Over the past couple of weeks I have had quite a few emails land in my inbox about using AIM as a way to visualize 3D models and content coming from Civil 3D. Fistly, I have to say we love seeing these emails as they help to validate how powerful a tool like AIM can be when matched up with an incredible design tool, like Civil 3D. I would say that the effectiveness of the two is greater than the sum of their parts.
Having said that if you have "played" with the 2013 releases of AIM and/or Civil 3D, maybe you have noticed the new "Export IMX" button in Civil 3D and AIM as well as the import IMX capabilities in both. IMX is the new exchange format that allows you to exchange ALL relevant 3D content and metadata used by both apps. So, while the 3D model import/export capabilities work well for both AIM and Civil 3D, because IMX was built from the ground up to deal with the complexities of exchanging infrastructure model data, it does a better job in most cases and is more flexible than other 3D model types.
We're pleased to find a great review of Infrastructure Modeler on AEC Magazine: http://bit.ly/y9UYKX
This comes across as a well considered piece that validates many of the themes we were trying to address with the product around visualization, huge models, and communicating plans. It even confirms many of the requirements we're getting around using a tool like Infrastructure Modeler to track a model throughout the asset lifespan.
What I find particularly funny is the longevity and reach of this demo data set. Amusing to think that it was a 2D GIS data set I created 4 years ago for a MapGuide Enterprise demo of RestFUL web services!
One of Santa's special elven helpers, Lynda Sharkey, has helped create and deliver a virtual training program for Autodesk Infrastructure Modeler that we're making available to anyone who wants to take it.
Autodesk and HP are sponsoring the Excellence in Infrastructure Competition, designed as a deathmatch for engineering, planning, and architecture professionals who think they have what it takes to use Autodesk software to showcase complex projects using innovative workflows that combine model-based design, analysis, and visualization.
If you think that your particular stakeholders' need for clarity and vision has helped to hone your skills at planning, conceiving, designing, building, and managing infrastructure, then we're challenging you to submit up to 5 projects by May 31, 2012 to a panel of expert judges who will select 3 winners. Winners will have the privilege of being recognized at AU 2012.
Of course, if you think that I'm specifically encouraging participation by those awesome Infrastructure Modeler pioneers who are already stunning us all with their visuals, classes, and presentations on AIM... you know I am.
So... GO! Compete! Submit your work! And if you think that a little web and mobile tech can give your project that extra little bit of spice... don't forget about Project Galileo Online!
We look forward to seeing all of your great submissions.
Sorry I've been so quiet lately, but I've been "presenting my heart out" at conferences such as GIS in the Rockies and the URISA Public Transportation conference. It's been great to be able to present Infrastructure Modeler as a shipping product and to see and hear the feedback and reactions of customers in the GIS and transportation industries. I've posted below some of the slides from the overview presentation. There are several videos that go along with them, but I'm waiting to narrate them and get them posted separately.
The point of the talk is to walk the audience through some of the thinking about delivering better visualization and conceptual design solutions to our customers to help accelerate the planning and approval process, while also incorporating GIS and BIM data to ground the visuals in reality.
Some of the feedback I've heard is:
"Wow... you can do that with GIS data?" - My general impression is that mainstream GIS audiences haven't even considered that their GIS data could really be used in 3D
"You really need to look at Oil and Gas uses"
"You really need to look at telecommunications uses"
"Can you do animation?" (Ans: Nope... not yet)
"It's exciting to see this and you're opening up great potential for visualization in Transportation"
What are your thoughts? What have you been hearing about the need for 3D conceptual design in urban planning and transportation?
I am pleased to announce the release of Autodesk Infrastructure Modeler 2012!
Autodesk Infrastructure Modeler conceptual design software helps engineers, GIS and planning professionals create, evaluate,and communicate compelling infrastructure project proposals in the context of the built and natural environment. Use Infrastructure Modeler to drive faster stakeholder buy-in and more confident decision making with visually rich proposals of your next transportation, land,water, or energy project.
Thousands of you have tried out Project Galileo on Autodesk Labs and given us feedback on other related technology projects. I hope you see that we're doing our best to incorporate feedback from real customers and provide a solution that blends well with other products that you use, but simplifies some really complex workflows today.
Check out the product pages (http://www.autodesk.com/infrastructure-modeler) and download the trial. We'll be rolling out additional languages later this year. The help documents should be accessible from the product pages.
We'll post plenty of blogs and tips on Infrastructure Modeler capability and we look forward to hearing your questions and comments. Some of my favorite parts of Infrastructure Modeler are:
Thematic stylization of all kinds of 3D assets
Tooltips... Really... They're cool...
The scripting engine (watch for the docs to be posted here)
Making really big projects
Video production
Growing 3D data into 2D... pipes can be used for all sorts of interesting features if you use your imagination
Proposal switching
There's much more than that. Have fun exploring!
Autodesk Infrastructure Modeler 2012 is available widely around the globe and is even on the Autodesk EStore.
As always, if you have questions, let us know! If you have screenshots or cool videos... send them in!
I just wrapped up attending the C40 Large Cities Climate Summit as a guest of the Carbon Disclosure Project, an important group that we sponsor and partner with.
