Civil Design Software Link to Machine Control

Since we were on the subject in the last post, I wanted to highlight this important announcement from Autodesk and Trimble. I believe this important because it demonstrates to me that two of the key players, worldwide in their respective industries, are at the very least addessing the issues that were identified by Randy Noland in the last blog post.

The free (we like that) extension provides for all of the design intelligence created in Autodesk Civil 3D to be transferred and available to the Trimble Business Center-HCE suite, which is then linked to Trimble’s machine control hardware. This is not just a simple data transfer, it is the kind of sophisticated 3D data interoperability that the industry deserves and that insures that the investment made during the design phase will not have to be duplicated. This should also produce much less chance for errors. Kudos to all those involved.

The other item that caught my eye in the press release was the reference to Autodesk Civil 3D being the “BIM solution for civil engineers”.. On the one hand I understand what the marketing group is attempting to do with this, on the other as a civil engineer, and I have a feeling the architects would agree, this is not a good idea. Civil 3D does not create information models in the same sense as Revit, for instance. There is enough confusion concerning BIM, we don’t need marketing spin to add to it.