ECOTECT Visualization

Now Autodesk has two green thumbs! In a press release published earlier today, Autodesk has announced that it has acquired ECOTECT. Let's see how they weave Revit, Green Building Studio and Ecotect together. FYI, here is a description of ECOTECT from the Square 1 website:

Ecotect is a comprehensive environmental design tool that covers a wide range of simulation and analysis functions required to truly understand how a building design will operate and perform. Environmental design principles, such as solar, thermal, shading, lighting, and airflow, are most effectively addressed in the early phases of the design process. With Ecotect tools, architects and engineers can measure how fundamental criteria will affect building performance in the conceptual and detailed phases of design. Architects and designers work easily in 3D and apply a rich palate of tools that are important for our customers to drive and support an energy efficient and sustainable future.

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The IAI (International Alliance for Interoperability) has just released the latest version of the IFC specifications as an Alpha version for discussion. If you have never heard about IFC, then consider this a great file format to exchange object-oriented building information (= entire BIM building models) between various CAD and analysis applications. Most CAD software (e.g. Revit, ArchiCAD) nowadays has the IFC 2x3 specification installed as an export option. With each new release, new features and entire building domains (facilities management, HVAC, GIS etc.) are being added to the format, which will ultimately turn it into a universal file format for all building disciplines.

Although I am still waiting for the timber design specifications to be included, the current version is already immensely useful - not the least for exchanging Revit models across multiple versions of Revit (a very frustrating missing feature). In any case, interesting new features in the IFC specification are:

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