In this post, we would like to provide you with an important clarification regarding upcoming changes to the buying and renewing process for Autodesk subscriptions on June 10, 2024.
Recently you may have received email communications from Autodesk requesting to set them up as a vendor in your procurement system. We understand that this may have raised some questions or concerns, and we want to assure you that these actions are part of an effort to simplify the way for you to purchase Autodesk software. As it states in the email announcement: “You will still request quotes and access value-added services through your Autodesk Partner (Robotech).”
Starting June 10, 2024, a new streamlined buying process will start.
You will still come to Robotech to initiate the buying or subscription renewal process, receive guidance on the products you need to buy or renew, pricing, timelines, services, support and other buying options.
After scoping your needs within your budget, Robotech will submit a detailed quote through the Autodesk’s quoting system on your behalf.
Once your quote is emailed to you from the Autodesk’s system, you can either accept or revise the quote, update your saved payment method, and complete payment to Autodesk, while Robotech continues to be your Autodesk partner advisor and support resource as done currently.
Once your software is purchased, your Robotech Account Rep will continue to be your go-to person for Autodesk products, services, training and support.
The new buying process will provide you with:
A simpler way for making purchase transactions on a single platform,
Consistent pricing for all your Autodesk products,
Self-service capabilities for added control and convenience,
Robotech as your supporting reseller and trusted advisor.
Action required before June 10, 2024: Set Autodesk up as a vendor in your organization’s procurement system in order to complete your next transaction or renewal. You can also contact us to renew your subscription early, before June 10, to take advantage of Robotech’s current payment system and terms.
If you have questions or would like to talk to us directly, either email or call your sales rep, or the sales-team mailbox [email protected]
We value your business and look forward to continue supporting you through this transition and after.
Autodesk has introduced Autodesk Workshop XR, an AEC-focused immersive design review workspace that is connected to its construction management platform, Autodesk Construction Cloud (ACC).According to Nicolas Fonta, senior director and general manager, XR at Autodesk, Workshop XR is a natural extension of ACC, designed for seamless and immersive collaborative design review.
With Workshop XR, AEC teams can review and collaborate on projects to track issues, catch errors, and gain a better spatial understanding of the design. With ‘automatically connected’ data from ACC, there is no need to prep models. Issues are automatically synced and tracked with ACC, with a view to making design reviews ‘frictionless and efficient’.
Multiple disparate users can collaborate in the Workshop XR workspace using standalone VR headsets. These are connected directly to the platform via WiFi. Depending on the location of the user within the BIM model, relevant 3D model data is streamed to the device and cached. All of the rendering is done locally on the headset.
For the best experience, Autodesk recommends the Meta Quest 3, but the Meta Quest 2 and Meta Quest Pro are also supported. While the initial focus is solidly on VR, there are plans to broaden support to other hardware devices. There is a functional desktop app in beta, which will potentially be released as a tech preview. There are also plans for mobile, including the Apple iPad.
Currently, teams can collaborate in VR to solve ACC issues. Alternatively, when design errors are found in VR, users can create ACC issues through a familiar ACC interface. Users get direct access to all BIM information, properties, and metadata.
The current focus is on Navisworks and Revit models, but Autodesk intends to broaden the types of formats and files that are supported in Workshop XR.
Workshop XR is a natural evolution of The Wild, the AEC cloud connected XR platform that Autodesk acquired in 2022.
According to Nicolas Fonta, the main difference with Workshop XR is its deep connection to Autodesk Construction Cloud.
The Wild offers integration with Autodesk BIM 360, but this is done by syncing workspaces and models. Whenever a new Revit, Navisworks or other 3D file is published to BIM 360, data is automatically pulled in.
“The source of truth for Workshop XR is your projects as they reside on ACC,” says Fonta. “It means that there is no need to wait between the time where you want to start a review session and actually being in a headset.
“It means what you’re creating, building and doing in Workshop XR does not go into a separate repository on the side in a different format. Everything you do, for example issues, it doesn’t create a Workshop XR issue, it goes and creates an ACC issue. And similarly, anything that happens in ACC is viewable and accessible in our XR solution.”
When design errors are found in VR, users can create ACC issues through a familiar ACC interface.Users get direct access to all BIM information, properties, and metadata.
In order for ACC data to be readily available for XR consumption in VR headsets, Autodesk has spent a lot of time focusing on the data pipeline. This will also have a benefit beyond XR, as Fonta explains, “We also want to optimise the data pipeline at Autodesk in general for viewing. So, what we’re doing is optimising everything and streamlining, so we’re streaming just the pieces that are relevant to the experience and to the user in the VR headset, with the intention of reusing those capabilities across the board at Autodesk on our platform to optimise utilisation and data access.”
