Autodesk Enhances Sustainable Design Capabilities With Acquisitions of Ecotect and Green Building Studio Analysis Tools

Article from Forbes.com

SAN RAFAEL, Calif., June 26 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- As part of its on-going commitment to support the practice of sustainable design and green building in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industries, Autodesk, Inc. (Nasdaq: ADSK) today announced two acquisitions to improve building performance analysis in the building information modeling (BIM) process. Autodesk announced that it has completed the acquisition of substantially all the assets related to the Ecotect software tools for conceptual building performance analysis from both Square One Research Ltd. and Dr. Andrew Marsh. Autodesk also announced that it has completed the acquisition of substantially all the assets of Green Building Studio, Inc., a provider of web-based whole building energy, water and carbon-emission analysis software. Terms of the acquisitions were not disclosed.

"Buildings are a leading contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, so to combat climate change it is critical for the building industry to rapidly adopt sustainable design practices that will lead to buildings which are appreciably more efficient and eventually carbon neutral," said Jay Bhatt, senior vice president, Autodesk AEC solutions. "The addition of these tools to our technology portfolio will help make it easier for architects, engineers and designers to understand the impact of their design decisions on building performance earlier in the design process so they can optimize for reduced environmental impact."

The acquisitions of Ecotect and the Green Building Studio assets will support Autodesk's vision to deliver software that enables architects and engineers to design more sustainable projects. With improved building performance analysis capabilities, Autodesk will be uniquely positioned to offer a comprehensive suite of software solutions for sustainable design and analysis, enabling a BIM process that can facilitate cost-effective design and delivery of high-performing, resource-efficient buildings and infrastructure.

Square One Research, Ltd. and Dr. Andrew Marsh, creator of the Ecotect environmental design and analysis tools, are based in Isle of Man. The Ecotect tools can measure how fundamental criteria, such as solar, thermal, shading, lighting, and airflow, will affect building performance in the conceptual and detailed phases of design. Their capability to forecast building performance over time better equips architects and engineers to deliver more energy efficient and sustainable building designs.

"Square One Research and Autodesk share a commitment to using technology to make the design and construction of sustainable, high-performance buildings easier and more efficient," said Dr. Andrew J. Marsh, Co-Founder and Head of Research & Development, Square One Research. "We are pleased to join Autodesk and look forward to helping develop and deliver simple and effective building performance analysis to architects and engineers around the world."

The Autodesk Green Building Studio analysis tools, now available at http://www.autodesk.com/greenbuildingstudio, provide improved design insight through whole building energy, water and carbon-emission analysis, helping architects and designers to maximize building economic and environmental performance. The tools are compatible with Autodesk design software as well as software from other industry providers through the Green Building XML (gbXML) schema and can now be directly accessed from within the Revit platform for BIM with a new plug-in now available for download. Green Building Studio Inc. launched the Green Building Studio web service in 2004.

To read more about how Autodesk and its customers are addressing sustainable design, please visit http://www.autodesk.com/green.

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including statements regarding the impact of the acquisition on Autodesk's, product offerings and the performance of its business. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include the following: difficulties encountered in integrating merged businesses; whether certain market segments grow as anticipated; the competitive environment in the software industry and competitive responses to the acquisition; and whether the companies can successfully develop new products or modify existing products and the degree to which these gain market acceptance.

Further information on potential factors that could affect the financial results of Autodesk are included in the company's reports on Form 10-K for the year ended January 31, 2008, and Form 10-Q for the quarter ended April 30, 2008 which are on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

About Autodesk

Autodesk, Inc. is the world leader in 2D and 3D design software for the manufacturing, building and construction, and media and entertainment markets. Since its introduction of AutoCAD software in 1982, Autodesk has developed the broadest portfolio of state-of-the-art digital prototyping solutions to help customers experience their ideas before they are real. Fortune 1000 companies rely on Autodesk for the tools to visualize, simulate and analyze real-world performance early in the design process to save time and money, enhance quality and foster innovation. For additional information about Autodesk, visit http://www.autodesk.com.

Autodesk, AutoCAD, and Revit are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders. Autodesk reserves the right to alter product offerings and specifications at any time without notice, and is not responsible for typographical or graphical errors that may appear in this document.

(C) 2008 Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved. (Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050415/SFF034LOGO) Press Contact: Noah Cole, +1-415-200-6310 Email: noah.cole@autodesk.com SOURCE Autodesk, Inc.

