Home > Features > Feature Article


page | 1 | 2 | 3 |

 

[Sean Flaherty] I don't see us moving into civil. The calculation requirements are so different than are normal customers' requirements. To get into full highway design enters into a whole other realm of requirements and it would be a big move for us. GIS is something we'd move into before civil. It's more closely related to our current products. In some parts of the world you have to geo-reference all your information and put it into a regional master plan electronically.

I'm sure you must have heard the news from the recent E3 gaming show about the new console machines. I think the writing is clearly on the wall that the gaming world now leads the computer industry in pure 3D calculation performance requirements and, obviously, in the R&D that is going into this market. How do you see this technology shift affecting the CAD industry?

I agree with you. I think it's exciting because these games are trying to do virtual environments with lit fog and full shadow casting. And in real time.

In a sense a product like SketchUp is an architectural game reapplied to the AEC market and Nemetschek is moving in that direction. Video cards are doing far more now and there is a sliding scale of what can be done on a card. Apple's Quartz Extreme in Mac OS X is largely card hosted. We will be putting more code on the card aggressively over time.

Let's talk about Apple for a second. So, what do you think about Apple's new Tiger OS?

It's great. Tiger has across-the-board speed improvements for us. Even older QuickDraw calls are faster. And the selection is much faster.

Some Mac CAD companies like Graphisoft and Ashlar Vellum have come out with announcements on Tiger Spotlight compatibility. Do you see Spotlight on the horizon?

We are taking a look at it. We've actually needed a cross-platform search engine for both platforms. So we don't know about Spotlight yet.

Apple made dramatic announcements at last year's WWDC (worldwide developers conference) which didn't get much press at the time because it was at the development level. They announced a set of "deprecated" systems which included a lot of very commonly used Carbon calls. For us it was a gigantic announcement because of the impact on our future development.

What does deprecated systems mean exactly?

It's a list of calls that Apple says...they will no longer guarantee they will work with future versions of Mac OS X. This was a huge moment for us because we have a lot of legacy code. It clarified for us what we needed to fix, what we needed to focus on -- and where we could spend our energy.ÊAs we've talked about before, you know that VectorWorks has a core and a shell. Our C++ core is most important to us. PowerPlant is deprecated now. Apple won't break it purposely but they may not fix it either.

Isn't your Macintosh shell based on the PowerPlant framework?

Part of the shell is PowerPlant based. Dialogs are now cross-platform. We realized a while back that we need to have a C++ framework for writing our dialogs...so we wrote our own so it would be easy to update the program across platforms.

How do you think Apple is doing in helping developers? Do you guys attend WWDC every year?

Apple does a great job with all of its shows. And we make it a part to send at least two programmers to WWDC every year.

Sean this has been an interesting talk and I really appreciate you taking the time. I know you have a plane to catch as you head out to AIA but again I just want to sayÊcongratulations on your new CEO post and I wish you the best.Ê

Thank you...I always enjoy these discussions.

Closing Commentary

When Sean and I conducted this phone interview the day before the AIA National Convention in Las Vegas, I was wondering if the announcement timing with that conference had anything special built into it. I thought perhaps there was a new product on the horizon for the architecture market. No, actually, as Sean explained it the timing was purely a coincidence. Richard Diehl's contract with Nemetschek AG was ending the same day as the AIA convention. While Nemetschek North America was at the convention there was no "new" news.

During our conversation Sean discussed several things that surprised me and a few of them warrant more indepth reporting. I was particularly interested in his view of the BIM market situation and his sharp observations about SketchUp's popularity. As most of you know I practice in a fairly good size architecture firm daily and his comments about the world of US architectural CAD seem dead on with my day-to-day realities.

Values and Emphasis -

The predominance of 2D (Autocad) CAD is still squarely in areas which many of us would not be surprised to hear about. Namely, the 2D CAD market is often centered further downstream from the architect to where the shop drawings are getting produced. But not always. I am currently working on a project where a national timber-frame manufacturer is doing everything in 3D models using a Swiss CAD product that talks directly to their CNC milling equipment. When I asked this company why they left 2D CAD they said it had everything to do with the production efficiency of manufacturing timber frames. In short, they can cut wood faster!

When you contrast that reality with the reality that architects love a product like SketchUp which essentially makes 'planes in space' you highlight one of the fundamental challenges about BIM. That being that not every player involved cares about the same stuff. What's going to make the perfect BIM product very tough to ever produce is the fact that the efficiencies lie in very different places for different participants in the AEC process. This is an age old problem. Many architects are simply not tuned in to the goals of the builder and the builder is just as guilty about not being tuned in to the goals of the architect.

Sean's suggestion that there are really two types of BIM mirrors this reality that construction and manufacturing professionals have very different views and motivations within the AEC enterprise as compared to design-based colleagues. Architects and interior designers in particular derive much of their market value via their creativity, innovation and design judgment.

Design in the Market -

Not that long ago there were raging debates about what architects in particular should be valued for in society. If you ask someone in the construction industry they often give a self-serving answer. If you ask an AEC product manufacturer they too will often give a self-serving answer. They don't mean anything by it per se, it's just their vision being shaped by their business' view on the market.

But clients and the public at large are seeing the world a bit differently now. They see design professionals with a capital 'D' -- and they are placing more and more value in that. We live in the Martha Steward era. The era of the Bilboa Museum and the iPod. And perhaps more importantly, the era of BMW's being built in America. At this time design matters more then ever and consumers of design are willing to downgrade even substance issues such as nationality and origin of manufacture.

Sean's comments that there is Design-BIM and Construction-BIM fits nicely into this changing view of the world. In an age when machines are fashion accessories...and when even good design can turn Apple stores into places to 'hang out' then -- yes, I think Sean is right. The good news for software developers is, it just means more differentiation and more products for the market. ---- ANTHONY FRAUSTO-ROBLEDO, EIC, - 5 June 2005

 

 

page | 1 | 2 | 3 |

 

 

 

Home > Features > Feature Article

advertisements

 

 


NBC on iTunes

2promo120x240 

 

 
 

 

  | Corrections | About Architosh | Awards & Press Reaction |
| Site Map |

Privacy Notice | Contact Us | How to Advertise | Corporate Sponsorship |
Copyright © 1999 - 2008. BritasMedia Publications. All Rights Reserved.
Architosh™ and the ToshLetter™ are trademarks of BritasMedia™

 
Quantified - Quantcast