A Multi-Core Monster: Your new Mac Pro

So to make things clearer. We adore Autodesk. We adore Nemetschek Vectorworks. We adore Graphisoft and we adore anyone who makes great stuff for Apple’s platforms in the Mac and iOS space.

And speaking of making…

Autodesk doesn’t make Revit for Mac OS X. Yet. But let’s pretend for a second that it did. Would the new Mac Pros run it as well as other leading and contending BIM packages? What about ArchiCAD?

A BOXX Story

Over at super-workstation maker BOXX. And yes, it’s impossible not to adore them–we just don’t have a good reason to write about them–they have published a report (PDF) on configuring the ultimate Revit workstation. And the conclusion after reading this report is that the new Mac Pro wouldn’t be the best workstation for Revit even if it was available on the Mac.

01 – The new Mac Pro. At 2,999.USD it will debut as one of the most expensive Mac Pros ever but clearly the most powerful.

According to BOXX, Revit doesn’t do anything with multi-cores (or at least very little). Nor does it utilize super powerful workstation graphics cards either. The ultimate workstation for Revit is a single-processor Intel quad-core i7 with over-clocking to upper 4 GHz range. The deep caches and multiple high cores of Xeons–like those in the new Mac Pro–don’t add any performance value for Revit like a faster clocked single CPU. And the i7 is able to be over-clocked to something approaching silly.

ArchiCAD 17 however is an entirely different story. The latest version of ArchiCAD will utilize many cores quite well with its multi-core, oriented background processing performance algorithms.

The new Mac Pros come in Xeons that are quad, 6, 8 and 12 core options. While the clocks must slow a bit for the additional cores a BIM program like ArchiCAD will utilize the new Mac Pros cores really well.

Graphisoft director of global marketing, Akos Pfemeter, told Architosh back in June that its BIM program will absolutely take advantage of all 12 cores in a new Mac Pro.

“Multiprocessing support is critical for the BIM database heavy processing, which involves model generation,” says Pfemeter. “And the 12 cores of the Mac Pro will also be utilized for ArchiCAD’s brand new background processing support for both data caching and populating model changes across the BIM.”

 [see, Architosh, “CAD/3D Industry Responds to Apple’s New Mac Pro,” 22 July 2013.]

Mac Pro Flexibility

Apple has really done it this time. It’s giving users a more closed system but it is also giving pro users for the very first time more CPU and GPU configuration options than ever before. You can pair the mighty D700 with the quad-core Xeon or you can go more efficient with D300 or D500.

You can scale your CPU choice from a typical quad-core (which is baseline these days for a performance processor…and by the way the baseline according to BOXX for a Revit workstation) or you can add 2, 4 or 8 more cores to the mix. It depends on your precise workflow and budget for a new workstation.

Will a new Mac Pro be an awful mistake for a killer Revit machine (running under Boot Camp)?

Apple would say no and BOXX would probably say likely. The one thing that BOXX understands is how certifications of pro apps work and because of that they know just what kind of hardware configurations work best for particular pro apps. This is something that Apple should begin to get better at beyond the film, compositing and photography and music apps it knows a lot about.

The pro world is bigger than just those markets. A lot bigger.

In the final analysis, the new Mac Pro–and we know so much more now–will rock a program like ArchiCAD but will likely not rock Revit all that much.

[Editor’s note: We made some typo corrections today at 12:25, 29 Oct 2013. Sorry about that folks!]

The post Commentary: Why the new Mac Pro will rock for ArchiCAD but not for Revit appeared first on Architosh.

Sutherland developed SketchPad on MIT Lincoln Labs’ TX-2 computer, at the time one of the biggest machines in the world. It had what today seems like a tiny amount of memory but then was huge: 306 kilobytes. The TX-2 had some advanced computing tech for the day, including an addressable 1024 x 1024 pixel display, support for a light pen for input and a pen plotter for output. It also had programmable buttons.

SketchPad was also ground-breaking because unlike early computer applications it was very interactive, supporting the ability to draw directly on the screen (think iPad) with a crosshair cursor.

SketchPad had the ability to draw lines, points, and arcs and utilized an array of 17 different types of “constraints” including vertical, horizontal, perpendicular, et cetera. And it supported rubber banding when drawing objects thus the objects like likes would stretch as you moved the cursor. This was very advanced stuff at the time.

01 - Ivan Sutherland on MIT Lincoln Labs TX-2 computer.

As Evans notes in his article, Sutherland went on to run ARPA (the predecessor of DARPA) and he would later co-found Evans and Sutherland a firm that many veteran CAD readers will recall developed hardware for 3D graphics and printer languages, among other related tech.

