Beyond Design—Advanced Navisworks Workflows for Your Project

LEE MULLIN: OK, well, the doors are closed, so I suppose I should start. Thank you, everyone, for coming to my session. It does mean a lot. I know how busy it gets, and there's so many sessions at the same time. I wanted to go to three other sessions right now, so you should be glad that I'm here as well. Seriously, I've seen this. It's not very good. So my name's Lee Mullin, I'm based in the UK. I joined a small little company you may have heard of called Navisworks, based in Sheffield in the UK, back in 2005. I was the support guy. I was the guy who told you to switch it off and on again, and it all worked again. Yeah? Always the graphics card, or any of the things that kind of went wrong. I was working with those guys.

Obviously, Autodesk came in and bought Navisworks in 2007. Since then, I've had a variety of roles, mostly in the support area. I now work in what we call pre-sales, which basically means that I'm a demo jockey. I'm the person that comes around and shows you what the tools can do. My role is actually much wider now than just Navisworks. I cover the wider construction portfolio which, I think for you guys, if you want to know about advanced Navisworks, is really useful because it's a real hub towards what we do in construction.

So what we've also got today is we've got another co-speaker, a guy called James Austin. James Austin is the current Navisworks product manager. He also looks after some of the BIM 360 tools. He's currently finishing off a session that I left early that I was meant to be running. So he's going to finish that off, come down, and show you some of the cool new stuff that we're working on. So does anyone remember these logos? Has anyone been using Navisworks this long?

AUDIENCE: Yeah, a long time ago.

LEE MULLIN: Yeah, so that was when I was--

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

LEE MULLIN: So that was when I was working. Why were you in the Introduction to Navisworks session then?

AUDIENCE: Is this that advanced?

LEE MULLIN: This is advanced. Because This is-- I hope it's advanced.

AUDIENCE: It's not good [INAUDIBLE]

LEE MULLIN: So the reason why we've called this session "Beyond Design" is because we've got a blog called Beyond Design. Kind of makes a lot of sense. Who goes on the blog, who uses the blog? Who's never heard of a blog before? OK, so I'd like those guys, those guys who are currently working on the blog-- because we've got a few of them who wanted to come in and say hi.

So we've got Dace at the back. He did a brilliant post recently about AR and VR, and if you went to a construction launchpad, you may have seen him be the guinea pig for the event. We've got Julie Jacobson, who's been helping manage it for the last few years. Go on, Julie, stand up so people know who you are. Julie works within our marketing team on BIN 360 and Navisworks products. And then just up front we've got two of the newest members to the Beyond Design family. We've got Lejla and Julien-- if you can both stand up-- who are both based out of Europe, who are going to be contributing more content as we go along.

The look of it's changed, but we've still kind of got the same mission. We want to provide you with useful tips and tricks and interesting content which will help you guys in construction, if you work in construction. If you don't, you'll probably still find it useful and interesting. We're geeks, so we show some cool stuff. We've got James on the blog as well, and I'm just thinking, we've got a full house. We've got Paul Walker, who is one of the original guys who helped out on it. He's currently in other sessions, but he wanted to join.

So the interesting thing about Beyond Design is it's quite an interesting blog as far as the Autodesk family goes. We've got lots of blogs that do lots of things, lots of technology, lots of kind of thought leadership. But we were looking at the stats of how popular these blogs are, and it astonished me to find out that we're in third place. We're the third most popular blog within Autodesk. That's quite cool. Well, as far as I know. Julie's going to correct me. Slightly behind, we've got the BIN 360 blog. So I've got a feeling this is the last time I can use this slide.

So ahead of us, we've got the AutoCAD ADM blog. Does everyone read that regularly? No? OK. So that's really good if you're a bit of an AutoCAD developer geek, fine by me. And the most popular blog, which I've got no complaints with because it has lots of Stormtroopers, is the Between the Lines blog by Sean Hurley. So, you know, we're quite happy with that for a small construction blog that talks about a bit of technology that started in Sheffield many years ago. I'm quite happy to be third.

