RTC day 2

RTC day 2:
 ...and we're back!

Chris Razzell and David Foley are first this morning, tag-team talking about Next generation BIM: deeper collaboration + greater trust = better results.
The example for this session is that architect does some electrical, but then the electrical enginers does his work, and so some electrical components are duplicated. The speakers are going to describe their experiences with designing RCPs (reflected ceiling plans):

1. Create lots of views for the architect

2. Set up colors for different electrical components, fire suppression, and so on

3. Architects sets up center lines for the electrical designer to locate service; this might take one or two passes

4.  Add fire supression components, like smoke detectors, and adjust the location of components out of the way of each other

5. May need to adjust the scale of symbols.

A third presenter could not make it here, and he was going to speak on using Navisworks. In summary, the design team would access the Navisworks file through Dropbox, and see if there are any clashes. If not, then no resolution meeting was neede. Typically, the first clash detection is a scarey one, but then things get better over time as conflicts are adjusted.

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The sun is back. Lunch is done. And it's time for the afternoon sessions.
First up is Martin Taurer (see figure below) relating to use the history of BIM - Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. The first BIM program was ArchiCAD, developed by Graphisoft of Hungary, who used the term "virtual buildings." The term BIM was first used with the launch of Revit in 2000.
(At this show, I heard a story about how ArchiCAD came to be. Back in the days when communisim was still be imposed on Eastern Europe, Russia required Hungary to use Soviet-developed plans for constructing buildings. But the Hungarians did not trust the quality of the Russian designs, and so write this 3D software for checking the validity of the plans.)

Mr Taurer is taking us through the history of CAD, first 2D and then 3D. Sonata was the legendary mother that spawned all other object-oriented architectural design packages.  In the 1990s, 2D CAD vendors began acquiring firms and technologies to have their own 3D systems, such as Autodesk's pruchase of Softdesk and Bentley's use of technology from Bricsworks.
The other foremother is Reflex, acquired by PTC, briefly sold to end users, then acquired by Beck Systems, who call it Destini. Development on Revit began in 1997 by former programmers of Pro/E, under the name Charles River Software (the name of the river running through Boston). Launched in 2000, first only as a lease to keep a close relationship with customers. Two years later it was purchased by Autodesk, when Revit began running out of capital. The first name of Revit software was Perspective.




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