To read the full article–and we highly recommend it–go here.

The post DesignWorld: 50 Years of CAD by Evan Yares appeared first on Architosh.

“The reality is that BIM is more about process change than technology adoption,” said Thomas M. Simmons, series instructor. “With this program we are focusing on how to make the transition to BIM so that its benefits can be maximized throughout the design process.”

Individuals can register for one or all the six courses on the LearnVirtual registration page. The dates and topics of the sessions are as follows:

• March 14 — Defining Fundamental BIM Concepts, Terms & Tools.
• March 21 — Implementing BIM in the Design Phase
• March 28 — Visualization with BIM
• April 4 — Strategies for Creating Documents from a BIM Model
• April 11 — Collaboration from Small to Large Teams
• April 18 — Integrating Sustainability into the BIM Process

Course instructor Thomas M. Simmons has worked in architecture, engineering and construction firms in San Francisco, Houston, Portland and Seattle to implement BIM. He is a recognized expert in Building Information Modeling and the implementation of its technology.

LearnVirtual specializes in the design and implementation of educational programs for AEC professionals.

Pricing and Registration

Sessions are 29.USD, but all six can be had for 125.USD. You can learn more and register at: www.learnvirtual.com

The post Implementing BIM in Practice: LearnVirtual event appeared first on Architosh.

“We believe that Apple will be the first in our sector to embrace ARM for some Macs, as early as C2H12…” (I believe you read that as second half of calendar year 2012).

“We believe that Apple is already working hard on the software to accomplish this feat within the MacBook Air line-up,” continued Reitzes. “Through its own development of ARM-based processors and ARM-based iOS software, this migration would be rather natural for Apple.”

Joshual Schnell over at Macgasm has a good post questioning the logic of such a decision and specifically mentions Autodesk in his post. Concerning the fact that many major companies have begun to adopt OS X development because Apple is on Intel he questions whether they would be willing to pursue a chip architecture change of this magnitude. He writes: “Also, what about all those giant companies (Blizzard, Autodesk) that have titles for OS X now? Are they willing to design their products around ARM?”

Given that most longtime OS X developers have just completed an extensive chip architecture transition just a few years ago (moving from PPC to Intel) we think this is a very good and reasonable question.

Blurring the edge of OS X and iOS

Apple is already starting to blur the edge between its OS X platform and the iOS platform. Multitouch is already on OS X and has been for quite some time. It will continue to morph on OS X devices. While we think Apple is literally working on OS X for ARM and while we believe there will be some mobility on there coming up, the question of whether they will fully leave Intel is truly up for grabs.

And we must remember that Intel is not sitting still. Their tri-gate process technology announced last week was impressive. Read more here.

The post More Apple Mac ARM Rumors- This Time MacBook Air appeared first on Architosh.

Mac Growth

Last October after Apple’s fourth quarter results for 2010 we noted that Mac unit growth remained strong despite all of the iPad hype and growth. Mac unit shipment had essentially reached 3.9 million units prior to the big holiday season and we anticipated that the company would break the 4 million Mac units per quarter barrier this holiday. Apple did indeed do that, shipping 4.13 million Mac units, but that number fell short of the number we were hoping for.

We had anticipated that Apple would ship 4.4 million Macs this first fiscal 2011 quarter based on a 14 percent sequential growth quarter-to-quarter growth rate. The street consensus was 4.3 million Macs. The big news here is that Apple’s impressive Mac growth rate–while still very sizable–is slowing down, likely due to the rise of the iPad.

Looking on the Bright Side

While there is a definite slow-down in Mac unit growth rates the company did still ship 23 percent more Macs this quarter than it did a year ago. This compares to a 3 percent growth rate in the general PC market, according to Apple. All of this means that Apple’s Mac growth is 8x stronger than the general Windows PC industry.

Furthermore, Apple’s Asian Mac growth is extremely impressive at over 50 percent in Japan and Asia Pacific. Also, while Apple sold just shy of 1 million Macs through its own retail stores about half were sold to people who had never owned a Mac before. The percentage of people buying a Mac through other channels, including Apple online, who have never owned a Mac before is unclear to us.

The bottom line is that Apple busted the 4 million Macs per quarter barrier this quarter, signaling a future where the company will ship more than 16 million Macs per year.

Second Insight – Cash

Apple made over $6 billion in profit this past quarter and the company is now sitting on nearly $60 billion in cash and short/long term assets. This is a staggering amount of money and the best way to illustrate this is to compare it to some valuable companies.