But hopefully, we're going to show you that there's a lot more to Navisworks and the surrounding portfolio to help you do your jobs. No internet connection. So the polls aren't going to work, so I apologize. So what I'm going to do, is I'm going to ask you to raise your hands. Who's based in the US? This is exactly like yesterday. We had a session where I did it all in metric, and lots of people were very upset. So who have we got from outside of Europe? Oh, about four or five hands. Not many. I'm not going to ask too specifically, but it's good to know. Good to know. Here we go.

OK, so the summary of the class, this is what you saw on the class description, this is what made you come, hopefully. The intention of this is we want to show you our advanced workflows. Advanced is a really difficult word, because what's advanced for one person is really basic for someone else. So what my objective is is slightly different. I want every single person in this room to learn one thing. That sounds crazy, but I know there's some advanced people out there, and I know a lot of you use the tools a lot more than I do. So we're going to give you guys a chance to share your information, but I'm also going to try and show you lots of information which might be seen as advanced for one people and not so advanced for others.

What we are going to cover is things like tips and tricks, how to improve productivity, maybe some of the new workflows and links to other products you might not be aware of. It's not going to be a how to guide. We've got too much to cover in 90 minutes. But you can find out more information about everything we're going to put in here, and we've got a really good resource to allow you to learn this kind of stuff as well. We're not going to go into the APIs. Although they are incredibly powerful, and they are definitely worth looking at. We're not going to be a support for them. So I know how these classes work, I've done quite a few of them. And at the end, if you do have questions, feel free to come and ask. But we're not going to able to answer everyone's questions and talk about what is and isn't working. But there are opportunities to kind of ask for information.

This is James Austin who's just arrived. Who's the product manager, so you can shout at him for anything that does go wrong, and anything that goes right, I'll take that credit. So like I say, what's advanced. So for some people, this is advanced. Right? So who uses these buttons. Who's aware that page up gives you the whole model, page down gives you a selected item?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

LEE MULLIN: Who's-- oh, there we go. That was in the Introduction to Navisworks class, that's how advanced this is. Who's learned something already? There we go, right, this is easy. Right, so this is the agenda we're going to go through. Because I'm basically going to show you lots of cool stuff. I'm going to show you some cool stuff, James is going to show you some of the cool new stuff, I'm going to show you a bit more cool stuff, because James has to get going. And then I'm going to ask you guys to share your experiences and some of your cool stuff, because I know you do it. I know you use the tools in different ways which we don't talk about. And then we're going to finish off with other people's cool stuff. So that's essentially the plug ins and the apps on top of Navisworks that can make it lots more powerful. So hopefully there will be something right at the end where you will learn something, if you've not learned anything at that point already.

Later on, I am going to bring up the microphone, I am going to ask people to share their advanced workflows. Now I've got two rules about the advanced workflows. It's got to be something that you use regularly, and we've got maybe a two minute maximum. So try and keep them brief. But if you can be having a think in your head of, here's something that I think the rest of the group should know about which might help them in everyday work. Now, I remember one of the polls, which is the reason why I was going to ask about this, was what do you do. So can I ask, who works on buildings? Who works on infrastructure? Who works on things like plants and oil and gas? Who works on something completely different that I've not mentioned. What do you work on, sir?

AUDIENCE: Ship building.

LEE MULLIN: Ship building, right, that's fantastic. So yesterday, I was doing the advanced class and I said, what is Navisworks, and showed loads of ways in which it can be used. And one of the ones which I had on there was a ship building. Because I remember my very first week was-- I never even realized you could build ships this big. So that was quite a learning experience. So I'm sure you've possibly got some workflows that some of the other guys don't use.

So I'm going to start off with some cool stuff. And these are all videos, and what I've done is I've shared as many of these videos as possible on a website called Linoit, or "Lin-watt", I'm not quite sure. You've got a link to this in the handout. So rather than me creating a handout with lots and lots of text and lots of how tos, I thought, what's the best way for people to learn. Normally, it's seeing a video of how it works. So this is an open board. What I'm going to ask you guys as well is if you've got videos you want to share and you think should be on there, you can put this on this board as well. So this might give you a really good way just to be able to access some of these advanced workflows.

