Industry news

Varjo Reality Cloud to stream VR, XR, iOS and Windows from the cloud

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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 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

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.

‘The Atom’ AR headset integrates with BIM 360

YZ Reality has announced an

Xintegration of its ‘engineering-

grade’ 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.

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.

■ www.xyzreality.com

Autodesk boosts support for IFC in Revit A

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 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.

■ www.autodesk.com/revit

Gamma AR links to Construction Cloud

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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 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.

Faro launches reality capture platform F

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.faro.com

Environmental simulation for Rhino

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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.

12th Gen Intel Core HX mobile CPUs launch with promise of huge boost for rendering

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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 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

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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 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

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.

Lenovo ThinkPad P16 mobile workstation marks new era for ThinkPad design

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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 polycarbonate, coated with a grey anti fingerprint paint to echo the aesthetic of the ‘A Cover’.

The ultraportable ThinkPad P1 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.

ROUND UP

Bentley gets FEA

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

AMD Ryzen Pro 6000 Series launches for pro laptops

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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 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

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

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

Teradici and HP present HP Anyware T 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

HP unveils new 16-inch ZBook mobile workstations

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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.’

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.

■ www.hp.com/zworkstations

Dell launches two 16-inch laptops in one

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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 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.

Intel Core i9-12900KS to boost CAD

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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.

■ www.intel.com

Framence boosts digital twin platform G

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.

Arskan using compressed reality meshes to drive digital twins

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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.

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 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.

SketchUp for iPad introduced for modelling on the go

ketchUp, the easy-to-use

Smodelling 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 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

Slate and Skanska drive AI in construction

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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 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)

Resellers align under VinZero brand

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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.

■ vinzero.com

Graphisoft to support Nvidia Omniverse

Graphisoft has

Gdeveloped 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.

ROUND UP

Rugged SSD

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

Enscape 3.3 offers enhanced workflows for site context

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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 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

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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 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.).

Epic Games releases limited beta of RealityScan for iOS

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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.

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

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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 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.

■ www.mintronics.co.uk/4mcad

Allplan hooks up with Lumion for viz B

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 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.

Urban Splash closes prefab firm ‘House’

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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.

■ www.nxtbld.com/tickets-2022/

Perkins&Will issues ‘Carbon Forecasts’

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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.