• Adobe – market capitalization is presently at about $17.4 billion
• Autodesk – market cap is presently at about $9.5 billion
• Nvidia – market cap is presently at about $13 billion
• AMD – market cap is presently about $5.4 billion
• ARM Holdings – market cap is presently about $11 billion

All five of those companies above total less than $57 billion in market capitalization. Interestingly, they were chosen for this story because they all have something valuable to Apple’s future growth. ARM designs the main processor architecture behind Apple’s smaller devices and is the market leader. AMD and Nvidia dominate the graphics industries for computers, supercomputers and increasingly will play a role in smaller devices as well. And Autodesk and Adobe have been discussed targets for an Apple acquisition and their software assets compliment the Apple brand, story and its creative customers.

While is is unlikely Apple will ever buy any of these companies in the short term we feel it is interesting to point out their present street value compared to Apple’s available war chest in cash.

Third Insight – Cash Growth

Apple’s future growth is very much primed because of iPhone and iPad it is interesting to point out that the company is now making more than $1 billion from its iTunes Store alone, with an increasingly amount of TV and movies being a big part of the revenue picture. This means Apple is renting more than 4.5 million movies per month. And nearly three times that in TV shows. We feel there is massive upside in Apple media opportunities, and while everyone is focused on its “devices” and concentrating on competing with them the company is quietly building up momentum in media consumption markets where its primary competitors are Amazon and Netflix.

And speaking of Netflix, that company is worth $10 billion presently, an easily digestible amount given Apple’s cash horde.

And related to this insight about cash growth opportunities in media consumption is the new Mac App Store. In the conference call Tim Cook admitted that Apple’s own software does best. This is interesting because if the Mac App Store becomes as huge an opportunity as the App Store for iPad and iPhone then perhaps Apple should be developing and selling more of its own software? After all, Microsoft primarily makes its money on its Windows OS and Office franchise and the company’s margins are greater than Apple’s own. More interesting, if Apple were to acquire a significant software player, say Adobe, it could sell those design applications via the Mac App Store and eliminate the cost of selling that software the traditional way and thereby decrease costs and increase profit margins.

It will be interesting to see what Autodesk has to say in the near future about its Apple App Store experience…if it chooses to say something detailed.

The post Apple’s Holiday Quarter Results: Insights Part 1 appeared first on Architosh.

On the Mac

Ralph has never minced words about not liking Apple and its leader Steve Jobs. And for that he is like many. But Ralph as of late has been riding the Mac waves quite a bit and that alone suggests things are changing. Of course some of this is because Apple dominates the IT media so heavily now that you simply cannot exist as a technology writer and not mention them. And when others like you (and no, that would not be me…) typically also resist mentioning Apple but suddenly find themselves doing so with increased velocity you simply have no choice.

So at this point in time Ralph Grabowski simply has no choice on the Mac. The Mac matters now, period and his writings are reflecting that.

Mac Hype

Some of Ralph’s fans will want to argue my view and say, no they (Apple/Mac) don’t yet truly matter. It’s still all hype! But they do if you can’t escape arguing or talking about them! And, no, this is not celebrity hype, like talking about Paris Hilton. If it is hype it’s more like Windows Vista hype. The kind of hype that lands on the ground and shakes it a good bit, the kind that very few can truly avoid the impact of.

I have another proposal for Apple if we want to contend that the Mac in CAD, or in enterprise in general, is more hype than reality…and that is its comparison to the green movement and global warming. For some, with particular political leanings, global warming and the whole sustainability movement is more hype than reality…more fad than fact.

When numbers, especially when they are small, are correlated to a change event the decision to believe they are actually responsible or indicative of the reality of that event is often highly debated and politically charged.

Take the illegal alien issue in the US. Though their numbers are still relatively small (estimated at 7-20 million) some will argue that those 6 percent illegals represent a dramatic change, while others will acknowledge while there exist a problem it isn’t significant like the other group makes it out to be. So who is right? Does dramatic growth matter when we are still talking about single digital representation or not?

Common sense and a lot of chatter with others has taught me that the answer depends entirely on what people want for themselves and want to believe. For those in the CAD industry who see the Mac as some foreigner that doesn’t speak their language that single digit and growing market percentage isn’t representative of a notable change in the IT climate but rather a temporary fad or response to hype in the marketplace.

Yes, Autodesk has produced a native version of AutoCAD for the Mac, and yes there exist at least 5000 who say they want SolidWorks on the Mac, but to so many CAD veterans in this industry–like Grabowski–how you view Apple and the Mac’s growth is entirely similar to how you view similar trends based on growing but yet still modest or even nascent numbers. In other words, you pick what you want to believe based on how it suits you.

