New Autodesk software allows visualization of more realistic bridge concepts

Autodesk has announced the Autodesk 2015 software portfolio of design, engineering, and construction solutions to help drive a global transformation to Building Information Modeling (BIM). The 2015 Suites for buildings, civil infrastructure, and oil & gas projects offer hundreds of improvements and new capabilities for Autodesk Building Design Suite, Autodesk Infrastructure Design Suite and Autodesk Plant Design Suite. In addition to the Suites enhancements, the Autodesk InfraWorks 360 family of offerings now includes enhanced roads and highways capabilities and new features to help civil engineers to model and visualize more realistic bridge design concepts.

“The architects, engineers, and contractors who use our products told us that they needed solutions to meet their real-world challenges, and we are responding. The 2015 Suites meet requests for greater productivity, improved collaboration, and more complete, better integrated BIM workflows," said Amar Hanspal, senior vice president, IPG Product Group, Autodesk. “We also continue to offer more flexible ways to license our software, as well as more cloud services to improve customer collaboration and efficiency. Together with our customers, we are transforming the way buildings and infrastructure will be designed and built going forward.”

Here are the new features available in all of the 2015 Design Suites:

Productivity and design improvements including:

An updated, modern interface for Autodesk AutoCAD 2015 and AutoCAD 2015-based products: Helps building designers and civil engineers quickly open new and existing drawings with New Tab, visually access drawing content with Ribbon Galleries, and easily find tool locations with new Help Window functionality
Integrated 2D & 3D quantification capabilities in Autodesk Navisworks Simulate 2015 and Autodesk Navisworks Manage 2015
Better integration with the cloud: New one-button access to Autodesk BIM 360 from Autodesk Navisworks Manage 2015, Autodesk Navisworks Simulate 2015, Autodesk Revit 2015, and Autodesk AutoCAD 2015 helps customers collaborate and manage their BIM project workflow and data
Enhanced point cloud capabilities include improved control over point cloud datasets and enhanced display settings in AutoCAD 2015-based products, as well as Autodesk Navisworks Manage 2015, Autodesk Navisworks Simulate 2015, Autodesk Revit 2015, Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2015, and Autodesk InfraWorks 2015, provide more realistic visualizations and walk-throughs

Building Design

Autodesk Revit 2015 software* offers customer requested improvements to help make it easier for architects, and engineers to:

Apply a hand-sketched, graphic style to models, using the sketchy lines feature
Include imagery in schedules to better convey graphical information
Create and manage changes with improved tools to sketch and control revision cloud shapes
Create more accurate documentation in 3D views using enhanced hidden lines capability

"As we've grown, we've committed more and more to Autodesk Building Design Suite because it gives us the complete digital toolbox we need not just to complete projects, but to innovate as well. While Revit is our design workhorse, and we use Navisworks to coordinate building systems, we also use many other tools in the Suite as well as Autodesk 360 cloud services,” said Andrew Watkins, Associate Principal, Ayers Saint Gross, a top 300 global design firm according to ENR Magazine.

Civil Engineering

Autodesk AutoCAD Civil 3-D 2015 software includes these improvements users have been asking us for:

Greater flexibility for designing and displaying corridor models
More efficient creation of profile layouts
Better production drafting to create deliverables more efficiently
More consistency between the AutoCAD Civil 3-D and AutoCAD ribbon/command set
Simpler ways to create custom subassemblies
Streamlined geographic location functionality includes ability to capture and embed Online Map Data (e.g. aerial map information) for offline viewing and plotting
Better interoperability and data exchange functionality for DWG and DGN files

Autodesk InfraWorks 2015 (which is included in various editions of the Autodesk Infrastructure Design Suite 2015 and Ultimate edition of the Autodesk Building Design Suite 2015) and Autodesk InfraWorks 360 (which offers additional cloud services that add collaboration and analysis for large-scale preliminary designs) offer new features and capabilities including: An updated user interface for quicker access to the tool you need Support for additional data formats including AutoCAD 3D DWG, AutoCAD Civil 3D DWG, 3D DGN, IFC, and Sketchup (SKP) CityGML import now supports schema location, building asset mapping, and self-intersecting geometry

Key updates for Roadway Design for InfraWorks 360 include style zones within road sections and fixed width parametric grading for roads with discrete control over grading, cut slope, and fill slope.

The new Bridge Design for InfraWorks 360 helps civil engineers explore preliminary bridge design options more effectively by modeling and visualizing realistic civil structures in the context of the surrounding proposed site. This new application helps simplify, accelerate, and focus the layout of girder bridge design concepts, and maintain consistent data and context.

Autodesk also released previews today for upcoming industry-specific applications for InfraWorks 360 including Drainage Design for InfraWorks 360 and cloud services including Model Builder for InfraWorks 360 and Corridor Optimization for InfraWorks 360.

Oil & Gas: Plant Design

Key customer requested enhancements to the Autodesk Plant Design Suite 2015 include:

Center of Gravity (COG) functionality to identify and edit COG for piping models, spools or components and produce COG reports
Fixed-length pipe modeling capability helps route fixed-length piping more easily
Bill of Materials capability to create tables and linked annotation when composing orthographic drawings

Availability

Autodesk Building Design Suite 2015, Autodesk Infrastructure Design Suite 2015, Autodesk Plant Design Suite 2015 and Autodesk InfraWorks 360 availability and related cloud services vary by country. Details and purchasing options are available at www.autodesk.com/purchaseoptions, with subscription options outlined at www.autodesk.com/subscription/overview.

Two innovations—program manager Gafcon’s SharePoint360 project management platform and a new BIM “wall creator” add-on developed by ClarkDietrich Building Systems for use with the Revit BIM platform and construction consultant—show how fabricators and owner’s reps are stepping in to fill the gaps between construction and design that can typically be exposed by working with a 3D model.