BIM
Autodesk Acquires Data-Sharing Platform Datum360, Releases Data Model API
Software giant says the two moves will make it easier to share model data across projects
Autodesk has acquired engineering and construction data-sharing platform Datum360. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Image courtesy of Autodesk, Inc.
Autodesk has acquired Datum360 in a move it says will allow more connections of data across its authoring tools, such as Revit, and other construction project management tools. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The San Rafael, Calif.-based software giant also opened its AEC Data Model API, which is now available via its Autodesk Docs platform, a move intended to make granular data from its authoring tools more accessible.
Datum360 is a data platform for sharing information from the design stage of projects through construction and, eventually, operations.
"Datum360 and Autodesk are united by a shared mission to help our customers make their data a competitive advantage,” says Steve Wilson, Datum360 CEO. “By integrating our technologies, we’re not building a single source of truth, but a single source to go to and search for the truth."
Autodesk, with the release of the AEC Data Model API, is opening up its files and associated data formats to a more granular level of data sharing—allowing the underlying data that makes up a 3D model or a file at its elemental level to be accessed and appended for other uses in the design and construction process. Autodesk Docs is emerging as a sharing platform by making the API available from it.
"Docs is really our common data environment that we're moving towards," says Sasha Crotty, Autodesk's senior director of AEC Design. "We're expanding it, where with the AEC data model we're adding ... the granular capabilities there so, ultimately, everything that we're tying in is going to end up in Docs. That's where our customers will access all of their information."
Some Autodesk customers had already been testing the workflow using the API via Docs. Arcadis uses the AEC Data Model API for standardization across the firm's project data.
"The Autodesk Data Model API made it possible for us to extract data from our Revit models and centralize it on the cloud so it’s accessible within our organization,” says Joshua van Reij, BIM manager at Arcadis. “We’ve been able to reach 60% more structured project data using the API compared to our previous way of working. This means we can glean cross-project insights from more quality data and offer automated client delivery in a standardized way. Moreover, the API is not only used for new projects. We also delve into historical project data, applying AI to identify trends and insights that our teams leverage to generate new business opportunities."
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Autodesk has made several statements—backed by acquisitions such as Datum360–promising more data interoperability since CEO and President Andrew Anagnost took the helm in 2017. Such connections may initially favor enterprise customers, Crotty says.
"We want to evolve these capabilities to be available to more and more customers," she says. "We want to have consistent, definite classification capabilities across all of our products,"
Doing so, Crotty said, lends itself easily to what enterprise customers want to connect to other third party tools "that are really interesting for us to bring into the ecosystem. That's where we're going to invest, is figuring out how do we make the capabilities that [Datum360] has more accessible, and lightweight, so that kind of a mid-market customer can really start to adopt it, or a smaller customer."
