers love to use IFC because of the freedom it gives them. They can choose the best tool for the job from a large ecosystem of tools, regardless of vendor. This has caused a weird irony to emerge whereby we have the ability to use many more tools than most but, because IFC is the only model data structure we need to support, we get away with using fewer tools.

For the younger engineers joining the construction industry through Bylor, there is no question about whether IFC works or not, because it just does. They often struggle to understand how a construction project could operate without IFC! When presented with a model that is not an IFC model, their reflex is to ask for it in IFC, and failing that, to convert it to IFC themselves. After a period of time, having a non-IFC model starts to feel distinctly unnatural and restrictive. Why use anything else when IFC is so widely supported?

Using an open standard like IFC brings the added benefit that we know our model data will never be rendered inaccessible by a software vendor. With proprietary formats, there’s always the nagging feeling of not really knowing how your data is being stored or whether it will still be supported in X years’ time.

TECHNOLOGY The stability of IFC as an ISO standard has given us the confidence to invest in tooling, infrastructure, and workflows knowing we are in total control of the data. We don’t worry about being tied to a particular vendor or dealing with uncertain future licensing costs. Because of this, Bylor has developed a world-leading suite of digital tools, all based around IFC. From detecting voids in concrete models for health and safety purposes, adding additional properties, optimising the internal IFC structure, to stripping models of security sensitive data, IFC serves all our needs.

One example is a tool we developed to detect and classify concrete surfaces based on the Civil Engineering Standard Method of Measurement (CESMM), saving thousands of hours of time that might otherwise have been spent manually analysing and calling off from models. While the core logic of this could have been implemented in any tool, by basing

it around IFC, the tool is so much more flexible than it would have been otherwise.

Furthermore, the lessons people have learned about IFC by developing one tool are being directly transferred to other tools that use IFC. There has been no need for us learn a dozen different APIs just to be able to handle models authored in different software.

Knowledge of IFC really does give developers a superpower in the construction industry.

These IFC supporting tools create longterm benefits because they can continue to be used into the future with minimal maintenance, and on future nuclear projects such as Sizewell C.

OPEN SOURCE AND INNOVATION The open nature of IFC has meant that the ecosystem of open source AEC tools is rapidly growing. A great example of an open source tool we use is BlenderBIM (see page B10). It has quickly become our visualisation tool of choice and we are continuing to investigate its native IFC editing capabilities.

Because we are standardised on IFC, we can almost instantly take advantage of these new innovations. There is no hanging around having to coordinate mass software upgrades.

We can be dynamic and easily deploy new software, and keep using the best tools for the job even after the project has started.

Is IFC perfect? No. We still find that export and import implementations can be inconsistent, but all are steadily improving.

If we do have a major technical problem, the open nature of IFC means we can much more easily identify the root cause and come up with creative solutions.

CLOSING THOUGHTS My advice is to get involved with buildingSMART to give feedback and influence the direction of IFC so that it works even better for everyone. If you are unfamiliar with IFC, I recommend learning about it as soon as you can. A great starting point is Emma Hooper’s excellent beginner’s guide to IFC (see page B6).

You will be able to use the experience and knowledge you accrue again and again.

Invest some time and focus on IFC, and once you get used to the freedom that using IFC brings, you won’t want to go back to using anything else.

For us, IFC is not just something we are talking about, or trialling, or that gets issued as a nice-to-have alongside native models; it is the primary model data structure through which all our digital model workflows happen

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23/05/2022 17:46

1.0 Primary logo The primary buildingSMART logo is the International logo.

These logo guidelines refer to this logo mark but can also be applied across the full buildingSMART International logo suite.

The full logo suite can be viewed on the logo map on page 17 and all logos are available to download on request.

Examples of additional logo marks in the buildingSMART logo suite: Example of Chapter logo:

tinyurl.com/buildingSMARTUKI

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IFC SPECIAL REPORT

B13

Example of Qualification logo:

Example of Member logo:

3

buildingSMART International brand identity guidelines – Version 3.0 – March 2021

Construction of Hinkley Point C (HPC), the first new nuclear power station to be built in the UK in a generation Images courtesy of EDF

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Tackling the Gen Zero Project The UK Department for Education’s Gen Zero project showcases how IFC can be used as the underlying data standard for a large, complex project, from start to finish, writes Rob Jackson, director at Bond Bryan Digital

T

he challenge: a research and development project, involving the design of two schools, one on an urban site and the other on a rural site, in order to investigate the delivery of ultra-low carbon building standards for educational establishments.

