BIM on the Rocks

My Kids Recognized the Bay Bridge Traffic Configuration

I just got back from spring break in California with my family. Unfortunately, Lynn Allen’s guestroom wasn’t available. Or so she says.

I’m somewhat fascinated with the Bay Area. Perhaps even mildly obsessed.

You know that kid in your neighborhood whose mom was allergic to dogs but he wanted one really badly? He’d spend his afternoons with his face pressed up against the glass at the pet store at the mall? That’s me on car rides in California. I take in the deserts, the oceans, the brightly colored houses in San Francisco, the endless fields of artichokes and strawberries. I stuff real estate leaflets under my mattress. I dream of tidepools.

Of the eternal misty springtime air. Of the undeniably sexy infrastructure.

Then, I pay $4.50 a gallon for gas and that puppy doesn’t seem quite as appealing.

Regardless.

I believe that the only way to really get to know a city is to decline NeverLost, forget a map and let the battery on your iPhone die. All you need to navigate the city is a low resolution tourist map from a fish and chips shop that cuts off a few blocks after Pier 39. This makes for much better exploring!

In one of our unplanned tours around the city, we wound up on the Bay Bridge. Panorama immediately began freaking out, so I assumed she spotted Justin Bieber or some member of the original Star Wars cast walking down the street. It turns out, she recognized the bridge from the Bridge Explorer App for iPhone and iPad. 

Later that day, we gate crashed LucasFilm Headquarters to visit the Yoda Fountain.

Panorama: Can I meet George Lucas?

Me: No.

Panorama: What if we tell him that I’m a really big fan?

Me: …

On the way out of the Presidio, we once again wound up driving in circles. Then, I saw it! Doyle Drive! My own personal infrastructure Justin Bieber. I’ve worked on so many presentations that included simulations of this road project that I knew exactly where we were and how to get back on Highway One.

 

My only regret is that I didn’t have my husband stop the car so I could frogger across traffic and get my picture taken with the lane closure signs.

These experiences made me think about how we as civil engineers can contribute to telling the project story. What is the impact of public understanding? What if they know why the project is important, how construction will impact their daily commute and how to navigate the new design?

Consider this Autodesk Success Story from American Structurepoint:

From American Structurepoint’s perspective, model-based design processes were essential for the success of the project. “The ability to visualize our design and then communicate that vision to the project stakeholders was the true value of these tools on the Keystone Parkway project,” says Canfield. “Without that vision, this project would not have become a reality.”

Related posts on this blog:

We Must Get Better at Telling Our Story

Highway Earthquake Simulation and Rebuilding America’s Infrastructure

If you aren’t already familiar with the visualizations, simulations and media available for Presidio Parkway and the Bay Bridge, check out the project pages.

Presidio Parkway Press Center (Videos Library) or on YouTube.

Bay Bridge 360

I don’t even know how to describe it… Project Galileo

You’ve heard me (and Lynda and her dinosaurs) talk about LandXplorer and how I think it can really change the way that we as Civil Engineers and Infrastructure professionals tell our story and develop our projects.

Now, the next generation of city modeling, geospatial data aggregation and conceptual design tools are upon us with Project Galileo. Download Project Galileo for free from Autodesk Labs here.

If you haven’t taken a moment to watch the Project Galileo preview video- do yourself a favor and have a look. Bring your everyday, boring geospatial data to life. Combine with building models if you have them, or make some from building footprints. Slap in some roads. Try this, try that. See how it looks when it all comes together. Tell a bigger story, go through more designs. I cannot think of a tool that Urban Planners, Civil Engineers, Public Works professionals, Landscape Architects need more than this.

Learn how to get started with Project Galileo through the Tutorials Playlist on Youtube (you can also download the videos and sample data here.)

Speaking of telling our story- have you seen this animation? I am not sure whether to laugh, cry or start a grass roots action campaign whenever I watch this video that depicts a typical conversation between a public works engineer and a citizen on a street that requires improvements. Not only is some of our logic about road improvements flawed, but notice how the loveable bear can’t seem to paint a good visual picture of what would happen in the theoretical project, nor does he have a good way of selling the citywide vision or showing alternatives.

Civil Visualization Extension- Live on the Subscription Center!

The wait is over! Now is your chance to show me what you can do! I expect to see images and videos and LOTS of them, people!