CDP Cities and their 1st year report was showcased on the mainstage by Mayor Bloomberg and others; a mention of CDP Cities was one of the last mentions of the closing ceremonies today
800 attendees including executive-level delegates from 70 globally recognized cities including New York City, Austin, Toronto, Berlin, Sao Paulo, Johannesburg, Yokohama, Taipei, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Portland, and many more
Mass transit and transportation solutions (focus on BRT, rail, bike) – Example, Santiago Chile is building 100s of km of paved, marked bike trails through the city and an additional 40km of subway lines or more in the near future
Building retrofit and roof whitening (NYC has 1.6B sq ft of roof space with only a few percent whitened)
City of Melbourne, Australia had a good talk about Access to Data and Smart Grid and actually presented a 3D model of the city and discussed GIS and Planning and the need for 3D modeling for information sharing
The summit was an amazing glimpse into the activities of some of the world's leading cities in the fight against climate change. There's clearly been a lot of good activity, but there's a long road to go. Hopefully our solutions can help pave the way.
The Labs team has posted a new Project Galileo video on YouTube. The video is narrated by Lynda Sharkey and explains some of the conceptual design postioning that we are exploring with the technology.
As always, Lynda does an excellent job and we'd love to hear more of your feedback on Project Galileo.
I previously posted about presenting at this month's GeoDesign Summit 2011, hosted by ESRI at their great campus in Redlands, CA. I am very grateful to have been given the opportunity to present to the group who was in attendance and to participate in the workshops that were offered. The other speakers were fantastic both in complexity and diversity of problems that they are solving and solutions that they are using.
In comparison to the 2010 conference, I would say that this year's conference was somewhat subdued. The first year presenters emphasized the criticality of the problems that we face as a civilization. Dean Thomas Fisher, UMn, gave a startling talk on our civilization as a Fracture Critical System that I'll never forget. The 2010 conference was the first time that I saw systematic recognition by a cross functional group that we have transformed from a society that inhabits and adapts to space on the planet to one that fundamentally changes and shapes the planet and the space around us.
This year, much of the emphasis changed to tools. There were even a couple of groups that referred to their "geodesign tools" or "their tools for geodesign." I also saw a tremendous focus on the bridge between Architecture and GIS, whereas in 2010, the discussions seemed more to embrace not only those two disciplines, but also engineering, construction, and even consumerism. Clearly, influencing the environmental and social impact of increasing urbanism is one important component in guiding us toward a more sustainable society. Next year, I hope to see more treatment of other systemic problems that GIS and engineering technologies address and which are other parts of this story.
For the talks, I was really impressed with some of the following:
Danielle Cummings from Texas A&M gave a great talk on ground breaking research into gestural sketch interfaces
Constance Bodurow, Laurence Technological University and Studio(Ci), gave a great talk about a 3D workflow with Google Earth, SketchUp, and ESRI products that showed how her group uses 3D GIS to examine social and environmental issues in Detroit
Chris Pike from the US Green Building Council reminded me that professionals in many adjacent fields to ours still don't appreciate the opportunity and power of even basic GIS tools. I'm glad his group is getting it.
I was happy to see Carsten Roensdorf, OS and OGC, presenting on CityGML
The programmer in me is always happy to see someone like Stephen Ervin, Harvard, educating the masses about OOP
Kimon Onuma gave an interesting demo of crowdsourced Urban Planning that was good for demoing the potential interoperability of Revit and GIS tools
Stuart Rich, Penobscot Bay Media, worked with ESRI to give a really compelling demo of using GIS for solving spatial problems using detailed internal floorplans for buildings.
... and there were many more great talks.
Some other key takeaways that I had were:
Continued focus on Planning, GIS-BIM, Sketching, Collaboration, 3D, decision systems
(I've posted a narrated version of my talk, though note that the GeoDesign committee plans to post all of the live talks.)
General desire by the customers in attendance for better interop between GIS and engineering software vendors
Concept of “Geography of Buildings” – Interesting trend to explore, analyze, and even determine the layout and form of interior and exterior buildings starting with external geospatial and environmental factors
BIM-to-GIS discussion focused on strong need for interoperability, increase in demand for facilities applications of BIM and GIS data, desire to figure out how to move BIM into operations workflow, views on BIM/GIS data for use in other systems
This week I'm spending some serious quality time with a variety of industry experts who are helping to define and expand a budding field called GeoDesign.
GeoDesign has several definitions, but the one I like best is by Mike Flaxman at MIT:
Geodesign is a design and planning method which tightly couples the creation of design proposals with impact simulations informed by geographic contexts
I like to think of GeoDesign as the entire planning and conceptual design process that precedes detailed design, although I would add that there is a moralistic element to the definition as well. Many of the GeoDesign community members recognize that a major point for better problem solving in this area is to combat global climate change and to optimize the economic, social, and environmental performance of our impacts on the planet.
What I'm seeing this week is many topics that are worth taking a look at within the Autodesk community. These include:
The use of planning and conceptual design output through the detailed design and into the operations and maintenance stages of the asset life cycle
The preponderance of groups beginning to look at the modeling of 3D volumes for internal building space (floors and rooms) within what could be called "3D GIS"... or in some cases... BIM-Lite
Sketching in 3D and sketched symbol recognition (really cool)
Rapid ability to share know-how by posting reusable workflows to the web (very good ESRI demo)
Tighter integration between the Infrastructure and Buildings community
What role Infrastructure, GIS, and BIM will or should play in Facility Management solutions (there seems to be HIGH demand for solutions in this space)
Driving more analysis into the workflow to derive more value from data... it's not just about the graphics
Perhaps most validating has been many snippets of information that show that we're on the right track with Galileo. 3D city scenes appeared in most of the talks I saw today. There has been sketching, collaborative workflows, 3D above and below ground, GIS and BIM integration... yet I clearly see a relevant role for Galileo in the midst of the workflows and other tools that are being discussed here this week.
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