The Relational BIM - connecting a BIM database to the mobile web and the Cloud

If Google ever capitalized on Sketchup as a BIM tool, they would be dangerous. Just saying..

Persistant print-ready files from a BIM environment

UI::IU

User Interface - Intuitive Usabilty

I have to give credit to Hugh Macleod again - this print at the end says it all.

In design we often struggle with evolution. Legacy has killed many products, and the software industry often is not nimble enough to recognize when a wholesale revolutionary jump is necessary in order to keep pace with trending and market changes, keeping the brand intact but

changing the product. Few, such as Apple, have been able to truly both be evolutionary and revolutionary, but to no small degree by a clear vision and key perseverance.

Have you ever truly had an experience with a product that, is not only evolutionary in a new market, but could also be revolutionary in another?

This could be the advent of the mobile application market feeding back into the desktop lifestream.

How? Go, boot up your computer. A legacy operating system, built a step up but with an eye towards early adopters, technologists with a bent towards customization and programming, that has not kept up with the widening market of users that only want to click on an icon and run an

application. They don't want to know how it works. They don't want to spend hours trying to devirus the system or flush the cache. They don't want to dig for files.

They just want one window in which a clear set of intuitive interactions await their touch, sans thinking.

I handed my iPhone to my grandfather. This man, as I've come to discover, is the genetic source of my geekiness, a lifetime cabinet builder that bought his first computer at the age of 75. And, with his first touches, he got it.

And so, as a meandering wander through the computer section of Best Buy illustrated, Microsoft hasn't got it. A desktop. Sub folders. All exposed naked, as driven by programmers who supply the masses, historically true to their DOS predecessors.

But why do 95% of users need this? Why, when I go to the office, do I not press a button, and click a few icons into my applications? Why, when I need a new application, do I not click on the store and automatically install it on my computer? Why do I struggle through applications with 10 steps, with the illustrious 'install wizard', the very model of user unfriendliness for non-techs.

If the Chrome OS can spark a change, or Apple can scale their mobile OS to a desktop level, should Microsoft not be afraid? We never know how these elements pan out, but this is a landscape ripe for the taking. Will it be a push to the cloud? Will it be a redesign of a easily customizable, excessively user-friendly desktop experience, in which I have a hood covering the engine to my silicon car?

Let's hope so, if not to bring a level of stability and to finally show a significant step forward in our understanding of human interaction, and understanding of the how we behave.

Split the Data:Two are better than one.

Musings on massive (def: >100 mb) BIM datasets and a strategy for attribute seek optimization.

In working with a massive dataset on Revit (4 180+mb files, 1 120+mb, and 1 80+mb structural file, compressed), I have had the opportunity to observe the impacts to productivity and inefficiency of attributal seeking in the context of a large (+40 person) team.

Not good.

5+ minute load times. Multi-minute lag on certain commands. View load times. Save times. Reload latest. All of these add up to both actual and perceived inefficiencies in a BIM workflow. While the central database model offers many benefits, the question is how to improve on this?

While undergoing an experiment on a Linux CAVE system, I had the opportunity to work with a researcher writing his own modelling application. Our dataset was a +1gig ASCII file, and in doing manual edits on the dataset (ironically, on a homemade text editor), I had the opportunity to witness a search algorithm that was able to break the data into small batch sets, resulting in a seek time faster than a standard unix word count algorithm.

So, if it is possible to subdivide and partition the dataset in a way that allows for localized seeking, is it possible to modularize the data in a way that begins to prioritize a more efficient user experience?

This is an engineering question. Similar to current battery research, as batteries maxed out their golden ratio of weight to charge hold times, engineers have now had to begin studying ways to separate battery usage into a more efficient division based on the tasks that are being asked of it in order to extend lifespans while decreasing weight. If this same strategy is employed on a dataset, is it possible to separate graphic information from quick access from deep access data?

IE: Splitting apart the data when generated into clusters so as I access views, that information is both optimized in a location to speed graphic population and redraw on the GPU, as well as intelligent streaming caching to take away the generation lag, but not bogging it down anywhere else in the dataset? This could also allow for a separation of types of data, from representation vs. attributes, in a way that would allow a structural package to optimize data it is loading differently than an MEP package differently than an architectural package.

Combined in a cloud scenario, an optimized database manager can be loaded an run in parallel to the BIM app. The dangerous side of this would allow current modeling only applications such as SketchUp to, in parallel, develop an attribute database system that plugs into their software, giving them an instant competitive entry to the game.

This is what keeps life interesting. Carry on, diisssmissed!

BIM Nirvana

In the last few weeks I received a few interesting emails asking about my take on what would be the ideal architecture/construction software of the future.  After checking out to make sure that no responses were to the CAD companies, I set out to ponder this question...

Note, this is not going to address any of the awkwardness of this intern who is missing the big picture...

To process this out, let's think about the process of architecture in an Integrated Delivery manner:

The players: Owner, Architect, Contractor...Engineers, Sub-Contractors, Consultants.