I’ve uploaded a workflow demonstration for working with Civil 3D, Max Design and the Civil Visualization Extension to the Civil 3D Facebook Fan Page.

The Civil Visualization Extension is now LIVE on the Subscription Center for AutoCAD Civil 3D subscription customers and Autodesk 3DS Max Design Customers. (Formerly Dynamite VSP.)

For Civil 3D customers, you will need to install the 30 day trial of Max Design, then download and install the Civil 3D piece (it’s an exporter) then the Max Design piece (special content, civil-oriented user interface and more that runs inside Max Design.)

Once you have it all installed, read the detailed Using the Autodesk Civil Visualization Extension for 3ds Max Design and AutoCAD Civil 3D (pdf).

I also recommend Bruce Harfield’s class from Autodesk University 2009 where he shows a typical workflow from Civil 3D to Dynamite (Civil Visualization Extension). The whitepaper above is actually based on this class: Producing Compelling Visualization for Civil Engineering Project Proposals. There is a screencast you can watch online or download, and a podcast as well.

If you are not sure of your login information for the Subscription Center (or not sure if you are on subscription)- ask your CAD Manager or reseller.

www.autodesk.com/subscription

For more information about the Civil Visualization Extension, visit www.autodesk.com/civilvis.

Autodesk Acquires Dynamite VSP

You've heard Jack and I mention Dynamite VSP a few times in the past- it is a terrific way to link Civil Engineering data with 3DS Max Design to "tell our story" at any stage of the project. Visualization isn't just for the end of a project- its for every stage. Visualization helps the designers understand the project, the regulators, key stakeholders and the public.

Learn more about the acquistion here: www.autodesk.com/dynamite

One of my favorite stories about visualization for Civil Engineering is the Scott Wilson Story. The team at Scott Wilson designs highways and interchanges and use visualization tools to show people exactly how the project will impact them.

There is a video on the Autodesk YouTube channel showing an overview of Dynamite VSP.

If you are looking for a more detailed step-by-step demonstration and paper on using Dynamite VSP with Civil 3D, check out Bruce Harfield and Jack Strongitharm's class at AU 2009 Producing Compelling Visualization for Civil Engineering Project Proposals. There is a podcast, screencast, handout, powerpoint and movie that you can download.

And of course, our friends at the Benelux Civil 3D Users group do amazing things with Civil 3D and Dynamite VSP.

Some related posts about getting better at telling the civil engineering story:

http://bimontherocks.typepad.com/my_weblog/visualization/

Highway Earthquake Simulation and Rebuilding America’s Infrastructure

In another great act of civil engineering storytelling, the Washington State DOT has posted a video that shows what would happen to State Route 99 and the adjacent seawall in seismic event.

Can you think of a more effective way to get stateholder buy-in, understand your design, and educate the public? This video has had a whopping 92,000+ views in six days. How are your clients reaching people?

I found the video while checking out the Rebuilding America’s Infrastructure website to read an article by our own Karen Weiss, PE: Trusting 3D Roadway modeling to Tackle a Tricky Intersection. The article profiles the El Dorado County, California DOT and their use of Civil 3D. An excerpt:

Due to the dynamic nature of the model, modifications to the alignment or profile instantly updated the corridor and its associated daylight lines. As a result, the impacts of the changes were readily apparent, allowing the team to utilize as much of the available right-of-way as possible, avoid environmental issues, and clear existing utilities — optimizing the design all within a virtual environment.

That really is the true meaning of BIM- work through your alternatives and understand your design many times before finding the one that makes the most sense.

You may remember Karen from her work on the WisDOT webcast series. You can catch up on the WisDOT series by viewing these archived webcasts:

AutoCAD Civil 3D Customer Showcase- Wisconsin Department of Transportation

WisDOT and Corridor Building with AutoCAD Civil 3D

WisDOT Survey Workflow with AutoCAD Civil 3D

WisDOT Design Workflow, Data and Project Management

Other archived and upcoming transportation and road design related webcasts and resources can be found here.

Friday Whetstone 7-10-2009

I still have 3DS Max Design on the brain. In fact, there is so much running through my head right now I can barely take a moment to think of what I could even write that would sound reasonably intelligent or coherent. 