The Mac at Grabowski

Ralph doesn’t get was is so G-r-r-eat about Macs yet! But it doesn’t matter if he gets or doesn’t get it, if he likes and champions them, or if he criticizes them until the cows come home. Like it or not Macs are here! And more and more people are preferring them, especially younger generations. Additionally, as was so convincingly described in Clayton Christensen’s best-selling book The Innovator’s Dilemma, companies that solely look to just serving the needs of their current customers risk missing macro trends that will eventually leave them out in the cold.

Like others, Grabowski is talking about the Mac a lot lately, and with increasing velocity. Back in September he wrote a post questioning where the market is for AutoCAD on the Mac. At this point he must have already been writing a book on AutoCAD for the Mac (which is on sale already) but we’ll skip past that tidbit for now. His blog post on not getting what’s so great about Macs has gotten a lot of attention for sure, both in defense of Ralph and against his opinions.

A post about the 5000 petitions for SolidWorks on the Mac was also of interest last year. His post about options and helping people do CAD on the Mac this summer was also of note. This post was titled “Experiencing CAD on the Mac.”

The bottom line is Grabowski is writing a heck of a lot about the Mac lately, and with increasing frequency and intensity. All of which, of course, is good for the Mac. I say this because Ralph Grabowski has weight in this industry. People respect his views and read his blog and site regularly. If he is giving new attention to Apple and Jobs, it means things are changing, period. Where they are changing can be debated, but I am pretty sure the trending is good for the Mac in CAD, with or without Grabowski’s platform blessings!

The post Mac in CAD getting big: Grabowski riding every wave appeared first on Architosh.

There is no doubting that Apple’s Mac division is being upstaged by its new era product lines (with the exception of the iPod division which is slowing down in growth) but one only needs to look at the bigger picture to see it’s all okay with Steve & Company precisely because the “halo effect” from iPhone in particular keeps pushing Mac sales up at a healthy rate. Of course that rate may be slowing as the iPad begins to both produce a “halo effect” and a “cannibal effect.” (more on that later).

So how healthy are we talking about?

Mac Unit Growth

Let’s start with the quarter to quarter sequential growth. In this quarter Apple’s Mac units grew at just over 12 percent, which is a healthy growth rate.  This was the result of shipping more than 400,000 Macs than the previous quarter. Mind you, just a few years ago 400,000 Macs per quarter was approximately one forth the amount of all Macs in that quarter.

The post Mac Unit Growth Remains Impressive Despite iPad appeared first on Architosh.

Some Notes

Actually in the press introduction to Autodesk’s announcement of AutoCAD for Mac that very question got answered by Autodesk Senior Vice President Amar Hanspal. The answer?

According to Hanspal, Autodesk’s own customers have kept chiming in on wanting AutoCAD for Mac at an increasing rate over the past few years. Clearly such a statement by Hanspal is a testament to Apple’s popularity and growing strength in business markets. In fact, Hanspal remarks that its customers are increasingly using Mac hardware more and more in enterprise and business. The result is a company that ultimately is directly responding to its own customers.

The AutoCAD universe is a big place. Hanspal said in an interview presentation there are over 4,000 AutoCAD third-party developers and these developers can now support the Mac version because the native C++ API for AutoCAD on Windows is the same for the Mac version.

The DWG file engine in AutoCAD for the Mac is identical, literally the same as that in its Windows version. There is full, bi-directional file format fidelity so mixed PC/Mac offices can open and work on the same files.

In a product video on the AutoCAD for Mac webpage Autodesk does actually compare its product directly to a competitor. In this case, in discussing AutoCAD layers, it compares itself to Vectorworks (by Nemetschek Vectorworks) when talking about verticality in regards to layers (ie: AutoCAD does not have verticality with layers) saying Vectorworks classes are more like AutoCAD layers. The comparison seemed aimed at having Vectorworks users understand something key about the product, rather than taking a swipe at Vectorworks itself. The latter would have seemed nonsensical anyway as in many ways Vectorworks’s dual class and layer system is arguably more flexible.

Some Tech Notes

Let’s get into some technical notes here on today’s news about AutoCAD for Mac. First off, you will need a 64-bit Intel processor based Mac. Most of Apple’s machines released on or after January 1, 2009 will work. To give you a sense of what we have been running it on in the Architosh studio, we have it on an early 2009, MacBook. It features an Intel Core 2 Duo. We have not tested it hard so we cannot remark about hardware to performance issues. If you are considering AutoCAD for Mac you should visit the specification page for the product on Autodesk’s website.

A product demonstration video does mention one rival Mac CAD product, Mac industry leader Nemetschek Vectorworks.

