Autodesk World Press Days 2008 -- Day 1.5

VIZ is being discontinued. Makes sense, with the increasing CAD-awareness of 3dmax, and the increasing rendering and animation capabilities of AutoCAD.

Phil Bernstein: "Contractors are the only ones who build full-size prototypes -- and then skip the final step."

Presenter from The Smith Group architects: "Design, Build, Litigate."

Mortenson is a family-owned construction business that does $2 million a year of business -- and forced themselves to switch to BIM. They're building a multi-story, multi-disciplinary building for the University of Washington, modularly. Modules, such as washrooms, are built off-site in a warm, clean factory environment. Then the modules are shrinkwrapped, and shipped to the building site, and slid into place. BIM is so accurate that Mortenson knows that everything will fit.

They're now doing the same using Navisworks to simulate the building before it is built, as well as run 4D simulations that show how the building will be constructed -- from digging the holes, putting up security fencing, bringing in cranes. All to replace the PERT chart. He figures that BIM reduced change orders by 31% -- covering the cost of implementing BIM.

12:50pm

Phil Bernstein announces that Autodesk is acquiring Carmel Software (closed) and Green Building Studio (announced). The idea is to integrate analysis with design; both programs had already been integrated prior to the acquisition. Carmel does HVAC software, while Green does green on the Web -- and Autodesk, being a California company, is big on the whole climate change thing.

Question from audience on the future integration of Civil 3D, Revit, Inventor, etc. Ans: eventually, but Autodesk needs to work out the workflow.

- - -

Brad Holtz: "We're predicting an explosion in software used by building contractors--"

Phil Bernstein: "You don't want to use the words 'explosion' and 'building' in the same sentence."

Inventor and Maya hooked up together to drive conceptual design -- to be demo'ed tomorrow.

Q: Will more analysis happen in the cloud, like Green Building Studio?

A: Yes, because there is so much more computing available on the cloud. Also, will help provide design specs specific to regions.

Comments

[Jason Delnyk]

Was there any discussion about their "Project Showroom" 3D Web initiative?

[ralphg]

Project ShowRoom was not shown during any presentations, but Autodesk had its Labs set up in a sideroom, where ShowRoom and other Labs software and hardware were being demo'ed.

[Jason Delnyk]

Raplh,

What was your take on Project Showroom. Where is ADSK going with this initiative in your view?