So first workflow. We have quickly creating search sets. Who uses search sets? Who doesn't use search sets. Right, those who don't use search sets, use search sets. The most important thing about Navisworks is it drives everything you do. So here's a quick workflow to allow you to easily create search sets. So rather than using the Find Items dialog, in the Selection Tree, you've got the ability to go to Properties. And in the Properties, all of those are pre-made search sets. So if you're looking for Revit families, if you're looking for material names, if you're looking for particular properties, go into the Selection Tree and drill in through the data. And then all you need to do is select that search set, press Control-C, and that will copy the name of that set. And then press the binoculars to create a set, and Control-V, and it will bring it across into that. Has anyone learned anything? A couple. Good, great.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] a really big model if your machine locks up?

LEE MULLIN: I hope not. And if it does, that's why we have a product manager. Sorry, James, you're going to get-- this is why James is also running away early. So that's quite a useful tip. Who does timeline or 4D sequencing? OK, so how often have you spent all of your time manually adding each task to each bit? It's a time consuming thing. One of the workflows we recommend is rather than-- in fact, I'm going to go back and start this again, because I think it's worth showing in full. So rather than creating your schedule from your program, why not start your program from the model.

So what you can do is order a load of your search sets. As you can see, here we've got in folders, and we've got the individual search sets and do drag and drop, and create the order of how your building is going to be constructed. And then from there, you've got the ability just to auto add sets-- sorry, auto add tasks for every set that you've got. And this creates an instant schedule. This can then be exported out to Project or Primavera or Asta, and that can be the start of your schedule.

You can then add your resources and the amount of time a task is going to take. And then bring that back in, and then everything's already linked up. You've got the same names of the search sets as you do with the tasks. So it's an easier way to be able to create that initial schedule, and also a way to link it back in without having to manually move items across. Anyone learn anything? A couple more, OK, good. I'm not going to ask after every one, don't worry.

Who uses quantification? Who wants to-- so one of the things which I would suggest for quantification is, if you're not an estimator or QoS, that's fine. You probably still need access to the quantities, though. So what you can do is set a quantification with no catalog, drag and drop your model into the quantification panel, and it will take off everything in the model. And it's really, really quick. It does it with IFCs in Revit, and DWF files. So you'll see what it's done is you can select any of the walls, any of the items in there, right click them and find that information about the item. And then also the roll ups, and then you can start adding your resources. So this is really good for, say, planners, who can't wait three or four weeks for a full bill of quantities, but need have a rough idea of how much concrete we'll need for a floor or how many bricks we'll need to be able to deliver to site that day.

Now, I think that's quite useful tool for lots of people who spend a lot of time measuring or waiting for things or making guesstimates, you're using the information in the model. Now what I think is really, really cool, and this is another way people use quantification, is for change analysis. So checking what's changed between two versions. So check what changes between these two versions. Did anyone notice changes? Most people know floor changed for landscaping. Most people didn't notice any other changes.

And that's what tends to happen, you tend to get a model come through and you get told big changes that have happened, but not the small ones. So by using change analysis, you can get little indicators to tell you all of the things that have changed in the model between two versions. So even if you're not using it for quantities, you can use it just to see what items have been deleted, what items have changed as far as their lengths and heights.

AUDIENCE: That would be [INAUDIBLE] properties of any given item?

LEE MULLIN: So quantification would tend to come from the properties within the model. So by standard, it's lengths, areas, volumes, those kinds of things. You can add additional mapping to there as well. I don't think it'd work with named properties, but maybe James has got something for you later. Maybe. Maybe. If not, it might be next year. So, who knew you could 2D in Navisworks? Surely there's more people than that. OK, so you can bring 2D into Navisworks. And if you're bringing in things like DWF files, you can bring those in and view to 2D file alongside the 3D file, and then quickly switch between the different views and find them over items. So here we can see we've got sections, we've got elevations, we've got some of the other stuff within the DWF file.