AutoCAD for Mac is a native 64-bit application. It is also built on an Apple Cocoa foundation with a UI (user-interface) that fits the Mac’s GUI Chrome implementation. Interestingly, the UI has a two-toned approach and gives the user the option to try a dark or light interface. This doesn’t affect the Mac UI element(s) of the palettes, windows and other panels. One comment here: we think the dark interface looks pretty darn good!

This only runs on Leopard (10.5.8) or Snow Leopard version 10.6.4 or later). If you are running an older OS you need to update your system.

AutoCAD for Mac is fully compatible with AutoCAD for Windows. Drawings containing objects created in AutoCAD Architecture (Windows only) can be easily opened in AutoCAD for Mac.

For Command Line users AutoCAD for Mac has a near identical Command Line interface and nearly all commands are available for the Mac version. Autodesk makes a note that the Ribbon Bar of the latest versions of AutoCAD for Windows are not supported on the Mac version, but instead Mac users get the familiar Tool bars and properties palettes (on the right) that are common UI design features of the Mac. That is a good thing for Mac users. Users should note that Microsoft’s Ribbon UI was slammed when it came out on Revit by its users.

What is Not Working

While this version of AutoCAD for Mac is nearly identical to that found in the Windows version there are some differences and items of non-support. They include:

• Network licensing and CAD manager are not included
• No support for DCL in AutoLISP
• No access to custom AutoCAD user UI controls in ObjectARX
• Microsoft VBasic Applications and OLE objects are not be supported as they are Windows specific
• Layer Filters and Groups and States are not supported yet but will be in a future release
• Sheet Manager is not in this release either
• There is also no PDF, DGN and DWF “underlay” support but will be in a future release
• minor other items not yet supported in this release

Autodesk recommends that larger companies with enterprise use of AutoCAD may want to hold off on a Mac version adoption until their specific enterprise needs are fully confirmed to be met. Autodesk recommends that smaller and mid-size companies are more suited to AutoCAD for Mac adoption or conversion.

Finally, the version of AutoCAD for Mac can both import and export ACIS (.sat) files. Here at Architosh we like to talk about modeling and rendering kernels and engines and this is interesting to us because we have been under the assumption that Autodesk has written its own modeling kernel for AutoCAD based on Spatial’s ACIS.

The post Some tech notes on AutoCAD for Mac appeared first on Architosh.

Martyn Day has published a nice look-see of Graphisoft’s new ArchiCAD 14–with plenty of cool images of the Microsoft Hungary campus building the BIM leader is using to demonstrate version 14’s features. You can check out that article here:

http://aecmag.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=354

It’s a good article on the new ArchiCAD 14. But right in the second paragraph, Martyn does the industry a big disservice by stating an absolute falsehood about BIM adoption in AEC. He says that MEP and structural engineering firms “were quick to adopt 3D” and suggest that its the architects who are lagging in BIM adoption.

First off nobody in AEC has been quick to adopt 3D or BIM. I’m not sure what he means by 3D (if it is BIM he is referring to or not) but either of them has not been adopted quickly in AEC. That’s just false. As regards 3D, SketchUp has had more to do with accelerating 3D adoption within AEC than any other tool. Even the long-standing BIM tools.

But back to the engineers. According to the McGraw-Hill SmartMarket BIM report published late in 2009, very few MEP engineers (22%) collectively see MEP engineers reaping high value in ROI from BIM. I’m not saying this to put a damper on BIM for MEP, but rather to emphasize the importance of accuracy of information.

The reality is that structural engineers are benefiting more from BIM than many of the constituents of MEP. Electrical engineers, in particular, see very little value in modeling electrical items (which themselves are often very small). A similar argument can be said about plumbing. Mechanical engineers are actually lagging mechanical contractors in BIM adoption based on the McGraw-Hill report cited above. The report also notes that marketing new business to clients is the number one internal benefit of BIM for MEP engineers. Marketing! Think about that for a second. What does that imply? This is because contractors and building owners are benefiting the most from BIM adoption and many are mandating BIM. Large MEP outfits need to attain BIM skills in order to compete for work. ROI tied to productivity is getting blurred by BIM’s benefit in competing in a very tough economic environment.

Finally, the McGraw-Hill report on BIM clearly states that architects were the early adopters of BIM technology and remain the highest users of BIM. Not engineers!

This is just one example of the misinformation of BIM in the industry. Elements of the press need to be careful to make sure they are citing the correct facts. Especially facts about adoption and financial benefits. Here at Architosh we spent an enormous amount of time making sure we crafted our statements about BIM adoption in our 2010 BIM report in such a way that they were backed up by solid factual numbers; and when those numbers were not quite there or were more suggestive that we could cite credible evidence of what the numbers were suggesting.

