The acceptance of BIM through the last decade has been astonishing. Once a slow-growing luxury for large construction firms, BIM is now accepted as a requirement on large projects. BIM has been around as a concept since the 1980s and began to gain regulatory traction in the 2000s. The technology got a leg up from European government bodies, which had … Read more
Usually, Autodesk University is a crowded, messy affair, full of front-line workers set loose in Las Vegas for a few days of hanging out, learning, sharing tips and tricks, gossiping, and so on. That hasn’t happened in two years. Instead, these digital conferences are all business and blessedly a lot less talk. Over this period, what has also happened is … Read more
Are you prepared for the cavalcade of headsets coming your way? Next week, the Augmented World Expo (AWE) conference will officially start as a hybrid. AWE was among the first on the trade-show circuit to announce in-person activities, and they have a busy virtual conference as well. The first time we were lucky enough to try out the Varjo headset … Read more
News is rolling out about XR devices and peripherals in advance of the AWE conference, which this year will be one of the first events to be held in real-life (IRL) as well as virtually and recorded. Many vendors aren’t waiting for the conference to introduce their new devices, nor should they. One side effect of this long pandemic period … Read more
The Open Design Alliance conference has become a sprawling affair. Each year, the working groups present their work for the year and member companies show how they’ve been putting ODA technology to work. They are a productive bunch, and after a decade or so of banging on the challenges of CAD documentation, the group developed a very long list of … Read more
As companies in design and engineering are turning in their second and third quarters for the year, it’s been fascinating to see how fortunes have changed. Nemetschek, like many companies in AEC, took an early hit when coronavirus came to Europe and the US, the primary markets for Nemetschek. But as we have seen over and over in AEC and … Read more
Xcelerator heads to the clouds. (Source: Cedar Fair Entertainment Company) Big news on the big industry front: Xcelerator from Siemens Industry Solutions is going to the cloud. Why? Because it makes a really great acronym: XaaS. And, more to the point, the cloud has always been Xcelerator’s logical destiny. Siemens says: “Xcelerator is an integrated portfolio of engineering software, … Read more
Autodesk CFO Debbie Clifford described Autodesk’s financial results as strong, and that they were and that they have been. In his introductory comments, CEO Andrew Anagnost said the company offered its guidance at the start of 2021 during a period of “unwinding uncertainty,” which does communicate the bit of suspense that has accompanied the journey through Spring 2021. Nothing today … Read more
Graphisoft tends to look outward to complement its in-house tools. Its wholehearted support of OpenBIM gives users choices. And over the last three years Graphisoft has opened up those choices with ongoing support for Rhino Grasshopper and by extension Rhino thereby beefing up the modeling options for designers to include NURBS-based modeling. The Archicad 24 introduction brought users the ability … Read more
Maxon’s new interface is cleaner, provides more room, and is easier to use for beginners, says the C4D developers. As they were building this updated version of Cinema 4D, Maxon says they were thinking about beginners as well as the program’s community of experts. The company claims this new interface is more intuitive, and tools are more accessible on … Read more
Organizers cancel in-person convention amid big name cancellations
At Siggraph 2021, filmmakers Gary Yost and Adam Loften showed their piece Inside Covid-19, which tells the story of one man’s battle with Covid-19 as a doctor and as a patient. The documentary follows Emergency Room supervisor Dr. Josiah Child who, early in the pandemic, developed safety protocols for hospitals in Northern California, and who had a very rough ride … Read more
