CU1711

TECHNOLOGY focus
Forging Ahead
Autodesk used their latest Autodesk University event to outline the road ahead for its developer
platform Forge, which will help transform the industry over the next decade
Autodesk's developer platform, Forge
is set to inspire some truly creative
thinking in the years ahead. Such
was the promise made to attendees at the
latest Autodesk University event, held in
Las Vegas in November.
Forge provides a cloud-based
environment for anyone who wants to
deploy apps and services in both
manufacturing and construction
industries. Single-user, file-based and
desktop bound CAD solutions are no
longer capable of delivering the same
collaborative, highly focused, information
rich and simple-to-use databases that can
be offered within a cloud CAD
environment, and to this end Autodesk is
set to offer its first end-to-end workflow
based around a Reality Capture API.
That's going to be closely followed by a
host of new Forge capabilities with
enhancements to the BIM 360 API,
integrating with Revit, and for the
mechanically minded a Design
Automation API for Autodesk Inventor.
In addition, Forge users will be able to
use the new webhook API to link their
applications to the most popular thirdparty
apps. Autodesk is going to follow
this up with other platform solutions that
will use the cloud server and build on the
Forge platform to deliver custom solutions
to their clients. The Forge Application
Framework SDK gives developers access
to reusable and modular components,
such as high frequency data
management, solid modelling and web
graphics to customise Forge and provide
tools for app building and publishing.
Everyone appears to be migrating to the
cloud - it's the rational thing to do - due to
its always available, up-to-date and
collaborative environment, and this is
epitomised by Autodesk's new partnership
with Dropbox, which enables users to
preview native .DWG files directly within
the popular file sharing app. There are 35
new .DWG files being added to Dropbox
every second, and according to Billy Blau,
global head of business development at
Dropbox, they already have 1.5 billion
.DWG files stored there!
AUTODESK FORGE FUND
What are the more specific benefits for the
construction industry? In parallel with the
roll-out of Forge, Autodesk established the
Forge Fund (around $100 million) to invest
in innovators, designers, makers and
engineers - in short, investing in people
who are designing the future.
The latest recipient of the Forge Fund,
announced at Autodesk University, was
Assemble Systems, Inc who provide a
Software as-a-Service (Saas) platform that
integrates BIM Models, drawings and
point clouds. This enables construction
professionals to condition, query and
connect the data to key workflows - bid
management, estimating, project
management, scheduling and finance -
which, as we are seeing in this country,
escalates the power of BIM across the
construction industry.
Integrating the Assemble Systems
solution with Forge strengthens the BIM
360 pre-construction offering with
enhanced support for data management,
quantification, estimation and other
associated workflows.
Assemble can also be used to extract
and federate models from Autodesk Revit,
AutoCAD and other design systems into a
project, providing the means for users to
sort, group and filter data from multiple
models and assemble them into
construction packages, to facilitate
collaboration with subcontractors and
simplify workflows. Assemble can also
keep track of design changes as they
update the model, reporting on the impact
that the changes will have on the project
quantity, costs and schedule.
FORGE START-UP INVESTMENTS
Three other start-ups involved in
industrialised construction have also
become beneficiaries of the Autodesk
Forge Fund this year, namely Smartvid.io,
ManufactOn, and Project Frog. Smartvid.io
focuses on using artificial intelligence in
the AEC industry and the built environment
as a whole. All construction projects have
a large number of photos and videos
taken at every stage of the construction
process. Smartvid.io has developed a
"smart photo and video management
platform" that leverages the imagery using
synthetic vision and deep learning to tell
you important things about any aspect of
aproject - only limited, I presume, by the
imagination of the user. It can, for
instance, be used to analyse a photo or
video and work out how many people are
using hard hats or safety glasses.
ManufactOn is focused more on off-site
fabrication and related issues - a SaaS
(mobile/web) platform that helps
construction firms plan, track and manage
both prefabrication and regular material
handling. Project Frog sounds very exotic,
but is in reality a pragmatic tool which acts
as a transformational cloud-based
platform to standardise and simplify data
flow between the architecture studio, the
factory and the jobsite.
The development of Autodesk's Forge
platform reflects similar trends with other
software developers in harnessing the
power of cloud technology to deliver
advanced solutions, leveraging the power
of AI, reality modelling, machine learning
and other tools to enhance collaboration,
analysis and insight within the industry.
www.autodesk.com
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November/December 2017