Martyn Day’s article has the story completely backwards and it doesn’t gel with arguably the world’s best report on AEC industry-wide BIM usage data. It also doesn’t jive with our BIM report–while much smaller in scope and limited to architects did communicate clearly to us who in AEC was the farthest along in BIM. Nor does it gel with logic. The earliest BIM tools were in fact made for architects first.

If you haven’t read the McGraw-Hill SmartMarket BIM Report from late 2009 you can obtain it here. It is a very exhaustive study with quite a lot of numerical data.

The post The Mis-Information of BIM appeared first on Architosh.

There are several key items announced in this news so read that full report here. 

The CAD Perspective

Despite the fact that in today’s Mac market there are more world-class, industry-leading CAD and 3D applications already running natively on the Mac OS X operating system than ever before doesn’t stop the quests by users and the demand on software makers to provide their Windows-only solutions to the growing Mac market. 

Autodesk’s recent announcements–since Macworld in January–portend to an evolving picture where “virtualization” is a stepping stone for software makers to deliver an interim solution to Mac users wishing to run Windows-only CAD and engineering applications.

The partnership between Parallels and Autodesk is a big blow to VMware; however there are several key Autodesk rivals which VMware could establish a working relationship in the same capacity. SolidWorks Corporation is one such major Autodesk rival, and SolidWorks is one such company that has users who would like to switch over to the Mac. 

There are interesting connections between user-bases on the Mac using native solutions and user bases on Windows-only platforms. One such connection is the partnership between solidThinking and SolidWorks. Many manufacturers have product designers using solidThinking on Macs and product engineering based around SolidWorks running out of necessity on Windows. There are overlaps with such organizations where a user on a Mac would like to be able to access files in both solidThinking and SolidWorks. 

VMware could search out such connections between major CAD and 3D design platforms and form partnerships much as Autodesk did with Parallels. By doing so it would fight off the perception that Parallels is a superior product for handling CAD applications.

The post VMware and Parallels: Dominance in the CAD arena appeared first on Architosh.

What About Murphy’ Law

As usual when coming back from a busy show like the AIA my email inbox rains news press releases in several other industries. Architosh has much to cover in the next few days in order to catchup on several great news announcements, including items from general CAD software companies and even a good item from Filemaker. 

Our AIA news show reports will begin flowing in the next few days as well and go into the next two weeks with some special features from the show. I was fortunate to have many sit-downs at AIA and this caused me to miss out on visiting several smaller software vendors on the show floor. If I didn’t get around to you and your company my apologies. The time went by faster than I imagined. 

Highlights and Trends

The big buzzword at AIA this year was obviously sustainability. And that issue will likely dominate discussion for some time. There was a lot of focus on green design and building a future wherein the profession of architecture takes a leading role in regards to building a sustainable and eco-focused culture. Both Bentley and Graphisoft had announcements in the area of green design. And Autodesk’s booth was popular with sessions on its energy analysis tools. 

The AIA released new AIA documents that continue to march the profession forward towards BIM, which itself is a critical component of building an eco-focused profession. BIM is a necessity in the march towards a greener world with buildings not just because you can do full building simulations and analysis of energy much easier than in 2D tools, but because a large part of energy conservation comes after a building has been erected. With BIM a facilities manager or building owner can more fully monitor, maintain, and operate a building during its complete life-cycle. 

In regards to seeing buildings as objects with a life-cycle that often can outlast an architect’s own life, the emphasis on data produced by the architect is shifting from a world of solely communicating the requirements for construction to a world where you are obligated to communicate information useful to a building’s continued operation. This places the emphasis on 3D geometry so buildings can be “virtualized” for their continued maintenance. 

Because the industry is still wedded to the value of drawing and 2D methods of communication–both required within the creation and the life-cycle management of buildings–a challenge exist to both encourage and help architects move to a 3D world. Google’s SketchUp continues to draw attention to this issue by presenting to the industry a simplified way of learning and mastering 3D architectural and environment creation. However, hot on the tails of Google, legendary formZ software maker auto-des-sys, Inc., has released a rival to SketchUp called Bonzai 3D. Bonzai 3D is a significant milestone in the industry for several reasons.

Firstly, Bonzai 3D offers serious competition in the area of simplified 3D model creation. Competition is good because it keeps companies on their toes, moving the industry forward. Second,  Bonzai 3D offers the industry a direct scalable modeling path. You can start with a simple tool like Bonzai and take that data directly into an advanced NURBS-based modeler like formZ.  It should also be mentioned that Bonzai 3D is technically a NURBS modeler itself, enabling more sophisticated means to the same ends as SketchUp. Lastly, Bonzai 3D is compatible with SketchUp and numerous other 3D and CAD file formats, making it a solid choice for any production pipeline. 

