An initiative to encourage and aid design in wood-based products and make them readily available to designers in digital format has been launched by a leading Finnish supplier.
The Open Source Wood Initiative, founded by Metsä Wood, has joined up with product library ProdLib to provide a platform where designers can share elements and products.
The Open Source Wood Initiative provides an independent and open portal where anyone can contribute ideas and designers, teams and students to upload designs and have them peer-reviewed and discussed. The best ideas get reviewed by Metsä Wood’s experts. Open Source Wood is also one of the wood industry’s key digitalisation projects supported by Finland’s Ministry of the Environment.
ProdLib is a digital product library containing up-to-date design models from leading manufacturers. It provides thousands of 3D design objects available in the most popular BIM and CAD software formats.
ProdLib provides thousands of 3D design objects available in the most popular BIM and CAD software formats.
“Open Source Wood has enabled sharing modular wood elements. Through ProdLib, they are now easily available directly on the designers’ desktops in 3D format,” said Tuukka Kyläkallio, business development manager at Metsä Wood, who is in charge of the Open Source Wood Initiative.
“This is the first step. We want to continuously develop the availability and usability of the wood-based solutions shared on the platform.”
“The new Open Source Wood library consists of wall, roof and floor elements, compatible with Revit, AutoCAD and ArchiCAD software,” says Janne Virtanen, managing director of ProdLib. “We invite all architects and structural engineers to benefit of this new resource.”
The Open Source Wood element library on ProdLib is available either on a web browser through online registration or downloadable as a desktop application. The library currently contains a basic set of designs from Open Source Wood, but the library is developed continuously.
To see how to use 3D design objects in construction design software, watch this short video.
