July 23, 2008

Bentley, Autodesk ready to work together to allow interoperability

IAN HARVEY

correspondent

The announcement from the two dominant computer-assisted design software makers that they will work together to ensure their products are interoperable is described as a “significant step” by Canadian architects and designers.

Engineers, designers and architects are among the many construction professionals to use the software to create drawing of buildings and structures.

Between them, Bentley Systems and Autodesk pretty much control the CAD software market.

For years, the biggest complaint was that since both used different formats — when a document created on one system was opened in the other mdash; vital information and details were often lost.

With the continuing shift to designing almost all aspect of building project online — including setting up a system for monitoring LEED compliance post-occupancy — future interoperability issues threatened to create a major bottleneck.

“This is a significant step forward,” says Philip Beesley, associate professor at the University of Waterloo’s school of architecture, who also has his own firm.

He says the trend is for more dependence on CAD and related plug-ins that allow for pre-formatted components such as windows, doors and other systems to be slotted into a design and for the software to make all the necessary adjustments throughout.

Also, he said, software is being used to calculate a building’s carbon footprint based on design, and that too plugs into CAD programs. Such Building Information Modeling (BIM) tools are invaluable in the process, he says, because of the increasing demand for LEED designs and also to allow for monitoring of building operations after occupancy.

While Autodesk’s products are the most commonly used CAD programs in Canada, many municipalities and public agencies like the Toronto Transit Commission work in Bentley’s Microstation, says Toronto architect Richard Witt of Raw Design, a veteran AutoCAD user.

“Your choices were to buy both systems if you had a client or consultant who worked on it,” says Witt. “But that’s more duplication.”

He said the learning curve wasn’t too steep since both work in pretty much the same way, but going from one to the other often meant details didn’t transfer properly.

In a joint announcement, Autodesk and Bentley say they will open their source code and libraries to each other so that users can work with a choice of .DWG or .DGN files in their suite of architectural, engineering and construction (AEC) products.

“By improving fidelity of work shared between the two file formats, users will be able to focus on being creative and getting work done, rather than being constrained by file compatibility considerations,” the companies said in a joint statement.

“It’s an interesting development and one that will help architects and engineers immensely,” observes Douglas McLeod, executive director of the Okanagan Science and Technology Council and a registered architect.

However, it raises questions around the viability and options for other CAD makers if Bentley and Autodesk become the de facto standard.

Still, he says, there’s been a need for a standard protocol for some time and earlier attempts have failed.

“There’s tremendous resistance in the AEC sectors themselves,” he says.

He’s also curious as to whether Autodesk, with a massive suite of CAD tools for other sectors such as movie making, automotive engineering and inventors, will also work toward making their own products more interoperable with each other.

Both companies probably saw the writing on the wall, however, noting creative teams are often spread globally with different preferred tools according to their location and experience.

In fact, the companies acknowledged their feud for dominance has hurt their customers, pointing to a 2004 study by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology that found users bear direct costs of almost $16 billion annually from time wasted due to poor AEC software interoperability.

They also acknowledged a research report that found growing demand from owners and project managers for increased operability. Those surveyed estimated that up to 3.1 per cent of project costs are due to software conflicts.

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