We’ll have more news from AIA coming up!

The post In the Wake of AIA San Francisco appeared first on Architosh.

An interesting note from a conference call question was that Oracle President Safra Catz said that Oracle believes it can run Sun at substantially higher margins. It is not clear exactly how Oracle could do that without cutting costs associated with Sun projects. 

Java is a critical middleware software for Oracle’s database software projects and now Oracle will own and control a major industry standard that effects all platforms, including Apple’s. And Ellison was quoted a saying Sun’s Solaris operating system is “by far the best Unix technology on the market.”

In years past Sun and Apple talked of mergers and when Apple was at its low point in the late 90’s Ellison may have played a role in encouraging the idea of the two hooking up. Larry Ellison is a best friend to Steve Jobs and the two share a common enemy in the tech industry up in Redmond. 

The idea that Sun and Apple could make strong bed mates (today) went something like this:

• Sun has great tech but bad marketing. Apple has great marketing and would be able to help solve this problem. 
• Sun has a strong enterprise sales and support team that can help Apple in the enterprise market.
• Mac OS X and Solaris could share some common tech benefitting both tremendously, especially some of Solaris in OS X. 
• Apple could push and utilize Sun’s storage in its media and video markets where Apple dominates.
• The brilliant sparc chip engineers could join up with the brilliant PA Semi chip team at Apple, and engineer even more wonderful micro-processors. This indeed is very compelling!!

But here are some other ideas that could be interesting for Sun. Earlier I wrote about Sun’s Virtualbox virtualization tool and the possibility of reviving its engineering workstation legacy vis-a-vis the use of Apple’s Mac Pro workstations. In this scenario Sun could work closely with Apple to leverage its new Grand Central and OpenCL technologies in the upcoming Snow Leopard OS, concentrating efforts on performance of OpenGL, OpenCL and native graphics support in the virtualization space. 

Additionally, Sun could foster an interest in running Solaris in its own Virtualbox as an industry Unix workstation platform, giving Mac Pro customers even more options. Sun could sell Virtualbox in the future preconfigured for a guest Solaris install and highly tuned and configured for engineering and science on the Mac Pro. 

What this does today is allow Oracle’s Sun to take a step backwards on the Sun workstation front and put the hardware part squarely in the hands of a good friend (Steve Jobs & Co.). At the same time, Apple could update both Boot Camp and work together with Oracle’s Sun to focus Virtualbox on becoming the strongest performing virtualization tool for engineering and CAD, thereby enabling thousands of engineers and scientists with deep history in Solaris-based workflows to continue along in this direction but with the added benefit and flexibility of Mac OS X behind them. This helps Solaris stay meaningful in the high-end science and engineering world.

Virtualbox + Solaris for Mac Pro would be one hot product if given the proper attention in this, albeit, dreamy scenario!!

Commentary: Do you like this idea? Shout back below, we’d love to hear from you on this.

The post Commentary: Oracle buys Sun, Good for Apple appeared first on Architosh.

The US AIA's ABI point to improvement in design/building sector of the economy.

Such an indication is made more notable by the continued index improvement in inquiries to architectural services which started to rise back in January from a low in December. The ABI’s results suggest that perhaps the down economy is reaching a bottom or floor (insofar as the building industry is concerned). To read the full report go here.

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Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of magazines and books I can physically hold. But is it even “green” and socially responsible anymore to be cheering for the continuation of “tree-based media” when there are more appropriate and more interconnected options available for us all on the Net?

This may be one of those situations where the new owner has long term plans to exit a printed version of Cadalyst but in the meantime needs to keep printing it for financial reasons. I for one hope that there is a long-term Net-only strategy being developed, as Cadalyst is still a very enjoyable read for me, especially in the areas of product reviews and in-depth articles. And Nancy Johnson may get her chance to put all the pieces back together again, but if she fails and the print version ceases to exist, should we cry about it? I am not so sure we should.

The post No more Cadalyst in print and should we cry about it? appeared first on Architosh.

Intel has published a special interview on Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of Dreamworks talking about their upcoming 3D movie plans. There is also a discussion about the benefits of the new ColorCode Paper 3D glasses.

The post Tidbit: Intel and Dreamworks team up on Super Bowl 3D appeared first on Architosh.

Virtualization in Support of Highend UNIX CAD

It would be neat if there were three high-quality virtualization products for the Mac OS X platform. It would be even neater if Sun concentrated its Virtualbox virtualization software suite on reviving its engineering workstation legacy vis-a-vis the use of Apple’s Mac Pro workstations. Think of it as Sun building a virtualization environment centered around helping former Sun and SGI workstation customers build out a killer workstation platform on the Mac Pro lineup. Sun could work extra closely with Apple to leverage its new Grand Central and OpenCL technologies in the upcoming Snow Leopard operating system helping it out-perform its competition in OpenGL speed and multi-processing. 