Wii Remote Navigation Add-in for Autodesk Design Review

**Update

If you are using any of the tools from Autodesk LABS and would like to comment on the current tools or have ideas for other tools, please email the LABS at thelabs@autodesk.com.

This is a little of topic, but if you would like to see some other interesting uses for the Wii controller, I would suggest looking at Johnny Chung Lees's website.
_____________

I came across this new tool that the Autodesk Labs has put together. I am not sure of my Dell M90 laptop supports Bluetooth, if it does I will report back my success or failure with this Wii Remote tool for Design Review.
------
From http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/wiimote_adr/

Wiimote Navigation Add-in for Autodesk Design Review

At Autodesk Labs we are looking at various forms of human-computer interaction. One of them is multi-touch. Another is hand-held controllers. The Wii Remote™ (or Wiimote for short) is such a device. You can hook up a Wiimote to your Windows computer and interact with your designs using the Wiimote Navigation Add-in for Autodesk Design Review. You hold the Wiimote in your hand, move your hand, and Autodesk Design Review pans, zoom, and orbits your model. Although the Wiimote is normally associated with games, easily interacting with your designs is serious business.

The mapping of Wii buttons to Autodesk Design Review commands is very intuitive. In a mod to our experience with multi-touch using gestures, the Wiimote Navigation Add-in for Autodesk Design Review even includes one gesture - shake your Wiimote and the view of your model resets itself.

// View the Read Me (includes easy step by step instructions for setup)

Switching to BIM?User groups can help smooth the transition

From Building Design and Construction, June 2008

By Jeff Yoders, Senior Associate Editor

June 1, 2008

Building Design and Construction

In Nebraska BIM users share tricks of the trade at RUGON. In Kansas City they discuss Revit at KCrevit. In Toronto ArchiCAD East users gather at ACE. Online user groups are helping individual users and whole firms make the switch to BIM less painful and more profitable. At the recent 2008 AIA Convention and Design Exposition in Boston, Autodesk announced that Revit had crossed the 300,000 seat threshold, while Bentley claimed high penetration at the bigger AEC firms. As BIM gains greater acceptance, BIM and CAD managers are turning their experiences into websites and online communities.

“When we started this group [in 2006] you could tell how many people were using the program by how they pronounced the name: a lot of people would say 'Reevit' and only a few would call it 'Revit,'” said Patrick Davis, co-founder of KCrevit.com and national CADD/BIM manager for HNTB. “But it has really taken off here in the last two years. There are a lot of smaller, more agile firms here using the technology. They can adapt to change more quickly, and we're seeing that in the user group.”

KCrevit was created by members of a BIM/CAD manager roundtable of major firms in Kansas City, among them Davis, Sandy Price of 360 Architecture, Todd Williams (who was at HOK+Sport at the time), and Chris Tschirhart of JE Dunn Construction (check out their pictures at www.kcrevit.com/member_bios/member_bios.htm). The group answers questions from users at http://kcrevit.blogspot.com and rotates occasional presentations from Revit-compatible technology providers such as RISA Technologies (a maker of 3D structural design software) and Integrated Environmental Solutions (sustainability analysis software) through the member firms. KCrevit does not charge dues and is completely independent of resellers. “We don't collect any money at all. We don't have a president or a sergeant at arms or any of that,” Davis said. “We all have jobs. But I can tell that I've benefited from the dialogue we've developed. I now have friends at other firms who have shared success and failure stories with this technology, and they know all of mine now, too.”

Davis said the biggest issue his members have is BIM training and how to implement BIM in their firms. Users also frequently ask about the best project types to use as first BIM projects.

In Toronto, Andy Thomson of Altius Architecture and Sustain Design Studio has had a similar experience. Thomson would visit different firms in Toronto and help train and establish office standards for Graphisoft's ArchiCAD BIM program. He repeated the same groups and meetings at several different firms before realizing he needed to get more systematic about it.

“I started blogging just for my own records,” Thomson said, “and then I realized, Why not share this with the community?”

Thomson was inspired by the support community that had been built among ArchiCAD users and their firms in California, but there was nothing like that on the East Coast. Thus, in 2005, ArchiCAD East was born. The ACE community now has members from Toronto (Altius, Architects Alliance) to Atlanta (CUH2A).

“Design firms are so busy these days that they don't have the time for training,” Thomson said. “We can answer those common, mundane questions that always come up like 'How do you do a photo rendering (with artificial-looking light) in ArchiCAD?'”

