Building homes out of structural insulated panels has become an increasingly popular prefabricated construction type. Designing SIP panel houses in Revit requires a good deal of optimization in order to more easily reach the desired result on time and on budget.
We’ve optimized the process in the form of a specialized framing plug-in for Autodesk® Revit®. It’s called Wood Framing SIPS.
Join our free webinar on December 14th during which you’ll see the process of modeling homes with SIP panels in Revit. Using our Wood Framing SIPS software, the main task is customizing the settings to fit company standards. After that, the framing and documentation process is all automated, and your standard-specific configurations can be used again in future projects. We hope you can tune in!
Read more »As 2022 draws to a close, we here at AGACAD want to thank all of our clients, trial users, webinar participants, blog readers, and followers for making our work worthwhile. We’d especially like to thank our partners who work with us in their various regions around the world, in particular our fellow ARKANCE Group members.
As a sign of our gratitude, we are offering 50% OFF perpetual licenses of individual BIM Solutions for Revit from now until Christmas. And 30% OFF perpetual licenses of our Wood Framing Suite, Metal Framing Suite, and specialized framing solutions for CLT, SIPS, and OAK.
This limited-time offer ends December 24th, so place your order soon.
Don’t miss out on the best BIM deal of the year!
Read more »Drawing on the insights of our partners around the world, AGACAD is reviewing the status and specifics of BIM use in different countries. This time we look at Belgium, in discussion with BIM expert Peter Bruggeman from Arkance Systems BeLux.
Local challenges in the centre of Europe
While the European Union strongly encourages digitalization of architecture, engineering and construction, being in the heart of the EU has not really helped Belgium move faster with technologies and processes like building information modelling and management (BIM).
“In Belgium it’s always step by step, and first of all we’re going to look abroad – to Holland, France, Luxembourg, Germany. What are they doing? Is it working? What exactly is working? How can we start doing that too?” says Peter Bruggeman, the BIM specialist at Arkance Systems in Brussels.
Having regions with distinct languages –Dutch in Flanders and French in Wallonia– has not helped speed BIM adoption either. As an example, Autodesk Revit, the dominant software platform for BIM here, is available with a French interface but not a Dutch one. “If you receive a file from a Flemish architectural office, it will be in English. If the constructor is French speaking, they’ll open it in the French version; half will be in French, half in English. That doesn’t work,” the consultant notes.
Read more »In every BIM project, engineers, designers, and BIM managers need to be able to share and access the correct content. The simpler and faster this can be done, while guaranteeing content integrity, goes a long way to ensuring that the project will be completed on time and on budget.
When you share Revit families and family libraries with colleagues and clients, can you easily control how you share them and who gets access? Do recipients get notified if any elements have been added or updated?
Our new Smart Browser Cloud Platform can help you share libraries easily and manage who has access to them. Join our free webinar on December 7th during which our Autodesk® Revit® users will learn how BIM teams can further simplify content coordination. We hope you can tune in!
Read more »Designing MEP systems in Autodesk® Revit® requires hanger and support families to be precisely placed so that accurate builder’s work drawings can be made from the 3D model. Needless to say, it consumes lots of time that could otherwise be spent creating additional project value.
Join our free webinar on October 27th during which our BIM expert will show how to automatically insert hangers and supports in Revit models using the MEP Hangers add-on. He’ll also show how to then create detailed shop drawings using the Smart Documentation add-on. We hope you can tune in!
Read more »AGACAD’s Metal Framing Suite for Revit and CNC Exporter, backed by local partner Arkance Systems BeLux, have helped an innovative producer of modular buildings based in Belgium optimize and ramp up its sustainable offsite operations to meet surging international demand.
Client Profile
BuildUp designs, fabricates and assembles custom buildings, addressing modern construction challenges in an innovative, sustainable way which has attracted a strategic investor and is driving international expansion. With its headquarters and factory in Aarschot, Belgium, BuildUp is now active in Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, and French and Dutch overseas territories.