Fonta told AEC Magazine that 600 million poly models have been successfully loaded into Workshop XR, but this is only the beginning as he explains, “We intend to continue the optimisation of our data pipeline so that ultimately, we could put in and send any model size to Workshop XR to be used and experienced.
“To be clear, we’re not saying that you will see the entire model at all times; what we’re saying is that we’re optimising for the experience based on where the user is, so that the relevant data (or where the person is located) and the use case or the task at hand and what they’re trying to do, will be available.”
Workshop XR cost $1,075 for a yearly subscription. AEC firms will also need to invest in ACC, although as Fonta points out there are many different levels. “Smaller firms might stick to the basic ACC and not go with things like takeoffs and all of the other products.
Workshop XR also comes with a free entitlement to Autodesk Docs. “You won’t give you the full fledge capability and all the bells and whistles but at least you’ll be able to connect, share with peers and do the basics,” says Fonta.
Stantec Finds New Flow with XR
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While deep in production work and late nights for a hospital tower project, Jon Matalucci at Stantec, a global leader in sustainable design and engineering, decided to try VR as an experiment. It immediately became an a-ha moment.
“One night before our Friday BIM call, I was pushing views to prepare the design review of the hospital tower project and thought, ‘Well, there’s a plugin in Navisworks for Prospect by IrisVR. Let me see what I can get back out of it,’” says Matalucci, a BIM and virtual design and construction manager. “Boy, that was my eye-opening experience. I could see things like electrical outlets floating in glass and exit signs down on the floor. It was immediately apparent to me that the team’s current workflow would benefit from this tool.”
At the time, the firm often used VR for presentations. But after that virtual design review, Matalucci never looked back. He immediately added VR as his go-to tool and integrated it into his workflow.
“There’s a perception that there is a project scale when you use visualization tools,” Matalucci says. “What we realized is that VR works on every project. From day one, we could start moving through the projects and process. VR became an opportunity to reduce the silos and work more efficiently.”
Experiencing new benefits
With VR reviews in Stantec’s everyday workflow, there are less meetings, less emails, and less back and forth. “Our meetings went from being an hour long down to 15-minute touchpoints and the meeting groups got smaller and smaller,” Matalucci says.
Collaborative design reviews provided new efficiencies. Anyone can pop into the model any time—even stakeholders. During one project, it was difficult to schedule night-shift nurses for their feedback. Matalucci and his team sent them a link to access the model in VR instead. After one VR meeting with the nurses on a Monday, all the feedback and design comments were done and incorporated by Friday.Even with the benefits, challenges in VR remained. It could take hours, sometimes days to prep the model for loading. Alignment across the platform and software was also difficult, for instance, understanding the source of truth. But, for Matalucci, the time savings, collaboration, and error reduction always far outweighed these factors.
“I’m constantly being tasked with exporting, pre-processing, and setting things up. Autodesk Workshop XR helps to keep those workflows together and enable further compression of the schedule. For example, it would take 3-4 hours per week to line up processing for two large projects at 400,000 square feet each. Now it’s streaming and directly connected to models. That is fantastic.”
– Jon Matalucci, BIM and virtual design and construction manager, Stantec
Autodesk Workshop XR delivers new ways to work
With the debut of Autodesk Workshop XR, Matalucci is putting new features and enhancements directly into action—many of which are solving his previous challenges.
Usability within Workshop XR is key as they previously relied on a web interface and manual transfer of information. Now a console “pops up” and allows him to browse, open, and review files immediately.
The ability to work with files from Autodesk Construction Cloud (ACC) is one of the most exciting advancements from his own BIM/VDC manager’s standpoint. The familiarity of the interface and using the software will help others in the company to readily use VR. He also sees real time savings by integrating team members in ACC.
Common data environment
“Before Workshop XR, if we had issue tracking as a separate activity, I’d often have to reintegrate it with other issues and then bring it all back into ACC,” Matalucci says. “It just slowed everyone down. With Workshop XR, our teams can now work in parallel, share the same information in a common data environment, and view and interact with all the different data sets and file types. It’s immeasurable in value.”
Some of Stantec’s projects are intricate healthcare projects. That means large, complex models—and it took a long time to prep and load for VR. By moving to Workshop XR from Prospect by IrisVR, there is no prep and the entire model is available to explore.