A best-in-breed virtualization platform for CAD and engineering would seek to tailor the software to optimize OpenGL acceleration beyond what Parallels and VMware have done. It would also seek to leverage engineering CAD’s UNIX past by allowing the easiest installation and optimal setup of guest UNIX operating systems like Sun’s Solaris. Sun could sell Virtualbox in the future preconfigured for a guest Solaris install and highly configured for engineering and science on the Mac Pros. 

In contrast to the commentary published earlier today on an online petition effort to revive Sun’s Sparc workstation line, those seeking former UNIX CAD glory should possibly embrace the strategy outlined above. In doing so they could push Sun into a unique position wherein UNIX guest support for engineering, CAD and science becomes a major product differentiator in the virtualization market wars.

The post Can Sun save its Engineering Heritage Using the Mac? appeared first on Architosh.

Personally, I think the petition is a lost cause. Former SUN and SGI CAD engineers should not only keep using the UNIX-based Mac Pros but adopt them in greater number. Apple is on the bleeding edge of hardware and software development, with its new OpenCL industry standard sure to take off quickly as most of the key industry players are behind it. OpenCL will increase OpenGL adoption as well in the gaming sector and buttress the cross-platform graphics API standard further in engineering, visualization and CAD. And with tools like the quality virtualization products by VMware and Parallels Mac Pros can be fully setup as Solaris-based UNIX stations as well. 

Nevertheless, some former SGI and Sun workstation buffs may wish to sign on the dotted line. But before you do, perhaps you should take a gander again at the Mac Pro.

The post No Sun Sparc Workstations drove users to Mac Pros appeared first on Architosh.

“While the OpenCL spec is announced today, there are conformance tests that need to be developed and then final implementations will be released around Q2 next year.” These comments were made to AppleInsider from Manju Hedge, General Manager of CUDA at Nvidia. 

Snow Leopard’s Grand Central technologies allow developers to tune code to take advantage of parallelism across multi-core processors and GPUs. Both Grand Central and OpenCL are listed on Apple’s Snow Leopard webpage as key big features in the planned release. If Nvidia says final implementations of OpenCL are planned for Q2 of 2009 than Snow Leopard will not arrive early as some reports have indicated. Instead it may arrive around the time of Apple’s 2009 WWDC.

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OpenCL is software technology that enables developers to tap the vast amounts of un-used power in graphics cards (GPUs) for tasks not related to graphics. The industry in general has taken well to OpenCL and the number of companies behind it include tech giants like Intel, Nvidia, AMD/ATI, Qualcomm, 3DLabs, Electronic Arts, Blizzard and many others. 

As we remarked this report, the one company that is not behind OpenCL — which will be managed independent of Apple and will be a royalty-free industry standard — is Microsoft, which seeks to compete with OpenCL using proprietary Microsoft technology.

The post Apple working to trademark OpenCL appeared first on Architosh.

Why the fast push in record time? One Intel employee involved said it was to get it into Apple’s Snow Leopard — of which he sounded pretty excited about. 

Endangering Vista

But Snow Leopard is causing a stir for other reasons as well. For one, Apple’s pace of improvement to OS X is nothing but mind-blowing compared to Microsoft’s snail pace development to its Windows OS and its now beleaguered Vista. Forbes has a interesting article online that is more valuable for its reader’s feedback — perhaps — than for the actual article. 

The Forbes piece notes that Apple is expected to ship as many as 2.7 million Macs this holiday quarter during a global economic crisis. That’s a 13% year-over-year improvement. Expect the rest of the PC industry to be (YoY) flat or even worse.

A reader commented that he manages over 700 PCs in an architectural and engineering firm and sees no reason to upgrade to Vista. “64bit XP does everything we need.” However, this same reader makes very blind accusations about Apple’s Mac tech support costs so we can perhaps judge him as “extreme” in his views.

Ignore Vista and Wait for Windows 7

Another reader says that “if you are a CIO or IT professional, you should seriously be looking for alternatives. Stop doing business as usual, think about what your company or client really needs, stop paying the MS tax for bloated software (Office, Exchange, SharePoint, Visio, etc.) and gain a competitive advantage in your markets.”

Perhaps this is what may happen for many…once Snow Leopard comes out ahead of Windows 7 — which honestly, given an aggressive schedule with Snow Leopard, may just be rushed like Vista was! That will only make matters worse for Microsoft.

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