Day 2 at SPAR 2018 3D opened with a review of the history of AEC Systems and a keynote by a team representing Gensler, the designer of the new headquarters building for Nvidia. The presentation focused on the getting the “soul” of the building captured in the many design iterations. The goal was to create a place of collaboration and all of the modeling techniques were used from cardboard to virtual reality. Nvidia contributed massive computing resources to the design process which resulted in the most simulated building that Gensler had ever been involved with.
I spent the rest of the day on the exhibit floor for the most part. With the addition of AEC Next the exhibit area seemed huge compared to past years. The booths for each conference were mixed together which I think is a good idea. At times there was quite a bit of traffic and it will be interesting to hear if the two groups were talking to vendors outside of their conference.
There were no major product announcements at the show that I am aware of. I think all of the major scanner manufacturers are trying to become more of a total solution provider. This is certainly true for FARO as they have added a number of software products for the construction market.
The interior data collection carts were roaming around, but the product that seems to be hot is the ZEB-REVO handheld scanner from GeoSLAM. In 18 months they have grown from a couple of people to supporting 75 distributors worldwide.
Assemble Systems offers BIM data management software mainly for general contractors. They want to be the one source of truth for all construction data. They are creating a much simpler user interface to working with BIM.
It is going to be interesting to see what the feedback is going to be on the co-location and what the plans are for more integration going forward.