“It always required a dedicated amount of time to prepare the model,” Matalucci says. “I’m excited that all I have to do is grab my headset now, put it on, and I’m in there.”
At the end of the day, Matalucci believes Workshop XR is all about better workflow—with the emphasis on “flow.”
“We always use the word workflow in the industry,” he says. “But we can tend to focus on the ‘work’ and forget about the ‘flow.’ ACC has been incredibly productive for us. Working with both Workshop XR and ACC and seamless model loading without all the prep, we finally have that ‘flow’ piece going.”
Momentum and money spur state Departments of Transportation to invest in digital project delivery.
Granular, interoperable, accessible data is the key to unlocking a completely new way of working in transportation.
New interoperability between Civil 3D and AASHTOWare Project is the latest example of Autodesk’s leadership in transportation infrastructure with organizations like AASHTO and Infotech.
Digital transformation has the power to connect data across the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry.
Many of the world’s infrastructure systems were constructed for the population and climate of the mid-20th century and are well past their prime. In the United States, much of our infrastructure dates back to the 1960s and 1970s and was designed and built using what are now outdated design, construction, and project management methods.
To modernize our infrastructure, we must modernize the engineering and construction industry itself with digitized workflows that enable better collaboration and seamless flow of data throughout the project lifecycle. We call this process digital project delivery. We are excited to work with states and the transportation technology ecosystem to make this monumental shift.
Advancing interoperability for better project outcomes
Digital transformation is about to accelerate for the government agencies that design, build, and maintain our nation’s transportation infrastructure through a new joint effort between Autodesk, Infotech, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), and the Montana Department of Transportation (Montana DOT). Initiated by Montana DOT, this collaboration underscores the agency’s commitment to embrace innovative technologies and enhance efficiency in the management and development of transportation systems.
Together, we’re enabling interoperability between Autodesk Civil 3D and AASHTO’s construction contract solution, AASHTOWare Project, with the help of Infotech, the official AASHTOWare Project contractor. The interoperability will enable digital project delivery from design and documentation to estimation and asset management. Departments of Transportation (DOT) across the United States and Ministries of Transportation in Canada will soon have access to it.
“With state transportation agencies in full pursuit of digital transformation, we’re excited to continue our work with Autodesk and provide an interoperable solution to those organizations,” said Chad Schafer, Chief Revenue Officer, Infotech. “This integration will help bridge the gaps in data and workflow between departments to ensure successful digital project delivery.”
Autodesk Civil 3D is civil engineering design software that supports BIM (Building Information Modeling) with integrated features to improve drafting, design, and construction documentation.
The interoperability couldn’t come at a better time. Momentum and money are finally on the side of the state agencies that are responsible for our transportation infrastructure. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will make a once-in-a-generation investment of $350 billion in highway programs through 2026. This includes the largest dedicated bridge investment since the construction of the interstate highway system 67 years ago.
The need for new infrastructure is urgent, with 1 in 5 miles of highways and major roads, and 45,000 bridges in the US alone in poor condition. State DOTs and the industry have more reasons than ever to transform the way transportation infrastructure projects are designed, built, operated, and maintained.
In a significant move, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT), has established the Project Delivery Collaboration Center (PDCC), which is envisioned to be a Project Manager’s portal from project creation through final design, giving them visibility to details including, but not limited to, their project portfolio (two-week look ahead), cost (budget), dashboards and reviews. PennDOT has chosen to use Autodesk Construction Cloud as the primary tool for the PDCC. This decision, made with an agnostic approach, underscores a commitment to ensure compatibility and optimal performance across a broad spectrum of platforms, workflows, and systems.
Making data work for you
Data remains an untapped asset in engineering and construction, with consulting firm FMI reporting 96% of all data captured by the industry goes unused. But that’s about to change. The United States government is calling on state DOTs to use digital technologies such as cloud-based workflows, Building Information Modeling (BIM), GIS mapping systems, rapid construction, and digital project delivery.
States can compete for grants from the Federal Highway Administration’s Advanced Digital Construction Management Systems (ADCMS) Program to invest in technology that boosts productivity, manages complexity and cost, and delivers massive infrastructure projects quickly and safely. This ADCMS program will award $85 million in grants, showing a significant federal commitment to digital transformation.
At Autodesk, we believe that granular, interoperable, and accessible data is the key to unlocking digital transformation and driving a completely new way of working for engineering and construction teams. We simplified data management and collaboration by putting all our engineering and construction data in one location, Autodesk Docs, a common data environment that is open, secure, and accessible. Civil 3D is connected to Docs, supports BIM, and is integrated with GIS.