What we can do is we can select an item and we can find the item in other sheets and other bits of the model. So you can easily switch between 2D and 3D. On the quantification side, this is really useful for verification. If you were going to check that the 3D model has a particular property, and you don't quite trust that property, look at it in 2D. Do the measurement that you would do in 2D that you were going to do from the drawings anyway. So this allows you to quickly, like I say, just move between the different-- the wall on the sections, the wall on the 3D, and other areas as well.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

LEE MULLIN: Sorry?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

LEE MULLIN: So you can do quantification with 2D as well, yes. Yes. So you can do it in 2D, you can do it in 3D, you can do it on PDFs. We recommend that you kind of start with models and then use 2D to catch the other stuff and help with validation, and then PDFs when that's all you get given. But try-- [INAUDIBLE] try to move them. There's another question?

AUDIENCE: Is it possible to add split screen with the 2D of the model [INAUDIBLE]

LEE MULLIN: It might be, but I can't think right now. I don't think it is.

JAMES AUSTIN: [INAUDIBLE] a good outcome.

LEE MULLIN: No. No, I know you can do split views, but I think that's just on 3D. Yeah. OK, time-based clashing. So this is the idea of objects move through space. This could be used for moving plants around, this could be used to kind of verify that some large objects, you're going to be able to move into an area. What you can use is you can use timeline and animator to basically define the path that an object is going to move around, and then essentially clash against that path. So essentially, look for any places where you might have problems within your schedule, within your movement. Now to do this, the only thing you need to be aware of is in the Clash settings, you've got settings linked to Timeliner. So that links to that moving object. And then you just need to make sure you set a suitable number of seconds. So if you've got a one day program, you don't want it to check for every one second. You want to check it against something suitable.

What this is really useful-- and people use this not only for moving modeled objects, but we also use it for clashing against point clouds. So if you think, any time you've got, maybe, some large chiller units, or escalators, or any large objects you need to move through, you could take a scan of those-- so you could take a scan of the existing area, model of the objects that's coming through, and then do checks against those. And that can be really useful if we start talking about these new technologies like photogrammetry.

So here we've got a really, really bad skyjack which I photographed in about two minutes, so I've not done this properly. But this is a mesh that's come through Remake, so we've used it to create a 3D mesh. And then we're bringing this through into Navisworks, and you can do exactly the same thing. You can do that same kind of check that the path works that you intend to move that object through. So you don't just have to have modelled objects, you don't just have to have point clouds. Think about how you get your data in there.

And if you are using point clouds, have you ever done clashes against them? So it can be-- this is something we're seeing more and more. Did anyone see the announcement with Leica yesterday? Right, I think that's going to be game changing for what we do. Because that's a really handy small scanner you're going to able to take out into a field, take a quick scan, process it on your iPad, and then get it into Navisworks within a much shorter amount of time. So you can then check that your new MEP service is going to fit into place. You can check that any of your new model data is going to fit in with what you currently have.

So the only changes that you need to make here to clash against the point cloud is you need to make sure you do a clearance clash, because there's nothing to physically intersect. You need to make sure that you-- what was the other thing? So clearance clash, and make sure you have a suitable tolerance. So you're checking to see if any of that real life data comes within your modelled objects. So have a think about what are the tolerances of the laser scan that you've got, and where are the modelled objects, and what do you want it to fit within.

Project folders. This was the one thing I was meant to record a video of last night, but I didn't, because I fell asleep. So I'm very, very sorry. So explain project folders. Are you aware of all the settings that you have for your one individual-- on your one machine, you can share by importing and exporting? OK, a few nods. So you can export your settings and share them with someone else. Well, that's fine. That works, you know. But if you've got a big project team, it's not ideal saying to everyone, before you start, can you just import this XML file. It's not the easiest thing to do.

So what you can do is you can set up project folders and you can set up site folders on a network drive, and have everyone point their machines at those folders. And that can contain things like settings, work spaces, and some other stuff I don't remember because I didn't record a video to check. So just have a look on the help guide. It's a really useful way of deploying Navisworks to more and more users, particularly if you have certain ways of bringing your data in.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] change the file, change the setting, it updates live on everybody's station?

LEE MULLIN: Yes. So if it's on the network drive, I believe it will be the beginning of the next session, that's when they would see it.

JAMES AUSTIN: [INAUDIBLE]

LEE MULLIN: Yes, we can put a video on the-- yeah. So I will-- James just suggested I should put a video on the Linoit. So I've not got away with recording a video. So I will record a video. So James is trying to get me back. Does anyone know how to get to the advanced options? Did you know there were advanced options?