Partner
Arkance Systems BeLux is a regional leader in the supply of digitalization solutions for construction and industry, ensuring that digital transformation results in more effective business processes.
Business Need
BuildUp was born nearly a decade ago as the Belgian SME ‘beSteel’. It became market leader in all of Benelux for the design and production of light steel profiles and frames. But the company saw bigger opportunities for using offsite production to make construction more sustainable and deliver better buildings with greater energy efficiency. The global construction group BESIX shared that vision; in 2021 a subsidiary of BESIX took a minority stake in BuildUp to support its startup-like trajectory.
Read more »Generating drawings and completing other project documentation can take a good chunk of time even when you have a well-prepared Autodesk® Revit® model. Placing dimensions and tags, marking elements, creating legends, generating views and sheets can all be automated with AGACAD’s newest product – Smart Documentation.
As an MEP engineer, I know how time-consuming it can be to properly document a Revit model. So, in this blogpost I’m going to show 9 ways you can speed up the project documentation process and improve the overall quality of your Revit projects.
But first, a short intro about the productivity toolset itself.
Read more »When it comes to designing precast concrete projects in Autodesk® Revit®, hundreds of families have to be placed accurately for every element (Wall, Beam, Column, Slab) in the 3D model. And shop drawings for each element must be made with the requisite dimensions, notes, and other annotations according to various standards.
While all of those tasks can be done in native Revit, it’s tedious, time-consuming, and laden with chances for mistakes to creep in.
That’s why we set out a few years ago to streamline the process. The result was our Precast Concrete suite that eliminates repetitive tasks and minimizes the possibility of error in precast projects in Revit. Tune in to our free webinar on October 13th during which our BIM expert will show how to improve your workflow by adding not only automation but also flexibility.
Read more »Interested in finding a framing solution that you can use in Autodesk® Revit® projects, confident that it will keep up with and bring lasting value to your business years into the future? One that covers all the bases, from modeling and documentation to CNC export and panel logistics? Then you’ve probably found what you’re looking for.
Tune in to our free webinar on October 6th. You’ll get a high-level view of the typical (a.k.a. time-saving and cost-slashing) workflows used with our Wood Framing Wall / Floor / Roof applications for Revit, as well as the accompanying Wood Framing CNC Exporters and Panel Packer add-on.
Additionally, our BIM expert will show what can be done using our Wood Framing CLT, Wood Framing SIPS, and Wood Framing OAK solutions. Along with the results you can achieve, you’ll also see the new Wood Framing sample project that’s available for free download. A veritable timber framing smörgåsbord awaits you during this webinar. Don’t miss out!
Read more »Structuring data – classifying it – is key to unlocking the full value of BIM. It’s about clearly communicating design intent in order to more accurately budget, plan and build an asset (and then more efficiently manage it over its lifetime). Without classification, data is easily misunderstood and sometimes just not usable. Well-classified data has increasing value.
In the past the classification of building information was both less important and more difficult. It cost a lot of time and effort but often yielded little value. That has changed. Classification is becoming ever more important. More valuable. And easier.
Projects today generate more data. And AEC increasingly relies on that data to automate processes, make better decisions and operate devices. Look at all the add-ons for Revit and other platforms, the CNC machines, robots and VR/AR devices. The Internet of Things.
Moreover, the teams that undertake building projects are becoming more complex. Architects and engineers are creating models for use by cost estimators, consultants, contractors, fabricators and so on in multiple other organizations and countries.
In each case, all the actors – people, software, equipment – need a common language, an agreed-upon data structure. It could be international standards. Or national classification systems. Or custom ones. That depends on the project. But if BIM managers don’t decide on classifications and model creators don’t implement them, everyone suffers. In fact today many projects do suffer from mistakes and delays due to a lack of classification. Instead of a valuable “common data environment” they have a costly “chaotic data environment”.
We’re talking about effective data exchange. Harmonization. Interoperability.
So what’s the value created by classifying BIM data?
Read more »
