AGACAD will be heading to the Mile High City this week to exhibit at The Precast Show – the largest trade show in North America exclusively dedicated to precast.

Naturally we’re looking forward to this outstanding opportunity to showcase our software to the industry in the US! If you're not familiar with our precast software for Revit®, here's a quick summary of how it supports the advancement of the precast industry.

Our 2018 webinar season continues with our fourth installment on February 22nd. This one is about sharing Revit® content in BIM team. We kindly invite all Revit users, BIM content creators, and BIM managers to join in this webinar!

Content updates, tracking changes, quality control & more!

Thanks to all who attended our recent webinar on Precast Concrete. Our engineer showed how to model a precast parking garage, complete with detailing and shop drawings. This webinar was unique because he showed how to use Metal Framing Floor+ to add double tee slabs. He put together the condensed version of the webinar below to show the process of modeling a parking garage the way he did.

New versions of our Wood & Metal Framing software for Revit have been released! The improvements included in Wall+, Floor+, and Roof Panel Frame solutions let you easily sort and number walls, structural framing elements, and structural connection elements by your own specific rules configured via Sort Mark. Also, by using additional options you’ll be able to split parts and number elements at the same time as a wall is being framed — and update the details automatically!

In the enhanced versions, you’ve got these new functions in the “Shop Drawings” menu:

• Numbering Setup – opens a window in which you’ll be able to set numbering rules for walls, structural framing, and structural connection elements by using functionality from the framing software and Sort Mark configurations
• Number Walls – numbers all walls by the configuration, set in the “Numbering Setup”
• Number Elements – numbers all structural framing and structural connection elements by the configuration, set in the “Numbering Setup”

Check out the Jan–Feb 2018 issue of our AGACAD Advances newsletter! From the outset of the year, our sights have been set on creating tomorrow's AEC with a focus on AI for BIM, a common data environment, mixed reality, and facility management. At the same time, webinar season is in full-swing, further developments are coming out for our precast and framing solutions, and our add-ons are being added to the Revit App Store. Read the newsletter for a quick overview.

Our third webinar of 2018 will be on February 15th. This one's about creating complex connections automatically, and we'll begin with auto-generating multi-layered wall/floor/roof framing in Revit. That's just the preparation for the fun part, though! Once we've done the framing, we‘ll see how to distribute various connection details (fasteners, hardware, etc.) automatically using our Wood & Metal Framing software and, for even more complex situations, Smart Details, which lets you define rules and insert hundreds of elements throughout your project with a few clicks.

How can you distribute details with the Framing Software?
What are the benefits and possibilities of using Smart Details as well?
Find out in this webinar!

We kindly invite all current users of our Framing software as well as potential users to attend. If you're a modeler, designer, engineer, or architect in Revit, we warmly welcome you to join in this webinar. Our engineer will show just how quick and simple handling fasteners and hardware in Revit can be. Come and see how to do it for yourself!

From the day it was founded – February 1, 1991 – AGACAD has always been ahead of its time. It’s in the company DNA. For the past 27 years, we’ve been driving innovation forward by building on the insights of our clients and adroit BIM users to deliver the technology of tomorrow.

With the emergence of artificial intelligence in AEC and the myriad benefits it holds in store, our current focus is on BIMAXON and buildings with AI. For more on merging BIM with AI and how it will impact everyone involved in the lifecycle of a building, head over to CEO Donatas Aksomitas’ blog BIMAXON.

With a firm foundation under our feet and forward-looking clients at our side – all 11,000+ of them in more than 130 countries around the world! – we’re moving with steady steps toward creating tomorrow’s AEC.

Thanks to all who have been on this BIM journey with us: business partners, long-time clients, and those who have only recently found us — we're grateful for your support, encouragement, and trust. We remain fully committed to working closely with all of you to reduce BIM stress, secure BIM benefits, share BIM advances, and promote the BIM industry. Thanks also to our trial users, webinar participants, and those in the social media community. We hope many more of you will join in! And in a special way, thank you to our team of truly outstanding professionals. We couldn't do it without your constant dedication, drive, and ideas!

AGACAD's software is constantly being improved with newly-conceived features based on our clients’ experiences and needs who are BIM professionals in their industries. Having received some requests regarding our metal wall framing software and thoroughly looking into the possibilities with our clients, we’re ready to unveil several new and improved features that have been added to Metal Framing Wall+ and are available for all users. All you need to do is update the tool via the TOOLS4BIM Dock and then you’ll be off and running with the latest functions for framing metal walls.

So, what's new exactly? Let’s get right into it.

Load Additional Types

When you use the “Load Families & Schedules” command, only some example family types are loaded into the project:

However, if you need some additional family types, you don’t need to look for those families and types through the native Revit “Load Family” dialog anymore.

Let's start off with a brief look at what BIM is. The purpose of BIM is to give each actor just the information they need at just the right time throughout a building’s lifecycle to support its effective design, creation, and use.

• The “B” in BIM stands for “Building” – since it’s about methods and technologies for the effective design, creation, and use of buildings.
• The “I” in BIM stands for “Information” – the 3D representations and non-graphical data in the digital model of a building. It’s the key to managing a building throughout its lifecycle.
  • Besides 3D information – for design, engineering, and production – there’s also
    • 4D information that incorporates time (scheduling, planning, and control),
    • 5D which adds costs and analysis,
    • 6D that includes sustainability, and
    • 7D which looks at facility management over the entire lifetime of an asset.
• The “M” in BIM has three meanings:
  • “Modelling” – the collaborative processes by which actors create, update, and store relevant information about a building throughout its life.
  • “Model” – the ‘data container’ or digital model of a building where information about the building is stored.
  • “Management” – actors’ use of a building information model for their needs.

Libraries in BIM

Currently there are plenty of software options available, any one of which can be selected as a BIM environment for design. Most of them use generic libraries that favor the development region or country’s standards (Revit and US standards, DDS-CAD and German standards, etc.). To design a real building, we need real-world elements with real behavior.

Our second webinar of 2018 will be on February 8 and will cover precast concrete and the modeling and documentation thereof.

We invite all current users of our Precast Concrete software as well as potential users to attend. This webinar is ideal for structural engineers, designers & drafters, BIM modelers & detailers, and CAD engineers & technicians. Companies in building design & engineering, consultancy, and manufacturing are likewise whole-heartedly welcome!