That was the mission set for Bond Bryan Digital when it was engaged by the UK Department of Education (DfE), via the Centre for Digital Built Britain (CDBB), on the Gen Zero project.

This prompted the firm to take a fresh look at how BIM and best-practice information management might be applied to support carbon assessment and determine the cost uplift associated with designing these schools, with the aim of developing a set of appointingparty information management resources.

Bond Bryan Digital developed the information requirements collaboratively with the DfE. This included developing and documenting exchange information requirements to support the use cases of carbon analysis, coordination, quantification (to support cost analysis), visualisation and linking to cloud-based specifications.

Beyond that, the work also covered data for transfer to the operational phase, using COBie, a filtered view of IFC specifically for operational use cases, so that the buildings could be managed post-handover.

FULL ALIGNMENT

CREDIT: ARES LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS LTD

The information management resources

IFC special report AECMAG.indd 14

were developed in full alignment with the UK BIM Framework and ISO19650 suite of standards in advance of any of the designers being appointed to the scheme. This is still not often the case when a third-party information manager is engaged by clients, but it provided the opportunity to set the project up for success from the very outset and truly follow a compliant ISO19650 process throughout.

While there was an assumption that designers would all use the same authoring tool at the outset of the project, the information requirements were developed by Bond Bryan Digital around open standards and in particular, IFC. All information was documented using the IFC2x3 schema (ISO 16739:2005) as the basis for setting out the requirements. This was supplemented with additional properties required by the COBie schema and then further enhanced with additional clientspecific property requirements.

The use of classification references was important. This included Uniclass 2015 as the primary classification, NRM1 to support quantification and costing, and a bespoke classification to allow the DfE to define and assess spatial design information. This was all captured within the structure of IFC. All information requirements were documented in an information management platform, a combination of technology solutions including Notion, Airtable and Whimsical. Collectively, this approach was referred to as the project’s ‘information hub’.

IN BRIEF: THE GEN ZERO PROJECT Sector: Education Project period: January 2020-August 2021 Appointing party: The Department for Education (DfE) Lead appointed party: Mott MacDonald (project manager, cost consultant, acoustic engineering, fire engineering, BREEAM assessor and whole life carbon assessor) Appointed parties: Lyall Bills and Young (architecture), Cundall (building services engineer), Smith and Wallwork (civil and structural engineer), Ares Landscape Architects (landscape architecture), Chalk Creatives (FF&E consultant) and Garners Food Equipment (catering consultant) Third-party information manager: Bond Bryan Digital (working alongside both appointing party and lead appointed party) Tools: 3D Repo, Airtable, Asite, Autodesk Revit, Bentley Systems OpenBuildings Designer, Graphisoft Archicad, iTWO costX, KUBUS BIMcollab ZOOM, Lumion, NBS Chorus, Nemetschek Vectorworks, Notion, One Click LCA, Solibri Office and Whimsical.

The information hub integrates with other cloud-based technology, such as 3D Repo (a cloud-based model viewer) and links to other technology used on the project (for example, Asite as the project’s common data environment).

Bond Bryan Digital’s work also involved developing processes to support the design team’s tender process and carrying out capability and capacity assessments of each prospective designer using online forms and reports. This process included an assessment relating to the use of open standards. One key aspect of this was that the assessment was only scored in terms of actually completing the form. Authors were encouraged to answer truthfully, in order to understand where support would be required, and this helped when delivering the project.

On the appointment of the designers to the project, Bond Bryan Digital supported the team to develop the appointment resources, including a BIM Execution Plan, Detailed Responsibility Matrix and Master Information Delivery Plan. These lead appointed party information management resources were then included within the information hub, directly alongside the Department for Education’s information management resources. As a result, a single location was provided for all the resources to be stored, accessed and managed throughout the life of the project.

23/05/2022 17:46

1.0 Primary logo The primary buildingSMART logo is the International logo.

These logo guidelines refer to this logo mark but can also be applied across the full buildingSMART International logo suite.

The full logo suite can be viewed on the logo map on page 17 and all logos are available to download on request.