Thomson developed—and shares for free—Electrigon, a parametric ArchiCAD electrical energy modeling object. For years there were hundreds of electrical symbols used in ArchiCAD to simulate light and electrical loads. Electrigon made it possible to throw them all out. Instead of just putting a light object in your model, Electrigon's parameters have all the energy and output requirements smartly built in. You can enter a light fixture's Energy Star rating, its wattage, and how long it will be on during the day. Electrigon can simulate almost any electrical appliance and its performance in an ArchiCAD model.

“If you put one Electrigon object in for every appliance, you can use ArchiCAD's scheduling function to see how much energy the building uses and what its carbon footprint is,” Thomson said. By creating useful tools like Electrigon, users can push software developers like Graphisoft to enhance their programs. “We're saying, 'Look at what we did with your software. Can't you give us more tools like it?' We want to put that kind of pressure on the developers.”

ArchiCAD East has shown users how to use the scheduling function in ArchiCAD to develop budgets and scheduling. Many firms are developing internal BIM user groups to address questions related to budgets and integrated project delivery. HOK has an internal BIM website that shares BIM success stories and tips. The 24 BIM managers from all of HOK's offices meet regularly with SVP and firmwide CAD director Mario Guttman to exchange ideas.

Leo A Daly is using BIM on most of its projects today and has completed several BIM projects, including a hospital at Georgia State University and several GSA Immigration Centers.

“Inside the firm we would always have a hard time getting the people who were happy with CAD and didn't want to learn BIM to come to the table,” said Craig Thomas, Leo A Daly's BIM practice leader in the firm's Omaha, Neb., headquarters. He's also on the National BIM standard committee and founded RUGON, the Revit User Group of Nebraska.

“We quickly learned if they're getting training and not using it, it's not useful. Now we train everyone on a project and that makes the acceptance come faster. On our hospital work the projects are complex enough to need BIM but also have tight deadlines, so they're really perfect for BIM and the architects trained on them come out converts.”

If you're addressing firmwide change, as HOK is doing with its BuildingSMART initiative and integrated project delivery (http://hokcadsolutions.blogspot.com), it's probably better to use internal groups than to rely on local user groups. “IPD isn't something I'd tackle with the user group,” KCrevit's Davis said. “I wouldn't know where to start.”

Jacobs Engineering Group of Pasadena, Calif., has been using BIM for two and a half years and has developed five different BIM working groups within the firm, including a vendor group that works directly with their Bentley and Autodesk software providers. BIM guru Gary Koah says the firm has completed 20 BIM projects and has 50 more in the pipeline. As with Leo A Daly, all training at Jacobs is done on actual projects. The firm's internal Quickstart program trains new users for at least a week on a project.

“People are more passionate about their projects,” Koah said. “It drives home that placing a wall in a model is better than placing a line in CAD. For us it's getting as many people as is humanly possible working in the process and practice.”

STL Exporter for the Revit 2009 Platform

**From http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/revit_stl/

Create 3D Prints of your Revit 2009 models. As architects and engineers start their digital designs earlier and keep them digital for longer, they want a way to still physically interact with their designs. With the economical availability of 3D printers this has become possible. 3D printed models increasingly serve as a critical part of the design process to study design options and improve communication between project members and owners. The STL Exporter for the Revit 2009 family of products is a proof of concept project that we are working on. It is designed to take a 3D Revit building information model and create an STL file that can be used for 3D Printing. We invite you to take it for a spin and see what you think. We look forward to hearing your feedback.

To Get Started

1. Download the ZIP package that cantinas the installer, installation and user instructions, and a feedback form.
2. Unzip the downloaded ZIP file.
3. Follow the Read Me file to install the STL Exporter.
4. The next time you open Revit 2009 you will see a new option called Export STL under the Tools::External Tools menu.

To Use It

1. Load a model and select a 3D view that you want to use as the bases for your print.
2. Using the instructions in the Read Me file set up your 3D view in the one of the Revit 2009 family of products.
3. Export the model using the command under the Tools::External Tools menu.
4. Make any required changes to the STL file using an STL viewer.
5. Print the STL file using a 3D Printer.
6. Enjoy the fruits of your labor!

Download available at: http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/revit_stl/term_and_condition/

Subscription e-Learning tools

Autodesk Subscription members as part of their benefits, can download the new e-Learning items listed below. You can access these downloads via the Subscription Center or via the Communication Center within the product.