The new AASHTOWare Project integration closes a workflow gap by enabling state DOTs to take quantities directly from Civil 3D without error-prone and time-consuming manual entry. They can use GIS information in design, push the design information to project execution with AASHTOWare Project, pull actual quantities back to as-builts, and push data back into GIS for asset management.
“Interoperability between Civil 3D and AASHTOWare Project will help us connect our design phase to our field construction operations. It will save time, save costs, and ultimately, enable us to be more accountable to the taxpayers who fund our transportation projects,” said Patrick Lane, Digital Delivery Project Manager for the Montana Department of Transportation.
Granular, interoperable, accessible data is the key to unlocking a completely new way of working in transportation.
Advocating for the future of infrastructure
Autodesk is more than a technology vendor. We’re advocating for digital project delivery at the state and federal level. And we’re supporting states’ efforts to advance digital delivery for transportation projects. For example, the California Department of Transportation, Caltrans, is using Autodesk Connectors for ArcGIS to develop workflows between data sources to improve project delivery, and the agency recently received funding in the first round of FHWA’s ADCMS grants.
We also understand that states urgently need digitally skilled workers to successfully undertake digital transformation. So, we’re helping our partners empower current workers to be confident using the latest tools. And we’re working with DOT leaders and state engineering schools to make sure their graduates are ready for the digital future.
We’re here to help states deliver on this once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform how our nation connects communities and moves goods, people, and services.
Over the last ten years, Autodesk have integrated features into their product lineup to enhance customers’ creativity, automate repetitive tasks, and offer predictive insights through powerful analytics. “In 2024 and beyond, these capabilities will enable design and planning to become more effective, efficient, and better informed,” says Amy Bunszel. “For example, Autodesk Forma’s Rapid Operational Energy Analysis allows designers to understand how factors such as a building’s geometry and wall construction types will affect its predicted energy use–all during early stage design. Autodesk AI technology will help deliver better and more sustainable results for all.”
The expansion of Building Information Modeling (BIM) within construction is intricately connected to the upcoming fusion with AI. Despite its solid presence in design and engineering, BIM’s growing acceptance in construction is pivotal for optimizing AI in the industry. By serving as visual databases, BIM models gather abundant data from various construction phases, fortifying customer datasets and enabling more profound insights through AI.
Predictions for Emerging Tech in 2024
The utilization of emerging technologies like digital twins and virtual reality is gaining momentum in the construction sector. Digital twins are proving increasingly beneficial for owners and facility managers, offering support in areas such as remote asset management, predictive maintenance, and long-term asset planning. In response to the growing need for remote collaboration, Autodesk has introduced Workshop XR, a virtual reality workspace facilitating design reviews and issue identification before construction commences. This shift toward virtual reality explores enjoyable and efficient approaches to work, potentially shaping the future of work.
Construction firms are also exploring operational opportunities post-build, with digital twins providing rich data for informed decision-making by creating a comprehensive record from initial design to the completed structure. Additionally, augmented and virtual reality enhance the early evaluation of architectural outcomes during design reviews.
Read the full article from Autodesk: “2024 trends in the built environment: What to anticipate across AI, sustainability, and labor”, Amy Bunszel & Jim Lynch
As technology advances, architects need to combine technical know-how with high-level problem-solving.
Market pressures, technological advances, and climate change are driving the need for evolving skills in the architecture profession.
Students in architecture programs and junior architects will need to learn strong technology skills, gain an understanding of the history and theory of architecture, and develop high-level critical thinking to succeed.
As part of the job, architects will be called on to address the impacts of a project on its site, on nearby communities, and on global and local ecosystems.
The world is changing, and so are professions. The architecture, engineering, construction, and operations industry (AECO) is facing supply-chain issues, rising costs, labor shortages, and a high demand for buildings and infrastructure—and the architecture profession is evolving to meet these challenges.
But what do these changes look like? Accelerating technology, including machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), is one aspect. Architects are also tasked with addressing their projects’ impact on the climate and communities, as well as how to build space- and resource-efficient structures. An understanding of technology and the ability to problem-solve at a high level will shape the skills architects need to thrive in the future.
Merging technology and critical thinking
Key among architect skills is a solid grasp of new software and tools. However, Phil Bernstein, associate dean and professor adjunct at the Yale University School of Architecture, cautions against putting too much emphasis on specific technical skills. “At Yale, we teach skills in support of training people to think like good architects,” he says, “but we know that a lot of the skills we teach have relatively limited shelf lives.”