Examples of additional logo marks in the buildingSMART logo suite: Example of Chapter logo:

tinyurl.com/buildingSMARTUKI

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IFC SPECIAL REPORT

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Example of Qualification logo:

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buildingSMART International brand identity guidelines – Version 3.0 – March 2021

COLLABORATIVE APPROACH As an R&D exercise, this project was unusual, differing from more ‘standard’ ISO19650 projects in that Bond Bryan Digital supported both the appointing party (in this case, DfE) and lead appointed party (Mott McDonald).

This led to a more collaborative approach and provided the DfE with a better understanding of the progress of information delivery throughout the life of the project.

The use of open standards as part of the DfE’s Exchange Information Requirements meant that the best designers could be selected to deliver the project, irrespective of their software selection. This resulted in the selection of a design team that used four different authoring tools: Graphisoft Archicad (for architecture); Autodesk Revit (building services, catering, civil engineering and FF&E); Nemetschek Vectorworks (landscape architecture); and Bentley OpenBuildings Designer (structural engineering).

With these four authoring tools at work, it was critical that a consistent, OpenBIM approach was adopted, to provide data that could support the purposes set out in the client’s requirements. Bond Bryan Digital directly supported the design team to deliver the information required. This work included providing guidance and support, as well as mapping and template files. The firm also worked collaboratively with designers to address issues with information exchange throughout the commission.

At Bond Bryan Digital, we have over years built up extensive knowledge of robust processes using both Autodesk Revit and Graphisoft Archicad to deliver IFC-SPF (Industry Foundation Classes-STEP Physical

IFC special report AECMAG.indd 15

CREDIT: BOND BRYAN DIGITAL LTD

Example of Member logo:

File) aligned to client’s exchange information requirements.

While our work on the Gen Zero project involved more trial-and-error processes with Nemetschek Vectorworks and Bentley OpenBuildings Designer, we largely managed to make these solutions work, too, by collaborating closely with each designer.

There were some issues that couldn’t be fully resolved during the project (although solutions were found later), but none of these materially affected the information required to meet the purposes of this project.

EMERGING SCOPE Much of the information management scope emerged as the project evolved. As a result, Bond Bryan Digital services included the collation of federated data for carbon analysis to import into the cloud-based carbon assessment solution (One Click LCA), as well as supporting the exchange of information for quantification (iTWO costX). A key tool here was Solibri, used to validate the data requirements to support these processes.

Additionally, we developed an approach to provide cloud-based specifications for some of the designers using our information hub concept, adding no cost to the project or for designers, while satisfying the client’s brief.

This solution allowed a direct connection between 3D models (IFC-SPF) and the detailed specification for each product.

The development of the information requirements also allowed us to explore the workflow for generating Area Data Sheets (typically referred to as Room Data Sheets).

While we documented the alphanumerical requirements for both IFC and COBie early

on, we needed to work with the designers on a process between Graphisoft Archicad (architecture) and Autodesk Revit (building services). This process ultimately ended up with data being imported into Airtable (via IFC-SPF, Solibri and COBie), allowing spatial data to be displayed alongside the DfE’s requirements for each space in both a spreadsheet and data sheet format. The power of this workflow was that open standards lay at the heart of this approach.

As a result, this process can be applied again, using any authoring tool that can generate an IFC-SPF file.

At each information exchange, Bond Bryan Digital produced federated models using the IFC models. This allowed delivered data to be checked against requirements. And because both sets of data were structured using IFC, this could be checked using automated rulesets.

Since COBie is a subset of the IFC schema, this data could be extracted and exported as a spreadsheet and information management assurance reports could be produced.

The project successfully met the brief and, as a result of our work, won BIM Project of the Year 2021 at the Construction Computing Awards.

Importantly, a significant aspect of our approach to Gen Zero was subsequently incorporated into the DfE’s information management resources for its subsequent £7 billion construction framework, launched in late 2021. Of course, like Gen Zero, these resources are fully aligned with the use of open standards, to allow the best teams to be selected and deliver best value across all school projects. www.genzero.co.uk www.bondbryandigital.co.uk

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Produced by

IFC SPECIAL REPORT

aecmag.com

buildingSMART certification

By Phil Read, program lead at bSUKI and managing director, Man and Machine Owner / operator

Contractor

Designer

Facility Manager

Project / Building Information Manufacturer Performance Manager

COBie

BASIC buildingSMART Professional Certification Foundation Curriculum Plan

T

o support the use and deployment of the International Foundation Class (IFC) file format, buildingSMART UK and Ireland (bSUKI) has launched its Professional Certification Program.