AutoCAD 2009: Introduction to 3D Modeling e-Learning
AutoCAD Architecture 2009: Migration Assistant: Import/Export Module
AutoCAD MEP 2009:
Migration Assistant: Import/Export Module
Electrical Essentials e-Learning
Plumbing Essentials e-Learning
Piping Essentials e-Learning
HVAC Essentials e-Learning

Autodesk Inventor® 2009
Interacting with an Assembly e-Learning
Annotating Assembly Drawings e-Learning
Drawing Standards and Resources e-Learning
Basic View Creation e-Learning
Dimensions, Annotations, and Tables e-Learning

Autodesk Maya 2008
Creating a Character Foot Rig Video Podcast
Camera Control Video Podcast
API Overview Downloadable DVD

Autodesk Productstream 2009
Working with Autodesk Productstream e-Learning
Autodesk Vault 2009
Maintaining and Populating a Vault e-Learning

Revit Architecture 2009
Construction Documentation e-Learning
Presenting the Building Model e-Learning

Revit MEP 2009
Revit MEP Basics e-Learning

In case you haven't started reading it, Phil Read formerly of Autodesk Consulting has joined HNTB Architecture and started started a Arch | Tech blog. His latest post is on the weakness of the current Revit Warnings system.

In case you haven't started reading it, Phil Read formerly of Autodesk Consulting has joined HNTB Architecture and started started a Arch | Tech blog. His latest post is on the weakness of the current Revit Warnings system.

I used to be one of those users that didn't concentrate too much on warnings, until I started working with Daniel Hurtubise. It took Daniel all of a half hour to show me the importance of addressing warnings immediately. Yes, I know that is not always possible, but it is a good practice. (If you are a non-believer, send Daniel an email and I am sure he will provide you with a demo).

Since then I have been working with Phil and Autodesk Consulting (and yes they still have some assume talent there) on addressing warnings. While we have been documenting many warnings to provide the user with greater insight on how to correct them, the ability to access and track warnings has been lacking.

When Phil joined HNTB, one of the topics I was hoping would be addressed is the issue of accessing and tracking warnings and during the recent AIA Large Firm Roundtable BIM Implementors meeting, Phil let one of the Revit Architecture product managers aware of his thoughts about how the warning system could be improved ad what would happen if this didn't get done. So, I thought I would include the text from his blog.

One final note, Autodesk is monitoring his blog, so if you have a comment to make about the warning system, by all means comment.

Dear Anthony,

The cultural challenge with Warnings in Revit is the present lack of accountability. Users are smart enough to know there's something amiss in the file. But they have no idea where to point (or give) the finger. Or fingers.

Warnings also provide some indication as to the learning and experience level of members on a team. Warnings indicate when users have decided to work in a way that is expedient rather than deliberate. Reviewing Warnings allow people to learn from their own mistakes. Or better yet - they allow people to learn from another team member's mistake. ;)

Unfortunately, many users and teams tend to put off reviewing / resolving Warnings as there's no sense of ownership. This makes project management really difficult. By the time you need to review warnings - it's often too late. And who should fix what?

So I'd propose the following stuff with regard to Warnings:

1. Warnings should be maintained in a regular Revit Schedule. Stop hiding them in a dialog at the bottom of a Tools Menu.

2. Project Managers would like to know the Workset Username responsible for generating the Warning. This would allow Warnings to be scheduled per user name - which would impose a sense of accountability in the Revit database.

3. Original date / time stamp helps the team track the frequency of Warnings against project development.

4. Like any other Schedule in Revit , the ability to jump from line item / to context of project location.

5. Some indication of severity (for ranking purposes). All warnings are not created equal.

6. Counts / Totals / Types of Warnings. Now the project manager knows who (typically) on a team is responsible for the bulk of Warnings so they can remedy the situation, and prevent its recurrence.

Overall, this added functionality compels team members to preemptively fix what they have broken. Project Managers can quickly get a sense project dynamics. And the rest of the team isn't penalized with one or two team member's lack of discipline.

MOI - Moment of Inspiration

I attended the AIA Large Firm Roundtable BIM Implementors meeting this past week in Seattle and one of the presentations was on "Cool Tools" and I thought I would pass it along. The tool is call MOI and it is a modeling tool for designers and artists. I have never used it, but the demo and presentation was very interesting. It does not work directly with Revit, but the tool was interesting enough that I thought I would mention it.

Phil Read @ HNTB

See the following post on AUGI.