The past few weeks I have been knee deep in building datasets in Max, Impression, Civil 3d and Navisworks that show some of what they can do for environmental engineering projects- especially water resources.

Stream in Impression:

Dam in Navisworks:

I anticipate that next week I will be building some demonstrations surrounding rivers and stormwater, and I am looking forward to switching gears back into some more hard core Civil 3D uses and workflows, which will give me more things to write about.

One of the things I've been preparing for is a webcast coming up next Tuesday, July 15, 2009 at 10AM PDT. It's called: Design Vis Series: Visualization for Transportation: Using Autodesk 3ds Max Design for Design Visualization and Collaboration. I'll be talking about why visualization is useful and important for civil projects, and demonstrating how to get data from Civil 3D into 3DS Max Design. I'll be showing how Dynamite VSP can help with that process as well.

I've uploaded a short clip to youtube that shows the dataset that I will be using. The first segment of the clip shows a very simple drive through that is created very quickly from Civil 3D data using Dynamite VSP. The "helicopter" fly over portions of the video have been supplemented with buildings, landscape, and mountains using some simple 3DS Max tools. (Special thanks to Jack and Marion for their work on this dataset and workflow.)

A few resources I have called upon in the past few weeks that have helped:

• Dynamite VSP Community- Tutorials, videos and more
• AU Class: From 3D to 4D: Using Autodesk® 3ds Max® and NavisWorks® to Take America's Largest Infrastructure Project into the Fourth Dimension
• AU Class: The Natural Look: Kinder and Gentler Rendering with Autodesk® Impression
• AU Class: Signature Styles and Entourage for Autodesk® Impression
• AU Class: Interactive 3D Visualization of a River Renaturation Measure

To learn about watching recorded AU classes, read this post:

Can anyone get classes at AU Online?

Friday Whetstone 6-19-2009

So last week I talked about conceptual design for Civil Engineers. I'm on a personal quest to figure out how we might get started.

This week, I got a little bit closer. I've been doing some work in 3ds Max Design to prepare for a webcast I am delivering in July about visualization for transportation projects. While working through the dataset, I discovered a few tools that made me start thinking.

Keeping in mind that I am still a 3ds Max newbie, let's look at what I tried.

I had a pretty flat Civil 3D surface that has a river running through it. I exploded the surface then imported the .dwg into 3ds Max design.

The exploded 3D faces seem to know they belong together in max, even though they were individual elements in Civil 3D. This is interesting. It comes in as an editable mesh. I add an Edit Poly modifier and use the Paint Deformation tool to add some hills.

I then exported from Max to a .dwg, and inserted it into my original drawing. It comes back as an AutoCAD mesh object, which as I noted last week can be exploded and used to build a surface as 3D faces.

This was just an experiment (an ugly one at that), but I was very excited about how easy it was to mash things around. I also played around with some of the Graphite Modeling Tools to add tessellations for smaller triangles, extruding faces, and other tools that I don't quite understand yet.

I'll spend some more time on it this coming week and would love to hear your thoughts. What does conceptual design mean to you? Is it about site planning/land planning? Do you immediately start in Civil 3D with polylines, alignments, blocks, etc.? Do you sketch on paper? Do you ever conceptualize grading, or is it more like "pond here" with a rough 2D polyline shape?

Related Links and Resources:

Design Vis Series Webcast with Eddie Perlberg featuring Dana Probert (me!): Visualization for Transportation. July 15, 2009

More AEC Oriented Visualization Webcasts (and Archives)

Autodesk Assistance Program: I read the FAQ today, and it looks like 3ds Max is included as one of the programs that displaced workers can get training on. Take advantage of this opportunity! While you are at it, dig into Navisworks and Ecotect, too.

Navisworks for Wastewater Videos

A few weeks ago I posted a quick Navisworks video of the wastewater project I am working on. I mentioned that some more detailed videos were in the works- and I've finally gotten them. I created a youtube playlist for these videos (embedded below).

Navisworks and Wastewater Part I: Importing Different File Formats to Make the Model

Navisworks and Wastewater Part II: Fly Overs, Walk Throughs, Section Planes

Navisworks and Wastewater Part III: Clash Detection

Navisworks and Wastewater Part IV: Timeliner and Project Management Software

Navisworks and Wastewater Part V: Publishing Navisworks to Google Earth