Sunday, May 18, 2008

Looking for a few good Philly models (for research)

Autodesk has contacted me to help find Revit models of buildings in Philadelphia that firms would be willing to contribute for research under NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) conditions.

This means that Autodesk would use the files internally, but that model data would not be released for public consumption. Specifically I've been contacted by Chris Andrews who is a project manager for the PSEB Geospatial Group. The project that he is working on is called "Digital Cities", and I believe that we may have seen a very early demo of what they're cooking up at the '07 AU opening session (needless to say I don't know many people with 360 degree wrap around screens ;) ).

If you have a model located within the city of Philadelphia that you would be willing to share you can contact Chris directly at: chrisdotandrewsatautodeskdotcom (replace dot & at respectively).

I honestly don't know much more then what I'm telling you here. I can tell you that we will be giving them 4 models of buildings we've worked on here in Philly, and some of them are pretty messy files. My thought is that real customer data for a project like this can only help Autodesk develop a better product. Some sort of full integrated Geospatial program that leverages BIM data could be hugely valuable, however as we all know, that is a great deal of data and information to transact.

One other note, Chris is also involved with Autocad Dev Camp, which I believe is an annual event. If you have any interest in programming, or custom tool development, or how to stretch what Autodesk programs are doing for you, then from what I hear, this is the place to be. Check it out here: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=11000493&siteID=123112

I would consider going this year, but my June schedule is already booked to the hilt! Fun times coming up on the west coast for AIA LFRT & AGC, nothing like jumping around between two major professional organizations. :)

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