Back in September, Meridian Systems, a project management solutions provider, and Horizontal LLC, known for building information modeling (BIM) services, announced a joint partnership to integrate both platforms. 

By combining BIM with construction project management tools, all groups within a project, from the architect to the subcontractors, have access to information like never before, both companies said.

“In the past, there used to be islands of information here and there with no central location for everyone to access,” Jordan Brandt, a partner at Horizontal LLC, said in an interview with ConstructionSoftwareReview.com.  “But now, we’ve developed a way to leverage all the information contained within a BIM model so that everyone has instant access to the same information.”

It took about a year for Meridian and Horizontal to integrate the spatial and design data from BIM with the operational business data from the project management software. The integrated software harnesses the Horizontal Glue Server, which is a Web-based portal that acts as a central hub and allows information to pass seamlessly between the BIM models and Meridian’s Prolog and Proliance tools. When used properly, the results can lead to a reduction of costs and schedules in the planning, building and operating of capital projects and facilities.

For example, when something is added to a BIM model, such as a request for information or material quantities, it can be pushed to Proliance and Prolog in order to populate data fields. So, basically, when the BIM model is changed, all of the associated costs and related information can be tracked using Proliance or Prologue. 

“There are a lot of synergies between BIM and infrastructure lifestyle management,” Sue Watkins, director of marketing at Meridian System, said. “We see this as a disruptive change to the way that things have been traditionally done.”

So far, both Watkins and Brandt have said that they’ve heard nothing but positive responses from users. “Those who have used both software offerings have said that there has been a gap,” Brandt said. “From those who I’ve talked to, they are happy that we’ve bridged that gap.”

For more information on the benefits of both tools, check out Meridian’s white paper entitled, BIM and Project Management: Advancing Integrated Project Delivery on Capital Building Programs.

Bentley Systems has released V8i, a “software portfolio for infrastructure professionals” that aims to make it easier for engineers, architects, contractors and project owner/operators to share information as they collectively design, build, operate and maintain things.

In a conference call last week, Bentley CEO Greg Bentley said the release comes at a key time, as sustainability initiatives face a global bottleneck and aging infrastructures increasingly pose a risk to the public. An “intelligent infrastructure cycle,” in which participants benefit from interoperable software tools, increases the return on investment since “information reuse [is] a rule and not an exception,” Bentley said. “All of us who create infrastructure…we can keep adding value as information is reused. Information modeling is the key.”

V8i’s core capabilities can be stated as the five things that the “I” in its name stands for, said Bentley senior vice president Bhupinder Singh. These capabilities are the following:

• Intuitive design modeling, with conceptual tools for solids and surfaces and the new Luxology rendering engine;
• Interactive dynamic views, with a simplified process for creating 3D models;
• Intrinsic geo-coordination, which offers the ability to locate files in Bentley’s ProjectWise or in Google Earth;
• “Incredible” project performance, which is aided by integration with Microsoft SharePoint; and
• Interoperability, as the software can use documents from file formats such as PDF, DGN, DWG and ISO 15926. (Additional information about this functionality is available in Bentley’s Interoperability Platform White Paper.)

The V8i home page includes links to the product’s core capabilities and to user testimonials (both in print and in video).

Have you ever wanted to pick the brain of John Walker? (The founder of Autodesk, not the scotch guy, that is.) Well, you may never get the opportunity, but Kean Walmsley’s interview with him on Through the Interface might be the next best thing.

Walmsley admits that it took weeks to transcribe his four-hour conversation with Walker — one that covered a variety of topics, from the history of Autodesk to the decision to use LISP as the programming language. Walmsley was also gracious enough to break down the 18,000-word transcript into the following four sections:

• Part 1: Autodesk’s early history — This section covers the genesis of AutoDesk. Apparently, it started with a handful of mainframe programmers who ended up moonlighting on a few side projects.  Eventually, with a little luck, these projects gained a massive following in the early 1980s. Suddenly, the small startup company grew into a software behemoth.

• Part 2: AutoCAD’s architecture & APIs — In this part, Walker explains how LISP and AutoLISP became the muscle behind AutoCAD. They also discuss some of the add-ons and features that were deployed over time, as the program gained more notoriety.

• Part 3: Autodesk’s eco-system and strategy — In this next segment, Walmsley and Walker talk about Autodesk’s business model and how outside influences helped the company gain market share.

• Part 4: Past and future opportunities — Finally, the two discuss Autodesk’s acquisitions of other companies, failed product launches and the future of the firm.

So, if you’ve been searching for an exhaustive take on Autodesk and the origins of CAD, look no further. Walmsley offers a raw, barely-edited interview with a developer who changed the construction industry. If you can handle the length, this piece will provide a lot of insight into the past, present and future of CAD software.

(Note: A special thanks to Shaan Hurley from Between the Lines, who pointed out this four-part series to us.)

