Create with Vision: BIM for Infrastructure on the South Fraser Perimeter Road Project
Thursday, May 31, 2012, 2:00 PM ET/1:00 PM CT/11:00 AM PT
Join us in a conversation with technology manager David Kasha of Stantec and learn how their organization implemented BIM on a large infrastructure project, the South Fraser Perimeter Road (SFPR) project, a Public Private Partnership funded project near Vancouver, B.C. ⇒ Click here to register today!

When Dave and I were planning the interview, he said something that made a lot of sense. He was talking about how Civil 3D training and knowledge are important for users, but it was most important to win their hearts and minds. If engineers, surveyors and designers don’t see the value in changing the way they work, it will be a difficult battle.

I’m out of the office this week for a bit of a family reunion at the beach, so I picked up a book called The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business to read when I am not preparing three meals a day for fifteen people. The more I get into the book, the more that Dave’s “hearts and minds” idea makes sense. Even when we want to make a change, our brains can be working against us. No matter how much good change will do, the old habits feed our cravings.

If I can break my habit of not finishing books, maybe I can come up with some interesting insight into BIM adoption for Infrastructure.

One thing that I can do right now is work on breaking my habit of working while I am theoretically on vacation. Someone said to me yesterday that I was on the wrong side of this glass door. You know what? They were right. See you Monday….

You can learn more from David Kasha and David deJong of Stantec and their involvement with the South Fraser Perimeter Road project in their recorded class from Autodesk Unversity 2011. South Fraser Perimeter Road: A $1 Billion Transportation Project in AutoCAD® Civil 3D®

The Florida Local Users Group is hosting their annual spring event June 6-8, 2012 at the Radisson Resort at the Port in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The event features a wide variety of classes and workshops led by a cross section of instructors- from Autodesk Transportation experts like Wes Newman and Alan Gilbert, technology leaders at FDOT, and civil infrastructure designers of all kinds.

I’ll be teaching a two-hour workshop called AutoCAD and Civil 3D Visualization where we take advantage of the visualization and design validation tools within Civil 3D to understand our designs, get visual and analytical feedback and ultimately produce a better design.

You’ll want to check out the complete agenda here. (pdf)

Register for the Florida Local Users Group event here.

I’m somewhat fascinated with the Bay Area. Perhaps even mildly obsessed.

You know that kid in your neighborhood whose mom was allergic to dogs but he wanted one really badly? He’d spend his afternoons with his face pressed up against the glass at the pet store at the mall? That’s me on car rides in California. I take in the deserts, the oceans, the brightly colored houses in San Francisco, the endless fields of artichokes and strawberries. I stuff real estate leaflets under my mattress. I dream of tidepools.

Of the eternal misty springtime air. Of the undeniably sexy infrastructure.

Then, I pay $4.50 a gallon for gas and that puppy doesn’t seem quite as appealing.

Regardless.

I believe that the only way to really get to know a city is to decline NeverLost, forget a map and let the battery on your iPhone die. All you need to navigate the city is a low resolution tourist map from a fish and chips shop that cuts off a few blocks after Pier 39. This makes for much better exploring!

In one of our unplanned tours around the city, we wound up on the Bay Bridge. Panorama immediately began freaking out, so I assumed she spotted Justin Bieber or some member of the original Star Wars cast walking down the street. It turns out, she recognized the bridge from the Bridge Explorer App for iPhone and iPad. 

Later that day, we gate crashed LucasFilm Headquarters to visit the Yoda Fountain.

Panorama: Can I meet George Lucas?

Me: No.

Panorama: What if we tell him that I’m a really big fan?

Me: …

On the way out of the Presidio, we once again wound up driving in circles. Then, I saw it! Doyle Drive! My own personal infrastructure Justin Bieber. I’ve worked on so many presentations that included simulations of this road project that I knew exactly where we were and how to get back on Highway One.

My only regret is that I didn’t have my husband stop the car so I could frogger across traffic and get my picture taken with the lane closure signs.

