Autodesk enhances Building Information Modeling capabilities

LAS VEGAS, USA: Autodesk, Inc. unveiled several exciting new technologies for Building Information Modeling (BIM) at its annual user conference, Autodesk University. With this announcements and numerous other recent innovations, Autodesk continues to extend BIM value across the full lifecycle of the built environment for Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) professionals in the building and infrastructure industries.

"We are expanding the reach of BIM on multiple fronts- into conceptual design on one end of the spectrum and into construction on the other. Our advancements are empowering professionals to move from designing objects and simply representing their ideas in 2D and 3D to designing in context while optimizing and better predicting the performance of their designs," said Amar Hanspal, Autodesk senior VP of Information Modeling and Platform Products.

"Autodesk is helping to drive higher levels of productivity into the building design, infrastructure and construction industries both in the office as well as in the field with our expanding desktop, cloud and mobile portfolio."

For building designers, Autodesk announced a major update for computational design with the merger of Autodesk Dynamo and Autodesk DesignScript.

Autodesk announced that the BIM-based conceptual design tool, Autodesk FormIt, now includes a web-based application that runs on a choice of browsers for Windows and Mac (currently available in beta). On all platforms - including previously released iPad and Android versions - Autodesk FormIt gives architects and designers easy-to-use tools to create, collaborate and share early-stage design ideas and continue their BIM process by taking models straight into Autodesk Revit.

Looking ahead, Autodesk demonstrated a forthcoming feature in the FormIt family of applications that supports real-time collaboration, enabling future designers to simultaneously access and collaborate on design models using their FormIt application of choice.

Autodesk also announced the close of its acquisition of Graitec's Advance Steel and Advance Concrete product lines and associated employees. Building on Autodesk's current portfolio for structural engineering, the acquired product lines offer modeling, detailing, and fabrication solutions to support BIM-based steel and reinforced concrete workflows.

For bridge designers and engineers, Autodesk recently launched Autodesk Structural Bridge Design. Resulting from the August acquisition of technology assets from UK-based Bestech Systems, the new software is an important addition to the Autodesk BIM for infrastructure portfolio.

Autodesk also announced the acquisition of technology assets from UK-based Azalient Ltd. The acquisition helps support the evolution to BIM-based design workflows among traffic engineers and transportation planners working on roads, highways and railway projects. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Building upon Autodesk's existing collaboration with Topcon, the two companies are working together to further improve the integration of BIM workflows and field layout to support greater predictability, productivity and profitability.

Autodesk is developing a new BIM 360 mobile app for iPad that further simplifies the process of precisely locating BIM coordinates on a construction site. Designed for general contractors and MEP trades, the app controls a robotic total station - as well as the new LN-100 3D positioning system from Topcon announced yesterday - that can accurately position control and layout points on the construction site, and as-built data can be fed back into the design model via BIM 360 for quality assurance.