AU: Autodesk announces Autodesk A360 Collaboration for Revit

Autodesk University (AU) 2014 has just wrapped up and the design software US-based giant had many interesting things to share at their annual confab. Two of the chief things among them was the announcement of A360 Collaboration for Revit, the technology previously known as Project Skyscraper.

Project Skyscraper Comes to Fruition

The company is heralding a more connected future of BIM with its new Autodesk A360 Collaboration for Revit cloud-based collaboration services offering. For folks who are not aware, the ‘360’ moniker for all things Autodesk essentially means cloud or those new technologies and offering that are cloud-based or related to the cloud.

In today’s market multi-office collaboration on Revit projects rely on Revit Server technology scenarios, including the use of third-party tools that aid that technology along. The big news with the project formerly known as Skyscraper is that A360 Collaboration for Revit centralizes all data and collaboration services in Autodesk’s secure cloud environment. (image 01)

01 – Project Skyscraper becomes Autodesk A360 Collaboration for Revit, introduced at AU 2014. (courtesy of Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved).

“We are entering a new era in which abundant computing power and pervasive internet access are powering remarkable advancements in BIM, where information about a project is always accurate and available anytime, anywhere to anyone involved,” said Amar Hanspal, Senior Vice President, Information Modeling & Platform Group, Autodesk.  “Our aim is to equip project teams with highly connected, powerful services for every phase of a building or infrastructure project lifecycle. The expanded services we are announcing today are key pieces in achieving this larger goal.”

Available December 7

A360 Collaboration for Revit connects building project teams with centralized access to BIM project data in the cloud. And for those users excited about Project Skyscraper’s efforts, the new service in the cloud goes online for customers in North America on December 7 later this week.

02 – The onboard Communicator for Revit tool enables real-time direct messaging within A360 Collaboration for Revit. (courtesy Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved)

A360 Collaboration for Revit is designed to deliver a truly centralized collaboration and document management system where multiple stakeholders can securely access building project information from anywhere at anytime on essentially any device. (see device notes below). And it does this by providing a ‘turn-key’ solution hosted in Autodesk’ cloud. This helps solve the issues that come with managing servers, FTP sites, and inefficiencies that come with email and PDF attachments. Included with the subscription to A360 Collaboration for Revit is access to Autodesk A360 Team, cloud-based project collaboration platform (see another Autodesk announcement here) which allows the entire project team, even project contributors who do not use or have access to Revit software, to view, search, and socially interact with all project design data.

With both the web and mobile A360 experiences, all members of extended project team can work together more efficiently on projects, make more effective decisions and deliver superior results.

Onboard Communication Tools

Autodesk also offers a robust series of mobile apps for reaching the A360 Collaboration platform. Integral to A360 Collaboration for Revit, the Communicator for Revit provides an in-context chat tool where all members of the team can directly communicate with each other, in real time while working on their project models in Autodesk Revit. (see image 02)

Autodesk equates Communicator as being a replacement for both email and phone work, providing push notifications on new chat messages and updates, connection requests, and sync status for workshared models. All to help team members work better together.

Describing his firm’s use of the beta version of A360 Collaboration for Revit on a major renovation project for the Oregon State Capitol building, Bjorn Clouten, project manager and senior associate architect at SRG Partnership said: “We’re sharing linked BIM project models with the entire project team in the cloud. Everyone has instant access to the latest information. It’s terrific. We’re enjoying the kind of smooth BIM collaboration that we’ve sought for more than 10 years.”

Autodesk also announced  InfraWorks 360 and we will discuss that briefly in another report. Visit Autodesk here to learn more about A360 Collaborate for Revit.