Hear Paul McRoberts, vice president, Infrastructure Product Line Group, AEC Solutions, Autodesk discuss Building Information Modeling for Infrastructure. Paul opens with a recap of the state of BIM in the Infrastructure industry. Paul notes that infrastructure projects are getting much larger in scope and the industry needs to find new and better ways to tackle the huge problems facing us today.
Regarding BIM for Infrastructure, Paul walks the audience through BIM as it applies to planning, design, building and management of projects. Paul tells the story about a major firm in China that informed its employees that those adopting BIM will receive bonuses, those that do not, will not receive a bonus. He then recounts his experience talking to Civil Engineering firms in Australia working on road and highway projects, and the importance they see in adopting BIM.
To illustrate the value of BIM for infrastructure for planning, logistics, overall delivery of a project — beyond design, Paul cites the M25 highway expansion project in London to support the upcoming Olympics. The recent contract with the US Army Corps of Engineers for Autodesk BIM solutions is then highlighted.
A video from RBF Consulting is then played to share a customer’s perspective regarding the value of BIM for Infrastructure projects.
Paul then outlines the complete suite of software available for Infrastructure professionals with the new Autodesk Infrastructure Design Suite 2012 (Standard, Premium and Ultimate). The key point stressed at this stage is how the suites facilitate the full plan design, build and manage phases of a project.
Paul then outlines how Autodesk Map 3D and Civil 3D 2012 helps address data access, analysis and industry models. Next he discusses how Autodesk software applies to the Infrastructure planning process. Paul notes that Map 3D and Topobase have been integrated. To summarize this portion of the presentation, Paul discusses how Autodesk solutions for Infrastructure planning help users understand a project from the perspective of “what it is”, “where it is”, and “when it is” via the combined services of Map 3D and Topobase software.
The presentation then moves to a discussion of Infrastructure Design. Paul noted an Australian roads and highways customer who immediately saw the value of being able to change alignments and see all related elements in the design automatically adjust. And the value of analysis and simulation Autodesk BIM solutions bring to the table.
The presentation concludes on “where we are headed” — including an Electric Utility Design software package that will bring BIM to new disciplines. Paul then highlights Project Galileo, which he calls a “SketchIUp for Infrastructure.”
