Cost management is being added to Autodesk’s popular BIM 360 platform, the company announced at its annual Las Vegas conference, dubbed AU2018.
This new capability adds change management workflows and reduces risk by enabling teams to manage all cost-related construction activities in a single software experience, providing real-time visibility into the financial health of the project, says Autodesk.
BIM 360 connects data from the start of a project to the end by extending the value and usability of data and geometry across the project lifecycle.
Supporting core AEC project workflows in a single platform is just one element of the BIM 360 platform. Built on Forge, BIM 360 fosters a collaborative development environment within the software ecosystem.
Since the introduction of the BIM 360 Integration Partner Program last year, the firm says 60 new software integrations have been added, bringing the total construction partner ecosystem to more than 100 partners.
Software that BIM 360 now connects to includes 3DR, DESTINI Estimator, BuilderBox, EarthCam, Egnyte, FotoIn, HoloBuilder, SiteSense, NoteVault, OnTarget, Pype.io, Sensara and Triax, with many others in development.
One new Autodesk Forge application showcased at AU2018 has been developed by Atkins. Caterpillar (its working title) is a cloud-based solution that speeds up data access, simplifies design change and improves project delivery.
It joins up all parties working on a project and aims to give contractors, architects, clients, engineers and all other parties simplified access to real-time project data. It is able to assess and measure the impact of proposed changes and calculate the resulting impact in terms of cost and time.
At the conference Autodesk also announced that it was teaming up with software developer Unity to bring visualisation and real-time experiences to more industries: automotive; architecture, engineering and construction and additional media & entertainment customers.
Working with Unity means designers, engineers, construction and creative professionals using Autodesk software can quickly connect, collaborate, create, and deploy immersive, real-time experiences using their CAD or CGI data.
This enables them to make better-informed decisions about the outcome of designs, projects, and productions. And because Unity reaches 25+ platforms spanning the worlds of AR, VR and mobile, projects can be seen and experienced on almost any device, from anywhere.
The developments for BIM360 Autodesk’s flagship construction announcement of a “offsite factory” in a shipping container as it decreed that the lines between construction and manufacturing were blurring.