AUDIENCE: Hold Shift.

LEE MULLIN: Hold Shift, perfect, right. That's, unfortunately, your open mic session taken. If you hold down Shift, you can get to a lot more of the options. Now generally we use this for troubleshooting, but have a look because there may be some additional settings which would help you with performance on particular models or using the tools in a particular way. I'm not going to give you any recommended ones because from an official Autodesk point of view, we don't recommend you go into advanced options unless you're troubleshooting. But have a look. I mean, you've probably worked it out quite straightforward.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

LEE MULLIN: So in the options, you would normally get, I think, five breadcrumbs, I think they're called, at the beginning. I think this gives you seven of the breadcrumbs because it allows you to access the registry settings and some of the other settings as well. But have a look in there, if you might find something useful.

Clash filters. So who uses Clash? Thought so. Most people do use Clash. I've got a couple of Clash videos. This is one where we're using the inclusive and exclusive clash filters to be able to quickly sort through clashes. So this is why I say search sets are essential. If you bring through all your search sets-- in this case, we've got materials-- we can have a look at-- rather than having look at all 88 classes, we can just look at all those ones that are connected to those polyvinyl chloride rigid pipes. So we can more easily kind of sort what we've got, and then maybe group them if they're useful.

So we've also got an exclusive filter as well, where you select multiple items. So as long as both items appear-- sorry, as long as both items are selected, they will appear on this filter. That can be really useful if you want to, again, just really, really refine that wider clash test. I mean, I suppose on clash tests as well, and one thing which I always recommend, you're better having more. You're better having lots of smaller tests than having one huge MEP versus structure. I know we do it. I've done it before with customers. But the thing which I would say is you're better having lots of these small ones, because it makes it a lot easier to report out than to assign to different people.

So I consider that, and are you all aware that you can take your clash tests from one project to the next? Cool. If you weren't aware, go to the Output tab, export your clash tests. Anything where you're using search sets, you can then bring them into the next project. If you're using selection sets, tough. That's your own fault. You should have used search sets. Search sets are kind of the way to move from one project to the next and do it really effectively.

AUDIENCE: Can you use the search sets to [INAUDIBLE] a particular surface instead of a material?

LEE MULLIN: Yeah, exactly. There's lots of ways you can do it, but yes, search sets by those is a good way. A couple of good settings to help you get the numbers down of clashes, so I'll just go back to the start of the video. So are you aware of composite objects? Composite objects that are essentially where if you say a window, a window is made up of the pane, a glass pane, and mullions and lots of other items. Composite object clashing will allow you to say that window is one window. It's not 17 different items. So what you can use is use composite objects to reduce the number of clashes, because you know it's one issue. You can also use the rules to allow you to ignore clashes based on certain sets.

This is really, really powerful. I've seen lots of people using it in different ways. My recommended way is you use it to look at search sets. Yep, there's a question there.

AUDIENCE: Does this work when you get a final and somebody made a 3D object when the surface just faces together?

LEE MULLIN: I suppose it would depend on the user case, what data's in there, you could create a search set from the file name, I suppose. You can also do things in certain files as well. There's a lot of flexibility there, it just kind of depends on how you're working.

JAMES AUSTIN: I think [INAUDIBLE] composite items, and the answer is generally no, it doesn't.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

LEE MULLIN: There we go.

JAMES AUSTIN: Where if something's kind of blocked [INAUDIBLE] or whatever--

LEE MULLIN: Ah, OK.

JAMES AUSTIN: [INAUDIBLE] it goes in, every time this little itty bitty fire alarm device touches something, I get 40 clashes.

LEE MULLIN: Fair enough, yeah. Good point. , Yeah so maybe you're going to volunteer as well with one of the advanced options later. I'm sure you've got a few. Cool. So what I'd say is if you use rules and you use for composite objects effectively, it can massively reduce the number of clashes you have. In this case, I think we went from-- it was about 2,000 clashes to about 600 or something like that, just by using some of these tools.