Traditional problems: Systems developed in a vacuum. Keeping current with the design. Translations. Document control. Real-time cost tracking. Options studies. Information duplication/communication. Multiple offices/locations. Product accuracy. Specifications review. Design intent vs. constructability. Design review. Schedule and sequencing. Project management in the model/drawings. Redrawing and rebuilding.

So...

A software package that allows each member of the team to contribute, modify, view, and attribute in a single, modular, and tracked environment that automatically populates schedules, costing, specifications, and the real-time construction/fabrication/erection documents in a coordinated parametric BIM model that can be accessed globally, 24/7, from a single archiveable database that is hosted at a 3rd party secure location and spans outside of corporate firewalls.

That's it. Have at it Bentley/Autodesk/VICO/Google/Graphisoft/player yet to be defined. 

Hopefully one of you will get it right...

Linden Labs vs. Google : Victor takes the virtual marketplace

First: Thank you BumpTop. Your 3D desktop has recovered my desktop, a task previously unthinkable.  It's stable, and you guys rock.

Second: The migration back into a 3D desktop has reinvigorated a perception I've had on the futures of the virtual environments by Linden Labs and Google. It's no secret that I've wondered about Google's potential for SketchUp, but is that far enough? Is it possible that Google Earth is the real competitor to Second Life?

Hugh may be saying it best: 

Walk with me here - Linden Labs has combined the perks of a social chat room with a  marketplace.  Throw a 3-dimensional GUI over this, and that's it. Not much different than your Apple store and iPhone interface, except that you have cute little avatars (well, not that cute) and less control on quality environments.

So, what if you had the following acquisitions: A) a powerful, user friendly 3D modeling application;  a foray (failed, but still a foray nonetheless - RIP Lively!) into an online 3D engine; a powerful, global-based database & map/3D graphic engine; GPS synchronization; a social network/IM stream; an open-source mobile phone OS and handset(s); and finally, a powerful search and advertising/marketing network.

LL, be afraid.

This isn't to say that Google has all of the pieces, but Google has all the pieces. Sony may be able to bring a variation of this to the PS3, but they are landlocked to the console. Apple is missing the advertising connection.  Microsoft isn't even in the same neighborhood (open source? whazzat?).

So how do these pieces go together? There is not much difference if someone is creating something for the web or modeling for real-world architecture (I'm still waiting for Google SketchUp to take on Autodesk, but I've vented on that enough for now...). An intuitive modeler is an enabler, and being able to port to Google Earth is a gateway drug.

Neil Stephenson's Snow Crash speaks of a world where there is relevance between physical and virtual locations. Anyone with Google Maps on your iPhone know of the surrealism of being able to always know where you are, and entering into the virtual based on the physical brings a parallelism unprecedented in 3D environments. Discovering new worlds or landholding your real estate in both worlds gives the ability to sync retail brick and mortar locations with their online presences. 

Now distribute this to your mobile phones. Virtual searches syncronized with physical products. Tracking search and purchase over a distributed network on PC and mobile. VR synced to the physical, yet the parallel with the truly virtual. Advertising pushed to your phone through GPS, driven from the VR parallel, and vice versa. 

Combine this with attributal building information, searchable destinations, or even being able to recombine and build your own cities based on search criteria. Market data beware, you can have user data at an entirely different scale. People could build and share their own virtual 'cities', pulling people to search and build their networks with each other.

Unimaginable, no?

Why Google can dominate another market

So why are there new competitors to the throne of architectural CAD? There is definitely legacy, for sure in some of the big dogs - Autodesk, Bentley, Archicad. But, just as American automakers may soon get schooled by cross-disciplined tech startups in the Valley, is there a chance that diverse thinking or support may revolutionize traditional thinking? To point - currently trends in thinking, in a historically very conservative and legacy-driven application field, are causing a dramatic shakeup to the way projects are being delivered and tearing down walls between traditionally animosity-driven silos. And this is an industry that every year or two has went out and willingly upgraded to a 15 year old CAD package that was only slightly tweaked from release to release.

So what are the relative strengths? In the concept of database back-end, Google definitely has several strengths. Strong search functionalities, in-place server farms, and the fact that they already own SketchUp gives them a leg into the modeling arena. Abstracting this, why would they want to? A web-based interface with an intuitive modeling/building application, tied into their ambitious OS development in Android and advertising-based revenue stream would make a logical tie to a very flexible Google-driven open architecture virtual 3D web that could be cross-linked from PC to cell phone, potentially into gaming consoles, and give them the backbone to another entire evolution of the internet. Combine that with their vested interest in Apple with a potentially optimized Mac (or even OS non-specific architecture), and Apple-centric love of all designers and architects that have cursed for years the lack of a great CAD app for the G5's, and voila...a slice out of a nice little pie. Plus throw into that the revenue from ad-supported virtual internet, and the combined revenue from the CAD side of AEC, and potential startup investments in an entirely integrated ecosystem from scheduling, fabrication, and the visualization markets...how could they not??

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