While 2D CAD and scheduling tools remain the most used software applications among respondents to a recent McGraw-Hill construction survey, Building Information Modeling (BIM) is quickly gaining steam in the construction industry. Not too long ago it was a tool utilized mostly by engineers and architects; now, 33% of contractors and 17% of owners frequently use BIM, according to the survey.

So, the question remains — what exactly is Building Information Modeling? Well, in layman’s terms, it’s a process that brings geometry, geography and material quantities into 3D modeling software in order to provide a virtual representation of a building. Almost every key player in a construction project can benefit from these virtual models, and they can even foster better communication between teams.

Some other advantages of BIM include:

• speeding up model changes between team members,
• helping identify problems, such as system clashes,
• preventing against collisions that result in design discrepancies, and
• allowing managers, engineers and owners to monitor progress without having to travel to the actual site.

Despite all the positives associated with BIM, there are still some issues that need to be worked out. For instance, because BIM tools take in a wide array of data in order to create these 3D models, interoperability can be a problem. Many users are finding compatibility among all the software programs in the market as a roadblock when dealing with other employees or business partners. To combat this issue, the BuildingSMART Alliance, founded in 2006, is trying to define standards of data interoperability, which will help alleviate this concern, as well as save time and money.

As of right now, BIM seems to be in its infancy. Nevertheless, here are a few resources in case you want to delve deeper into this budding process:

• BIM Software Tools: An excerpt from Building Information Modeling — Here is a book excerpt that details everything you would want to know about BIM and provides insight into the BIM software tools that get the job done. (ConstructionSoftwareReview.com)
• Documented BIM Advantages Tell Savings Story — This is a real-world example of how the uses of BIM saved a construction firm more that $800,000. (Construction Informer Blog)
• BIM for Facilities Management — Here’s a construction lawyer’s take on the advantages of BIM for facilities management. (Womble Carlyle Construction Industry Blog)

Ultimately, the future is bright for Building Information Modeling because almost every sector of the construction industry can utilize its capabilities in some fashion. Even if this software doesn’t suit your particular company right now, getting familiar with it won’t hurt because it will almost certainly be ubiquitous in the near future.

Score one for consumers — Bentley and Autodesk have struck a cross-licensing agreement that will allow interoperability between the two company’s software products.

The agreement, details of which are in this press release from Autodesk, calls for the two software giants to exchange their software libraries that write the file formats, as well as share their publicly available APIs.

Bentley is Autodesk’s largest development partner and has built numerous products over the years that work on or with AutoCAD and support its DWG file format.

However, the interoperability agreement “will ensure a higher fidelity and trust in the file formats,” Chris Barren, vice president of marketing for Bentley, said in an interview with ConstructionSoftwareReview.com “The alternative was getting the applications to translate the files from one format to another. Even when they’re really good translations, if the text is a couple pixels off, you can spend a lot of time fixing that.”

On the surface, it may seem odd that two competing firms like Autodesk and Bentley would team up on a venture like this. However, both companies recognize that, as projects become more advanced from an integrated project delivery standpoint, different contracting teams will be using a variety of software offerings. Now, because of this pact, consumers will not have to worry if an Autodesk DWG or Bentley DGN file will export precisely — it just will.

Lack of construction software interoperability has been an obstacle for the industry for years and, according to a recent McGraw-Hill report, it is costing the industry some $36 billion a year.

According to Noah Cole, from Autodesk’s Architecture, Engineering & Construction (AEC) marketing department, this agreement with Bentley is a chance to help the industry down the road. “Looking at construction, most buildings are still being built with blueprints. But, as the industry moves to digital models and BIM, they’re going to have to rely on modeling,” he said. “If they can’t read the file, they have to remodel or redraft it, which is time-consuming and expensive — plus it lends itself to errors.”

While both companies announced the interpretability agreement, they are still in the midst of implementing it. They acknowledge that it may take some time, but, Barren stated that Bentley is looking to finalize it “not too far in the next year.”

Users of Autodesk’s AutoCAD 2009 have plenty with which to keep themselves busy these days. Within the last week the company has put out a new features release and a service update (previously service pack) release for AutoCAD 2009.

Both releases were announced in Between the Lines, a blog written by Shaan Hurley, who is a technical marketing manager for Autodesk’s Platform Technologies Division.

AutoCAD 2009 and AutoCAD LT 2009 Update 1 (Service Pack) links directly to the service update release and lists the various and sundry fixes that have been made. Notes Healey:

Updates have been made in the following feature areas: 3D Visual Styles, Annotation Scaling, External References (xref) palette, Raster Images, Partial Open, Plot, Properties Palette, Hatch [and] Remote text (rtext).

Various other fixes were made as well. These range, alphabetically, from .NET functions throwing exceptions to zoom in certain cases causing AutoCAD 2009 to crash.

Meanwhile, New Feature Releases Now Available for Autodesk Subscription Customers indicates that a variety of tutorials, webcasts and training DVDs are now available for AutoCAD as well as Revit, 3ds Max, Impression, Inventor and Maya, among others. As the blog post title indicates, these resources are available only to subscription customers.

Enjoy.