IFC
(Important, Fundamental and Crucial)
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LECTURES
3D ModellingHoward Gill, with his usual aplomb, gave a lecture on 3D Modelling presenting an overview of ArchiTerra and ArchiFacade. Encounter Groups - read Ben's account of his ArchiCAD Encounter Group.CASE STUDIESKajima Kajima are the worlds third largest construction company with offices all over the world. (I was only vaguely aware they existed). They have been using AC in their head office in Japan for some time and have recently begun to use it in the UK. The case study was of a seventy five million pound housing scheme designed by 3 different architects on Micostation and AutoCAD. The contractor took the architects construction documentation (all 2D) and fully modelled the schemes on AC (including all structural and M&E design) and then checked for conflicts using Navis Works. The Client was thrilled with the 3D work, which could be used for marketing purposes. Kajima spotted over one hundred thousand pounds worth of conflicts before proceeding with work on site and have avoided the delays, which would have been a consequence of these problems. The contractor pointed out that such checking was the architects'responsibility and that money would be with held from the architects'fees for not spotting these items. (The bulk of the people in the room visibly winced at this point.). The obvious question was why architects using AC were not appointed in the first place saving them the cost of work that should already have been done. Certainly the Contractor now seems committed to the model based system and the Client is also likely to demand this for future projects. Kendrick HomesKendrick Homes are a medium sized design and build contractor. They are now fully modelling their houses on AC having recently purchased it. David Emery of Kendrick talked through the process of implementing AC in the office, the resistance of AutoCAD technicians to change and the difficulties of working out how far to take the model. Seymour Harris. Seymour Harris are architects with more than 50 AC seats on the Mac and offices in four UK cities. Chris Phillips is an architect and their IT director. Chris talked about the problems of office standards in the larger practice, software/hardware upgrade costs, short term recruitment problems in a market dominated by AutoCAD trained technicians and the battle to get users in all his offices to adopt working in 3D. (Two of the offices being fully committed to modelling and the others being slow to fully embrace the system.). He also talked of the disaster of loosing Teamwork functionality when OSX was first upgraded and the importance of GS avoiding such bugs in future. Dwight Atkinson - evening lecture Dwight worked so hard that, after a day or two, he sounded like Paul Robeson. His lectures are informative and fun. He daringly took what was already a very good rendering and in fifteen minutes, on the fly, showed us Photoshop techniques that could be used to improve it. He looks at images with an artist's eye. Whist shown the two images side by side I would have no difficulty spotting the better one, however, I’m not sure that I can always spot what is wrong with the image prior to doctoring. I have come away determined to improve my knowledge and expertise in Photoshop (Dwight has already shown me many of the techniques needed). I am convinced that this is the quickest and most effective way of improving the quality of our presentation work. GRAPHISOFTIt was great to have such a good attendance from GS this year (both from the UK and Hungary). GS were much more interactive with us all than previously and gave the impression that they were interested in what we were saying. Ray Small CEORay Small gave an authoritative presentation. He headed off any potential trouble by a fulsome apology for the early release of 8.0 ('We have put in place individual, rather than group, responsibility to ensure that this never happens again'). 8.1 is to be released in October at no cost to those who upgraded to 8.0. On questioning he confirmed that those who had taken out the new upgrade licence agreements would also not be charged. He said that users should expect slightly less frequent but better implemented upgrades and that the new licensing agreements would ensure a more steady income to GS. We were told that Apple employees were coming to Budapest to help with optimising AC for the Mac. (I would have been happier if he had said they had already been. I have heard this said before and they always seem to be about to arrive in Budapest. I suppose this means that 8.1 has not been fully optimised on the Mac.) He showed figures for the return to profitability, but I noticed that the information available on the GS web site showing that this was achieved on reduced income was omitted. He explained that he was refocusing the company and had already made some key decisions. For example CYMAP the HVAC software brought only a few years ago by GS is now no longer being marketed world wide but just within its existing UK market due to the cost of the project for a company of GS's size. He explained that GS are not a cottage industry, but neither are they a large company. He emphasised that overall the GS finances were very healthy compared with others (he mentioned Nemetschek by name) since little risk had been taken in the dot.com boom and bust. Significantly, he stated that he felt that GS was too dependent upon AC and saw GS developing to make it less so. When asked if AC could compete with Revit he answered that whist Revit were real competition he was sure that GS could compete (what else could he say?). He also said that he saw this as an opportunity for AC since with AutoDesk evangelising the model based system many more 2D CAD'ers would migrate to 3D and people would not necessarily migrate to Revit. Whist this may be true (there was even one former Revit user at ACUE!) I also heard storeys of two companies with AC seats within AutoCAD offices swapping to Revit. We will have to see what happens before making a full judgement on the new CEO, but he did make a good (hard-nosed business man) impression and he has returned the company to profit, which is after all key to its survival and our software. I did not buy the "we did not have personal responsibility" line on the early release of 8.0. GS has never done an 'AutoDesk style'release before. A more likely scenario: The company is struggling with three quarters of loss; shareholders are getting restless (possible fear of take over bid?). New CEO slashes staff at Budapest HQ including R&D, 8.0 is knowingly released before it is ready to get income to return the company to profit. You can always apologise later and existing users are after all pretty much tied into the company by their investment! Simon Gilbert(GS Product Manager) then took us through a Beta of 8.1. Whilst this is not a major release (I imagine mainly bug fixing and tweaking) there were one or two nice new features. For example:
