From the Ground Up

Atkins Expands Strategic Adoption of Autodesk BIM Technology

http://news.autodesk.com/news/autodesk/20110726005868/en/Atkins-Expands-Strategic-Adoption-Autodesk-BIM-Technology

 

 

 

Autodesk BIM Award to M25 Project in the UK

Atkins & Skanska Balfour Beatty Joint Venture wins the Autodesk BIM Award for the M25 Project in the UK.

You can't miss this project if you are driving around London as I know very well from my travels.

 

  

Image courtesy of Atkins & Skanska Balfour Beatty Joint Venture.
 

Image courtesy of Atkins & Skanska Balfour Beatty Joint Venture.

Click this link to read more and also an interview with Hugh Woods from Atkins

Jack Strongitharm

 

Highway Design to the Extreme!

An article worthy of our attention.

Link to the article

 

Those that have been to AU in the last two years have been exposed to the excellent achievements of Parsons Brinkerhoff with the Presidio Parkway in San Francisco.

This past year at AU they dropped their model into a game engine and built a gaming rig to drive it.

Those in San Francisco's can try it for yourself at our Autodesk Gallery in the City.

 

Jack Strongitharm

 

Digital Prototype? - 3D Printing from Civil models

The days of balsa wood models in receptions of council offices get less as video and interactive models become so easy to do.

However the days of the print is coming back.

Led by the mechanical world with Digital Prototyping, 3D printers have become very popular to try out actual designs before committing to expense jigs and moulds to produce an actual prototype, saving more money than you would believe.

 

Nice for them, but what about in the world of Civil engineering?

 

Well it is more than possible, not directly from Civil objects, you can convert to 3d faces and create an AutoCAD surface from them and or using 3DS Max Design with the Civil Visualisation Extension you can export from there to a .STL file

 

One of the Civil consultants in Ireland called Arup have done just that.

The M20 Cork to Limerick road they have designed and wanted to try a 3D model print.

 

Autodesk has great partners around us and our friends at Stratasys, have the kit to test out the theory and the result is very good.

 

www.stratasys.com

 

Jack Strongitharm

Civil 3D Stars - Golder Associates

One of our top Civil 3D users in Australia got some coverage in their local Civil engineering magazine (Civil Engineers Australia)

Golder Associates

 
 

Paul Baker of Golder Associates (aka 'The Mini Guy', who you may have seen on forums etc) is pushing the limits with some huge datasets and enjoying now 64bit.

 

Download Golder Case Study

If anyone else has been covered in a magazine please share with our readers

Jack Strongitharm

 

Case Study - Oranjewoud

Read this case study on CENEWS.COM

Read here

Jack Strongitharm

Large Construction Project in Rotterdam

Last week while myself and Dave Simeone where in the Netherlands we were taken to a site in Rotterdam where they are increasing the port into the sea, by dredging sand and constructing the new harbour.

The site has been designed by Puma in Civil 3D and to calculate the volumes especially.

It was amazing to see this project.

Thanks to Jordy Brouwers (Geonius) to setting up the meeting with the guys from Puma and taking us around the project.

Take a look at the project website, http://www.maasvlakte2.com

Here is a before and after from their website, so you can see what project is looking like

January 2009

April 2010

 
  

A serious custom built crane

 Some of the old pumps and dreding gear that have worn out during construction

Jack Strongitharm

AutoCAD Civil 3D User Video

Back from my holidays as I managed to nip through the volcanic ash cloud to Florida to take my family to Disneyworld and luckily back just in time before they closed the airspace this week again!

On the civil side I saw their interesting highway drainage systems in the use of swales and simply just landscaping areas designed to store water in a storm.  In which I actually saw the most amazing thunder and lighting storm, where it constantly was lighting for a couple of hours and it belted it down in rain which would have completly flooded the UK!

I would have taken some pictures but the wife would have called that work or a sad geek.

A lot has been going on while I have been away with the launch of Civil 3D 2011 in which I and Ove will continue to post about over the coming days.

One thing that I want to highlight is a new video just been released which has a number of my users in the Benelux area who are part of the Benelux User Group that are arranging the meeting in June who I do consider as some of the best users of Civil 3D in the world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fX2l09QJTw

Jack Strongitharm

***Civil 3D Stars***

Some more top companies and local authorities in the UK and Ireland working their magic with Civil 3D.

Read their stories below

McNicolas

Clarkebond

Duffy Chartered Engineers

 

Kerry County Council

 

All these guys are realing pushing Civil and creating some amazing results!!

Jack Strongitharm