Right, sectioning. Sectioning isn't advanced. I really hope it's not advanced. But there are some tools to help you with using sectioning really well. So you can use-- obviously you can use the move gizmos to move it. You can then create a second section plane. And what you can do is you can use those section planes to essentially create a slice of the model that moves all the way through. So if you use this Link Section Planes button, that allows you to just drag that section all the way through. So that can be really good if you're trying to analyze as-built information from point clouds. If you're looking at analyzing certain parts of clashes, it can be a really, really good way just to do the design review based on that.

Now, we've also got another tool here called Fit Selection. So in this case, we've gone to a box, a box section. What we've done is we've used the sets, again, just to select-- I can't remember what it was, some of the-- maybe ducts or something like this. Where we've selected a number of items, and then we're using Fit Selection to fit the box just to those items. So it can be a good way of just understanding what's in a particular area or just cutting down your larger model.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] but dropped down the transform on the sections, you know where your floor height is--

LEE MULLIN: You're going to spoil your chance. Hold on to that one, because that's a really good one. So I would hold on to that, because I think that's a good point.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] have this large plant, and you want to isolate it down to a little building, you can plane your section down and you would rename that model as if [INAUDIBLE]

LEE MULLIN: So at no point is it changing what's in that model, it's just a view on that model. But we'll talk about something later that might be interesting.

AUDIENCE: Good.

LEE MULLIN: OK?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

LEE MULLIN: We'll show you something which I think might answer your problems. Who uses BIM 360? OK, I'm going to recommend if you don't use BIM 360, have a look at it. Glue is a really good way of collecting all your models together. So rather than spending all of your time worrying about NWFs and NWDs and NWCs and which ones have been cached and which ones are up to date and which ones are wrong and which ones are out of date, using Glue means you can just open your models straight from a cloud. And it's really effective for a project, because you can then take those same models, create your one for 4D, create one for clash detection, create one for quantification, create one for rendering, and we're all using those same source files. So it's a really, really good way to be able to get access to your data in a much quicker way.

Which leads on really, really nicely to the next piece, which is-- are you aware that AutoCAD has the ability to underlay Navisworks models?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

AUDIENCE: Yep.

LEE MULLIN: So in AutoCAD, we're using a Navisworks model here as an XREF. This has been out for about a year and a half now. So if you're creating a Navisworks model where it's all these aggregated services, all of the AutoCAD vertical products, so your plant 3Ds, your civil 3Ds, your MEPs, you can bring the Navisworks model into that. And it's the same Navisworks engine for viewing, which means it's on a separate process so it improves your performance as well. You can also-- as well as Navisworks, you can also load BIN 360 Glue models into here. So if you've got everybody's uploaded their models into this cloud environment, then people can XREF the live cloud model as part of their design, which is going to help you with doing clash avoidance, which means there should be less clashes that get through to you by the time you do your clash detection at the end of the week.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] measured to the desktop [INAUDIBLE]

LEE MULLIN: Yep, you can do snapping in AutoCAD as well. So it's pretty cool. If you just saw there, the navigation was navigation in AutoCAD. You know, how often have you seen that in AutoCAD? So it's really improving the way in which AutoCAD users can improve their design workflows-- by doing it against a live model, or a much more federated recent model, than having 20 or 30 different XREFs that you have to manage individually. So it can really help you out with that.

AUDIENCE: That's like when [INAUDIBLE]

AUDIENCE: What is the [INAUDIBLE]

LEE MULLIN: You cool with that? Are you cool with that? If not, I'll-- yeah, if you don't, I'll announce it afterwards. Yeah. So I've got another poll there. I can't remember what the poll was. So can anyone raise their hands if they haven't learned anything. Right, OK, I'm going to go home. See you later, guys. Right, so that's really good timing. So we've had a few people who were already using BIM 360. Can you raise your hands if it's been 360 Glue? Field? Plan? Layout? OK, no problem. I'm going to pass you on to James. You need to get an updated picture.

JAMES AUSTIN: Do I need to use this mic as well?

LEE MULLIN: You use the mic, yeah.