Paul LethbridgeWas introduced as the new head of GS UK. Clearly an appointment of the new regime he has a solid business background in the wider IT industry. Again, whilst only time will tell, I was pleasantly surprised and impressed. Katy Perry Was introduced as the new UK sales and marketing director. Formerly with Bentley and Revit, we are told that she has particular skills in major account and solutions selling. This is, I think, relevant. I note that since ACUE GSUK have announced a new partnership with Elancor to market GS products in the UK. Elancor is one of the UK's largest systems integrator, specialising in delivering solutions to major engineering and construction companies. http://www.graphisoft.co.uk/company/press_zone/display.asp?ArticleID=346 Andras Haidekker Presented the GDL Redsquare application, which was still not quite ready for release. We had had a very similar presentation at a previous ACUE. The application was slick and looks a good tool for manufacturers. In particular the relational nature of elements was nice (Revit has this). This would also be a nice advance in AC if it does not make modelling very large buildings impractical. Given the importance of GDL to the future of GS, I was disappointed that progress appears so slow in this area. IFC John Mitchell Asked, "Who knows what IFC is?"About 30 out of 100 put up their hands. (I thought Intermediate Form of Building Contract!). He then explained that it stands for Industry Foundation Classes and is about interoperability. It is an internationally agreed standard for the exchange of information. Oh yes, I thought, that old chestnut. Something, however, grabbed my attention and I decided to see why GS were pushing this by attending an IFC workshop the next day. It became apparent that GS are pushing hard to be the most compliant and up to date with IFC. I asked what profit was made by IFC work by GS. The answer was none. So Ray Small is cutting costs but does not cut IFC though there is no profit. This must be important. My take is that the success of IFC is the key to the future success of Graphisoft. It will benefit all Graphisoft's products. If IFC is adopted Autodesk cannot achieve a monopoly. Needless to say Autodesk, while mouthing support, will not be pushing this. Singapore is the first government to encourage its adoption (it is not in a governments interest to allow another Microsoft style monopoly to establish) and other governments are watching closely. Major contractors will also have a real interest in its adoption (Kajima for instance could just ask for IFC files from their consultants.). GS are pushing this so hard I think there is a slight danger that IFC will become too identified with GS. If this is the case it will jeopardise its uptake. (I can almost hear Autodesk saying "IFC? Oh yes that's ArchiCAD's system.") If it does take off (and I'd say that's 50/50) it should take off in a big way putting GS (at the forefront of its implementation) in a very strong position. Steven Hendry and Chris Cook attended ACUE. They are working on Heathrow Terminal 5 a huge project where all the consultants have been forced to use Autodesk. Here many of the single model environment issues and conflict checking issues are being addressed without IFC. It is possible that Autodesk & partners will achieve market acceptance of their systems becoming the norm before IFC is established thus killing it off. It is in all our interests to raise the profile of IFC as much as we can. I'm not sure just what we small users can do? Any suggestions? For more information see: http://www.graphisoft.com/support/ifc/ Workshops, Friday afternoon and Saturday morningMatthew LohdenI did not attend Matthew's lectures having just revamped our office standards and template files for 8.0. I did not want to be tempted to start yet again. Talking to others, however, these lectures were one of the high spots of this ACUE full of useful advice and tips. Maybe next time! Sanjay PatelPresented SketchUp a conceptual design software with a plug-in to AC. This very impressive software was beautifully easy to use. I felt that AC was looking a little dated in comparison with its interface and ease (though of course being a much more complex tool). Ildiko SzaboPresented Artlantis, AV-Works and ZOOM GDL. I confess I find it hard to concentrate on the right kind of software in her presence. CONCLUSION I have come away from ACUE very, very much heartened. Far from drifting aimlessly the new GS team seem to have a real vision of where the company is going and have refocused the company to give it the best chance of achieving this vision. This gives GS at least a chance of success in stopping an Autodesk monopoly developing. In pushing the IFC protocols they have a good chance of preventing even the possibility of a monopoly. By being the first software to be perceived to be fully compliant they have the ability to open up new lucrative markets to all GS's products. AC is no longer at the heart of GS, but it is an integral part. We can expect ArchiFM (again large and profitable clients will use this) and especially GDL (which has the potential to be the most profitable of all) to form an increasing part of GS's efforts. The key to all these developments will be the success of IFC. The company’s focus is now away from small architectural practices like my own and onto selling the model to large contractors (who will also be keenest to make use of IFC). If they succeed, architects (particularly the large and potentially more profitable ones to GS) will be encouraged to use AC. I expect AC's development to be aimed primarily at these larger users. In particular the problems of how very large buildings can be fully modelled and put together in 3D are being addressed. Again, achieving this ability to cope with large-scale projects before its main rivals (I understand that this is currently a problem with Revit) will give AC an edge. The large contractors will also have far more success than architects at persuading manufacturers to adopt GDL. The pay off for the small user will be AC's continued survival and our ability to make full use of IFC with other consultants and Clients for the exchange of information. ACUE also a showed that the standards of presentation of work have improved a great deal in the last year. Oh, and by the way Kajima, "Gi's a job, we can do that!" Benedict Wallbank Wallbank Architects London |
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