These experiences made me think about how we as civil engineers can contribute to telling the project story. What is the impact of public understanding? What if they know why the project is important, how construction will impact their daily commute and how to navigate the new design?

Consider this Autodesk Success Story from American Structurepoint:

From American Structurepoint’s perspective, model-based design processes were essential for the success of the project. “The ability to visualize our design and then communicate that vision to the project stakeholders was the true value of these tools on the Keystone Parkway project,” says Canfield. “Without that vision, this project would not have become a reality.”

Related posts on this blog:

We Must Get Better at Telling Our Story

Highway Earthquake Simulation and Rebuilding America’s Infrastructure

If you aren’t already familiar with the visualizations, simulations and media available for Presidio Parkway and the Bay Bridge, check out the project pages.

Presidio Parkway Press Center (Videos Library) or on YouTube.

Bay Bridge 360

www.infrastructure-excellence.com is hosting the inaugural competition showcasing Excellence in Infrastructure. The winners will be given over $25,000 in prizes by our generous competition sponsors. The competition is open to everyone in the Infrastructure industry to highlight the best projects done in 2011/2012. Simply register as a member of www.infrastructure-excellence.com and submit your project!

My kids are busy trying to figure out which of their projects to enter. What do you think?

Stormwater Management: Functional and Attractive

Intergalactic Earthwork and Shelter Building

Horseshoe Crab Habitat Dredging

Large Diameter Pipe Installation

It’s that time of year. That time of year where we wind up locked in a room with sixty technical specialists from around the world to discuss the coming excitement and they start doing things like sketching custom subassemblies and corridors on napkins when you are just trying to relax in the sun and forget about work for FIVE MINUTES.

(Follow Tim, my Australian colleague, at @CivilDownUnder)

Ahem. Getting back to my original point. I’m working on my presentations for the Media Summit, so I have been browsing through Slide:ology and watching a lot of TED talks on storytelling.

But the thing that has had the most impact on how I am approaching my presentations is a silly game I play called Draw Something.

You play the game with a friend. The object is to get them to guess a word based on what you draw. There is no winners or losers really, you win by keeping the game alive. You are motivated to draw something that tells the story of the word so that they get it. It’s silly and fun, but it has taught me a few things about my communication style that I’m taking to heart.

Two Lessons Learned (I am sure there will be more.):

The order that you tell your story matters. I have this bad habit of introducing a topic with a lengthy contextual lecture (see this post, paragraphs 1 through 6). I apparently draw this way, too. Last night, I had the word “Heidi”. I started by drawing mountains, a Swiss flag, then a girl and lastly blonde, curly hair. My partner guessed the word, but I wondered, what if I had drawn the target object first. If I had started with the most important point, then if he didn’t get it, add more context to finish out the story. If the goal of the presentation clear. If you have a specific objective, isn’t it better that they see what you are trying to accomplish sooner than later?

Know your audience and adjust the story to match. When playing with friends, I find we use a lot of inside jokes and shared experiences because we speak the same vernacular. When I play with engineers, we draw examples from engineering. When I draw with fellow geeks, I can pick words like Gandalf or Dumbledore and they will know the difference based on whether the wizard is standing next to Gollum or Harry. When I play with random players, I need to step back and keep my examples within a broader context. I can’t assume they are familiar with bad reality shows or geek literature. I need to adjust my visual story to match the way my audience thinks, what they know, and my relationship with them.

I’ll be blogging and tweeting from San Francisco next week. Hopefully I can take some of these lessons to heart and put on a good show.

There is still time to sign up for Jerry’s webcast tomorrow!

Webcast - Accelerate Survey Workflows

Date & Time: Thursday, February 23, 2012, 10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. PST

The techniques for survey are easy to implement, and survey data can be seamlessly transferred from field data applications into virtual design and construction models for display, reduction, management, and design. In this webcast presentation, civil engineering and survey professionals will learn how quickly and easily they can implement the survey specific functionality within the Autodesk infrastructure design solutions. Join us and learn how to accelerate your survey workflows to increase productivity and profitability.