This is not new. When Alistair Kell, chief information officer at BDP, graduated from architecture school in 1993, his class was the last that didn’t need to produce a CAD drawing in order to graduate. After graduation, he had to learn how to use AutoCAD, then a prerequisite for getting a job.
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Today’s entrants to the job market are expected to have entirely new skills that are complementary to architecture, Kell says, like being able to use computational design, script and code, and understand data and data structures. But technological advances are already making it easier for architects to work with data without the ability to code. “If I want to write a Python script now, I just ask AI to write it,” Bernstein says.
In addition, many junior architects can easily leverage new tools for the projects they’re working on. “At this point, most students coming out of architecture school are digital natives, so they’re already adept at jumping from one technology platform to the next,” says Amy Perenchio, principal at ZGF Architects.
An ongoing need in architecture education will be fostering higher-level thinking among new architects. “Architecture is a profession where we solve problems, and technology assists in the solving of problems,” Perenchio says. “But critical thinking—in the design sense—is really the baseline skill set that is needed.”
Bernstein mirrors this idea: “What we’re really trying to do is teach these people to be next-generation thinkers about the built environment—what’s important about it and how to create it.”
For Kell, creativity remains a key component of being an architect, one he hopes the profession never loses. “Architects need to be able to leverage technology as a creative tool,” he says, “in the same way they would see a pencil or tracing paper as one of the fundamental aspects of how they express themselves and develop creative solutions.”
Using AI to support innovative design
One set of new tools that will have an outsize impact on the profession is machine learning and AI, though Perenchio says the industry is still in a phase of figuring out how to best bring these tools into practice.
David Beach, associate professor at Drury University, thinks AI will be “incredibly useful” as a technical tool, used to provide checks and balances and reduce the workload associated with modeling or redundant tasks, what Kell refers to as “the drudgery and repetition of what we do.”
Even more impactful, says Beach, will be AI for design creation. Where once it would have taken a team several months to generate 30 or 40 different design options, “now we’re getting that same kind of iterative design idea generation happening in minutes or hours,” he says.
Artificial intelligence can automate repetitive design tasks.
However, to use AI effectively as a design tool, he thinks there is a need “to establish a really strong understanding of precedent, analysis, and conceptual thinking.”
Kell agrees: “It’s not just about the software. The software is fundamental, but it’s the art of the architecture that really matters,” what he sees as “sensibilities around form, our own place, and our own materiality.”
“It’s important not to lose Vitruvius’s principles,” he says, referencing Roman architect Vitruvius’s three qualities necessary for a well-designed building: strength, utility, and beauty. “We can’t let technology drive us to a different outcome. The role of the architect is fundamental to enriching everybody’s lives, rather than simply supporting.”
Considering architecture’s impact on the world
One of the fundamental roles of architecture today is addressing human-driven causes of climate change. Bernstein says this broader approach is evident in how teaching architecture has shifted over the past 20 years from “making beautiful objects to making things in context.”
Design, he says, now involves “trying to understand what the relationship is between the thing that you’re designing and how it affects the larger systems of where it sits—on its site, in its neighborhood, in its city, and in a global ecosystem.”
Kell thinks new tools available to the profession will “help address some of the more fundamental challenges we’re all having, like how you better address climate change within your designs, and how you better calculate and reduce embodied carbon in your designs.”
In fact, addressing climate change is “all about data, and it’s all about digital solutions…that will normalize this for architects and engineers,” he says. “But it’s only going to come about through a greater understanding and adoption of technology.”
Beach also sees a need for architects, as “building experts,” to take on a larger role in adapting a building over its lifespan, based on both how the client is using it and how a changing climate affects a building’s performance.
Architects are increasingly called on to address climate change in their designs, such as using vertical or rooftop gardens to help regulate internal temperature.
In addition, given current supply-chain issues, labor shortages, and rising costs—and the potential for an influx of environmental refugees over the next two decades—he thinks students should learn skills that directly tackle these challenges. These include prefabrication and modular construction, Beach says. “Not that we think this is the future of everything, but we know that our students are going to have to be leaders in this.”
In addition to addressing climate change, Perenchio sees a strong need for finding “ways to engage the community so that marginalized groups can have voices at the table.” This makes it necessary for team members to have “a sense of empathy and emotional intelligence.”
While all architects need to consider the broader impacts of a project, Beach says the burden falls more heavily on the younger generations. “It is their responsibility to figure out how to usher us through these changes that are going to happen,” he says, and “to be responsible stewards of the environment and stewards of our communities.”