JAMES AUSTIN: Right, cool, yeah. So Lee asked me to give a brief introduction to some of the other cool stuff, as he calls it. I've been with Autodesk just over four years now. I live in the UK. I also did a then and now. I used to be an architect, that got me to meet the Queen. Since I joined Autodesk, I got to stick sticky notes to my chest in workshops. I was previously in Autodesk consulting before I moved into the product management role. So, you know, I've worked with a lot of customers in a lot different situations through my time at Autodesk.

So I'm just going to show you a few bits that are pretty interesting. I think you guys might like, especially if you're in the advanced stage. I'm kind of showing you something a bit naughty here. You haven't put my automatic plays in, Lee.

LEE MULLIN: Don't worry, I can play them.

JAMES AUSTIN: Bloody hell, man.

LEE MULLIN: I'll play them.

JAMES AUSTIN: Do nothing. Right, so first question we got asked when we released the AutoCAD underlay was when's Revit coming. You just did exactly the same thing, which is really cool. This year the Revit team are going out announce at OU that they're going to be bringing this out in the next version of Revit. So we've been working with them in the last 12 months to support their implementation of this. It's part of the new drawing API which allows any object to be drawn into Revit.

The first example is using the Navisworks core engine. So you're getting Navisworks performance native to Revit to suit a lot of workflows. They've got a demonstration showing a 2 gig InfraWorks model. I am a bit more construction focused, so you know, the kind of applications you can get here by bringing in a coordinated services and structure model into your architectural designs. Then when you're making your changes to that, they can be done in context.

So as you see here, pretty standard sort of workflows. You're working out in your corridor layouts, you got a new fire door requirement, you can bash that wall in in Revit pretty quickly. It's a pretty powerful tool, for those of you that don't use it. I'm guessing most of you probably do. But we can use those tools to do that. Now that we've got the context, we know that live information from the Navisworks model, that's the coordinated team, we can actually start to design around that and kind of make the clash detection in Navisworks redundant. Which is really the ultimate goal around having crash avoidance, so we don't waste time finding, managing, communicating, and editing. You can actually do that on the fly. So I think this is pretty cool. This is exciting stuff to be talking about at OU this year.

AUDIENCE: How do you get in?

JAMES AUSTIN: It's kind of-- they've used the same interface as like, an XREF-- I can't remember what it's called in Revit-- where you can manage links. So it's kind of the same sort of functionality. Yeah, sure.

AUDIENCE: Would you say that [INAUDIBLE]

JAMES AUSTIN: No, I didn't say that, because you can't right now. We're working very closely with the Revit team to help them with their roadmap of what functionality needs to come next. Is it accessing the object properties, is it being able to snap and measure, that kind of stuff. You know, I'm kind of showing a bit more than I probably ought to at the moment. So don't go telling, don't go tweeting this, that would help me.

This one's pretty cool, and-- you'll need to press play again. I can talk about this. This is out in product, but you may not be aware of it. The ReCap team released a 3.1 update very recently, a month or two ago, I think. In that, they took the same technology again, so they've implemented the Navisworks core engine into ReCap. So what you're seeing here is is a bit of workflow around positioning the point cloud. So they've gone into this industrial facility, they've done a scan of some existing equipment, some pumps and pipes and stuff that looks cool in ReCap. They then position it.

But then going back into ReCap, what you can do now is jump into the real view, I think it's called, where this is the photo data with the point cloud underneath. You can measure it and stuff, but it's very high fidelity. From that view, now, you can link in Navisworks model datasets. What you get then is this fantastic blended reality environment where you've got the reality capture data-- you know, the real stuff-- and then you've got the CAD data overlaid into that space as well.

AUDIENCE: So you're showing this on the smaller scale. How does that whole system work with civil, because I know they've had a lot of issues with the 6 million, 2 million, [INAUDIBLE]

JAMES AUSTIN: So what I can speak to is the technology they're using to bring that CAD data in is Navisworks. Navisworks handles huge data sets really well, that's one of the reasons why you're all sat in this room learning more about it, I would suspect. So that's not going to affect the performance, because that's running Navisworks. We're using all the clever stuff that we do around occlusion and depth and so on to make that performance. I can't speak to how the performance of a massive data set in the ReCap side of things, you know, the huge scanned data sets. This isn't going to change that. But this isn't going to have a massive effect on it, either, because--

AUDIENCE: Well, like, the Revit guys don't want that out there, right? They don't want that, you know, coordinate system, they want the local system, so like how does it--

JAMES AUSTIN: So that was-- the little bit at the front was just basically getting things in the right place. That's kind of a workflow that's very easily done in Navisworks. Take the point cloud, put it in the right spot. Then when you bring that Navisworks model back in, it's in the right spot. So I'm sure there's some work to be done there. But I thought you'd be interested to see that, it's a brand new feature and a brand new functionality.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

JAMES AUSTIN: Sorry?