Jerry Bartels, Autodesk Technical Specialist, will be your host at this webcast.  Here’s what he’ll cover:

• Site Investigation
• Leveraging GIS Resources
• Data Collection
• Importing into AutoCAD Civil 3D
• Survey Tools
• Annotation
• Collaborating with Others

If you love learning from Jerry as much as I do, check out some of these other resources:

Why Would Visualization Matter On Government Projects? (The post where I compare him to Papa Smurf)

CI5356 (from AU 2011)
It's About Time: Migrating from AutoCAD® Land Desktop to AutoCAD Civil 3D®

CV234-3P (from AU 2010)
"Field to Finish": Sculpting a Better Figure

My mini-me has made some progress in her road design from Point A to Point B. Watch Interactive Adventures in Civil Engineering: Episode 2 on YouTube, embedded below.

I mentioned that we’d be using five principles of BIM for Infrastructure during this fun little series. During the video, Dana uses the built-in design warnings when roughing-in a layout profile to take advantage of tools that help create a smarter design. She does grip editing of her profile to resolve some problems, taking advantage of faster changes. Tools like Volumes Dashboard and Project Silverstar (for cloud based profile optimization) give improved insight into existing conditions and reliable results with analysis and real time feedback for each design option.

You should visit the BIM for Infrastructure Screencasts to learn more about each principle. We composed these screencasts to give a “high level” view of how Civil 3D and the Infrastructure Design Suite fits into a BIM process. It’s the screencast you want to share with the Project Managers, Owners and other folks in your office who aren’t sure what BIM for Infrastructure means. You have to fill out a web form to get to the screencasts, but it will remember you so you shouldn’t have to fill it in more than once. Let me know what you think!

Learn more about the tools mentioned in Episode 2:

Project Silverstar (Profile Optimization) on Autodesk Labs

Project Silverstar Tutorial 1 (youtube)

Project Silverstar Tutorial 2 (youtube)

Volumes Dashboard

During the web series, we’ll apply five principles of a BIM for Infrastructure Process to help solve each problem.

1. Improved Insight
2. Smarter Designs
3. Faster Changes
4. Reliable Results
5. Better Visual Communication

You should visit the BIM for Infrastructure Screencasts to learn more about each principle. We composed these screencasts to give a “high level” view of how Civil 3D and the Infrastructure Design Suite fits into a BIM process. It’s the screencast you want to share with the Project Managers, Owners and other folks in your office who aren’t sure what BIM for Infrastructure means. You have to fill out a web form to get to the screencasts, but it will remember you so you shouldn’t have to fill it in more than once. Let me know what you think!

Further reading: BIM for Infrastructure from Buildipedia

This short video introduces a design scenario that I will work through over the next few weeks. I need to get a road from Point A to Point B!

The first exercise is to work through some early designs to make a decision- do I design a road that goes over the hills or around the hills?

Interactive Adventures in Civil Engineering with Dana, PE: Episode 1

Post your comments here or on youtube and I will get Episode 2 posted on Friday.

You might want to check out information about Autodesk Infrastructure Modeler and Project Silverstar to help you decide what my next step should be.

Conceptual Design for Transportation with Autodesk Infrastructure Modeler (youtube)

Autodesk Infrastructure Modeler vBook Tutorials

Project Silverstar (Profile Optimization) on Autodesk Labs

Project Silverstar Tutorial 1 (youtube)

Project Silverstar Tutorial 2 (youtube)

Volumes Dashboard gives you tools to aggregate the results of multiple volume calculations. For example, let’s say I have a road design. I have an existing ground surface and a proposed ground surface that is linked to the road corridor. My road is broken into three phases and I’d like to know the total cut/fill as well as the cut/fill for each individual phase.

Using the dashboard, I create a volume surface and assign boundaries for each phase. As I work through iterations that affect the proposed surface, such as a profile adjustment, I can see the effect in real time on the dashboard. I can also create reports at any time.

I created a video introduction to how this tool works. I posted it to youtube (embedded below). I will make it available for download shortly- typepad doesn’t seem to want to let me upload it right this second.