Photo top, courtesy of Rampart Hydro Services. Graphic, bottom, courtesy of U.C. Berkeley Peer Center Data-driven Rampart Hydro Services long used FileMaker's databaseprogram to keep job information. Now it has used a new version to build an app. Related Links: FileMaker Product Line FileMaker techniques blog One hot IT market these days is developing business apps. But some contractors are using an old tool to build their own.Rampart Hydro Services, a hydro demolition firm in Coraopolis, Pa., has long used Apple's FileMaker product to manage project data. Recently, James Pierson, IT and facilities manager, began using a new version, FileMaker
Related Links: A summary of the CIFE presentations Over the last 10 years, BIM/IPD/VDC technologies have matured. Design and construction teams have mastered the tools and the industry has progressed beyond the tentative exploratory stages. There are clear advantages in exploiting the technologies. The imperative now is to develop strategies for managing the technologies and deploying the tools.The point was made abundantly clear at the annual CIFE Summer Program, June 20-21, when presenter after presenter delivered reports on real projects that demonstrated breakthrough performance improvements in areas that included project quality, schedule, cost, energy and design-construction processes. CIFE Executive Director
Related Links: ENR FutureTech Conference Agenda FutureTech for Jobsites? CIOs Need to See ROI First Jim Balding, CEO and founder of the architecture and design- technology research firm The ANT Group, has three passions: buildings, technology and improving communication. Balding will be among the presenters who will highlight game-changing technology at ENR's FutureTech conference in San Francisco on July 10. He recently chatted with ENR about key trends. Balding What's an emerging tech trend that will disrupt how the AEC industry works? One of the trends that's starting to emerge is digital fabrication. It [enables me] to model something, highly
Related Links: Vela Systems FAQ on Acquisition In the wake of Autodesk's acquisition of mobile software tools provider Vela Systems, the companies are taking steps to reassure customers about Autodesk's support of Vela's products. The deal brings Vela, a field-management software player with BIM-in-the-cloud expertise, into Autodesk's orbit of CAD and BIM tools for every sector of the construction industry.As the companies merge sales teams and develop marketing strategy at Autodesk's Waltham, Mass., headquarters, customers should see no changes "in terms of what they can expect from their Vela relationship," said Jim Lynch, vice president of Autodesk's Building and Strategic
Related Links: DeWalt Mobile Pro at the iTunes App Store A new mobile app launched on May 2 by the toolmaker DeWalt lets contractors and tradespeople perform hundreds of calculations in the field, with instant feedback to show how the calculation was performed.The free DeWalt Mobile Pro app for the iPhone, iPod or iPad has five basic calculations as well as the option of adding "packs" for hundreds of trade-specific calculations and reference materials at various costs.The basic app includes a construction calculator for solving complex jobsite math, such as estimating the quantity of brick-mortar ties, the sand and cement
Image Courtesy of Trimble Second-stage tests will use Trimble's Ti GNSS Choke Ring Antennas to improve multipath mitigation for even greater precision. Related Links: Commercial Warning Buoy Launched Shipboard researchers from the University of Hawaii whose instruments unintentionally recorded the passing of a tsunami propose that commercial ships be equipped with similar devices to create an ad-hoc tsunami detection network at a fraction of the cost of deep sea buoys.The scientists were returning from Guam, where they had been measuring sea elevation in February 2010, when their precision GPS picked up a long-wavelength, open-water tsunami generated by an 8.8 magnitude
Photo by Shutterstock/ENR Related Links: Six eDiscovery Vendors Reviewed by Gartner Research Tips For Data Retention Best Practices (Gartner Research) Map of State Laws Regarding Rules of e-Discovery Move To Limit the Cost of E-Discovery in Lawsuits Gains Support More Information Tech News from ENR All it takes is one e-mail among a few million under today's rules of e-discovery. Maybe one was an offhand joke about delays or an angry post to the construction manager telling him to buzz off about the crew's safety procedures (before somebody got hurt). Maybe the firm's outdated retention policy has created too many
Developers of the first open consensus standard for the exchange of building information models hope to wipe out "lonely BIM" by greasing the wheels of collaboration among all parties involved in the creation and exchange of all different types of building information models.
An industry group that hopes to automate code compliance checks for 3-D building information models scaled back its proof-of-concept project recently because the process it hoped to measure against—manual 2-D plan review—turned out to be wildly erratic.
Image by Tom Sawyer Full Picture Photos are assigned to points called "rooms" on plans. Opening a plan and clicking a room delivers a gallery of all photos assigned there. Photos are further tagged by trade and will show up on the appropriate plans in a set. A new cloud-based construction photo-and- plan managing collaboration service is drawing praise from beta testers who started throwing projects on it within hours of its April 30 release."It's brilliantly simple. I can't believe we've been living without it," says architect Oscia Wilson, Boiled Architecture, San Francisco. Now launching a project, Wilson is tagging