AUDIENCE: Do you have to have [INAUDIBLE]

JAMES AUSTIN: It's the ReCap 360, so it is a subscription service, I believe. So, yeah.

AUDIENCE: But you would need to follow the version [INAUDIBLE]

LEE MULLIN: I think it's in Pro. One thing I'd suggest is if you haven't yet looked at Collections, have a look at that. Because that not only gives you Navisworks Manage, but it also gives you ReCap Pro. So it might be worth looking at.

JAMES AUSTIN: And then kind of one of the things that-- this is kind of just showing some of the--

LEE MULLIN: I need to play?

JAMES AUSTIN: Yeah, you need to play again. One of the things that we are doing is trying to take a lot of the workflows that we've developed and strengthened in Navisworks and take those into the cloud. So what you're seeing here is some work that we've been doing on top of BIM 360 Docs to create a clash engine. So one of the next things to come, I guess, is how we attach this to data that lives in BIM 360 Docs. And really, this is kind of changing the whole process and approach to clash. We're quite excited about this.

At the moment, clash in Navisworks is creating lots of search sets so you can do them quickly, thanks to Lee now. But then it's about having the sense to match those up, create clash pairs, run the clashes, perform some analysis and groupings, and make that efficient to get to the bits that matter. We're taking this to the cloud now and automating all of that. So when you upload your models to BIM 360 Docs, the clash engine is run automatically in the cloud. We've got some logic applied to that to group them, and then we can present those back. And this is all done in the browser with zero client install.

So that entire workflow, the whole process of setting up clashes, getting everyone's models, running the clash report, condensing that down, turning it into something that you can have a meeting about, then discussing it, is starting to change with how we're starting to approach this in the cloud. And we're looking at-- there's a lot of stuff in there. So I kind of echo Lee's statement about, if you've not looked at BIM 360, now is probably a good time to start doing it. Because we're really starting to transform workflows up there with some of this technology.

And I think the cool thing is this is kind of all underpinned by Navisworks. You know, this is the same clash engine as in Navisworks. We've had a lot people ask us about over the years, you know, when are you going to sync your clash data. This kind of really starts to open that up.

LEE MULLIN: Can I, before you go into that one, I think one thing that's worth mentioning, and look who I get to sit next to in product team when I am very rarely at home in Sheffield, and I think what these guys are doing at the moment is we're trying to make-- if you want to do clash detection and you want to do clash detection well, you have to be an expert. You have to know the software pretty well. Would you say that's fair? Yeah?

What we want to do is we want to make this kind of clash process easier and more common sense, which means that you guys don't spend all of your time messing around with reports and viewpoints and sending them off to people. You guys do the high value stuff, you guys do the escalations and this stuff which, really, is what you get paid to do. You don't really get paid to spend all of your time messing around with viewpoints and marking them up. As much as you may enjoy it. So I think the work that these guys doing, when you start seeing that surface in the product, I think you'll find that it will free you to do some of this other cool stuff that you want to do.

JAMES AUSTIN: And just kind of last discussion point about that, this is a demo of, really, what's capable with the new Forge Viewer component. So this is an example dataset showing a Revit model that's been uploaded. What we can actually start to do, now that we've got all the stuff in the cloud, is when you've got intelligent data, such as a Revit model, where there are associations made between it, we can start to do some really cool stuff. So in here, you're seeing me select elements in the 3D model. These are actually being highlighted in the 2D as well. We can do the same, we can pick stuff in the 2D and isolate that in the 3D. And because all of that information is linked at the data layer, on the property side of things, as well, we can also start to look at it differently.