This provides a professional qualification that recognises excellence in the delivery of openBIM. Whether you want to hone your existing openBIM skillset, or kickstart your BIM knowledge to further your career, the buildingSMART Professional Certification Program gives you the knowledge and expertise you need to succeed.

There are two levels to the certification program: Foundation and Practitioner.

The Foundation level is a primer for full certification at the Practitioner level. This qualification focuses on knowledge-based learning, delivered through standardised training, followed by an online examination. Our initial launch is the Foundation curriculum.

The Practitioner level is intended for more experienced individuals, providing a comprehensive certification and focusing on practical expertise of real-life project implementation.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

ISO 19650-2:2018 (incorporating corrigendum February 2021).

Government Soft Landings, 2019.

Construction Playbook, 2020.

Transforming Infrastructure.

Performance: Roadmap to 2030.

Construction 2025.

Uniclass 2015.

For each curriculum, buildingSMART defines the following three components: The Learning Outcome Framework(LOF) – the learning objectives against which students on approved courses will be assessed.

2. A Body of Knowledge (BoK) – a resource for training providers, to help them build high-quality & consistent training content.

3. A Question Database – a pool of multiple choice questions with which to populate the examination tool.

•

•

•

•

Kickstart course-content development, by using the buildingSMART learning framework.

Ensure the course is up to date and reflects best practices.

Benefit from learning guidelines and support mechanisms from the local chapter.

Brand their course as ‘buildingSMART registered’.

Training partners wishing to become a buildingSMART Approved training partner are encouraged to formally apply to certification@ukbimalliance.org.

1.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

The aim of the program is to help students become competent in the use of digital STRONG FOUNDATIONS technologies and openBIM in the built The Foundation level is structured around nine environment. It provides some level of curricula. This includes eight domain-specific assurance that students who successfully extension curricula, and a Basic curriculum, pass the exam have a core knowledge that which is a prerequisite for any of the others. makes them suitable to work on digital New curricula may be added as required. construction projects in the UKI. The UK & Ireland (UKI) version of the Each Chapter (in this case bSUKI) acts as Basic curriculum comprises two sets of the ‘regional authority’ to help local training learning outcomes. First, we have the providers develop appropriate local course Standard International Learning Outcomes, content, which is aligned internationally supported by all Chapters internationally under the buildingSMART Professional (visit education.buildingsmart.org).

Certification Program.

Second, we have the UKI-specific It’s important to note that bSUKI does Learning Outcomes. This is where the UK not deliver the training itself. Instead, its implementation has been enhanced to focus is on enabling, supporting and guiding incorporate the UK BIM Framework. It also approved training providers to ensure signposts key UKI guidance or standards consistency of content and to help them documents for training providers, indicating prepare students for the exam. those which should be an integral part oftheir The benefits of the program are enormous learning curriculum. These include: and add value to training partners, individuals and employers. I also believe 1. UK BIM Framework Learning. they will benefit the entire UKI construction 2. Outcomes 2020. industry as we upskill it, by helping us to take

IFC special report AECMAG.indd 16

advantage of digital technologies, openBIM and IFC. This should result in lower costs, less waste and better management and delivery of projects in the built environment Benefits to training providers include opportunities to:

EMPLOYERS AND INDIVIDUALS Employers and individuals also benefit.

Employers that support their staff in gaining their buildingSMART Professional Certification will be educating them according to a recognised global learning framework.

Successful certification is proof of competence for your professional staff, working with information management using BIM. For individuals, the benefits include an internationally recognised individual qualification. They will be better prepared to engage in and add value to digital and BIM projects, understand the core concepts of IFC, and be well-versed in the UK BIM Framework and other important UKI and international standards relevant to our industry.

Individuals wishing to gain the Professional Certification should contact an approved buildingSMART UK and Ireland training partners, who will help them understand the process and provide details of their course content.

GET IN TOUCH Information on UKI-specific learning outcomes tinyurl.com/UKBIM-learning Information on BSUKI’s support for training providers tinyurl.com/bSUKI-training Information about applying to become a training provider tinyurl.com/buildingsmart-uk To enrol as an individual for the program and identify a training provider tinyurl.com/bSUKI-individuals

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AC25_A4_UK_Source.pdf

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2021. 07. 20.

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Duke Ellington School of the Arts Architect: cox graae + spack architects / LBA Joint Venture Photo © Chris Ambridge

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