Infrastructure Project Delivery with the Architecture, Engineering & Construction Collection and Autodesk Construction Cloud

BEN WARDELL: All right, welcome to the Project Delivery class using the Autodesk AEC collection and the Autodesk Construction Cloud. My name is Ben Wardell. I'm a technical marketing manager with Autodesk. I've been with Autodesk for about four years.

Prior to that, I worked in the civil engineering industry as a roadway and rail designer with a couple of larger engineering firms, working on projects similar to what we will show in this project delivery workshop. I am hosted with Drew Olsen. And I'll let him introduce himself.

DREW OLSEN: Great, Ben. Thanks, man. Drew Olsen. Here a very similar background to Ben. We were together in the Parsons Brinckerhoff days back in 2003, back in Denver even. So we've designed quite a few projects together. Really great to be here with you, Ben. Been at Autodesk eight years now, last three years over on the construction side of the house.

And really supporting the sales team. And I get the luxury of a job of going out and dealing with our infrastructure owners very specifically, so DOTs, municipalities, transit agencies, these kinds of folks is who we're talking to day in day out. So I love the content we have today, love presenting this stuff with Ben. So let's get to it, Ben.

BEN WARDELL: All right, sounds good. So to begin with, just so you know, any future-related statements are not a promise of future delivery within the platforms. We'll go into softwares. I believe everything that we're going to be showing today is currently available in the product. But just so you know, it's the safe harbor statement, no guarantee of future delivery. So just keep that in mind.

DREW OLSEN: They can't base their decision purchasing decision moving forward on what you're going to promise them on this? Is that what you're saying, Ben?

BEN WARDELL: Nope, can't do that.

DREW OLSEN: OK.

BEN WARDELL: At least that's what the safe harbor tells them.

DREW OLSEN: Duly noted.

BEN WARDELL: So for the class, what we're going to do, we're going to cover-- we're going to touch lightly on what the collection is, how it's evolved, its evolvement. And we're going to jump into the Construction Cloud, the Autodesk Construction Cloud. Drew is going to touch on that and how that's evolved. And then how they come together as a connected platform and you're going to hear a lot about that here at AU, this time around, a lot about this connected platform, this connected data environment. Then we're going to get into a sample project. We're going to go over some of the project timelines.

And we're going to break this down into a couple of different pillars between planning and design and building and then operations. And we're going to even get more granular than that. We're going to break that down into some of those project milestones and really dissect how the whole project moves from that planning phase all the way to the delivery and how it's integrated with the AEC collection and the Construction Cloud throughout the entire process of the class.

Then we'll take questions at the end. That's kind of where we're at right now. Drew, anything you want to add on the agenda? Or are you good to roll?

DREW OLSEN: I didn't realize we were doing all that today. Just kidding. Let's go.

BEN WARDELL: All right, so let's jump into the presentation now. And we're going to start off by talking about the Autodesk AEC collection, what it is and how it's evolved over time and with the different collections that have been added to it, the different platforms that have been added to it. So most of you are going to be familiar with what the core of the collection is. That's going to be Revit. That's Civil 3D and AutoCAD, InfraWorks, getting into ReCap Pro and some of these others.

When it comes to more specific or expanded workflows, you've got some of these other platforms such as Insight, or FormIt, or even Vehicle Tracking. And you've got a whole host of structural analysis tools, whether they're infrastructure or they're buildings. That said, the expansion of the AEC collection really has been about making data the key element involved.

So with a lot of this expansion, a lot of these different platforms are useful for certain tools. As this has developed, and as the collection has expanded, the requests often that we get is to make everything more compatible with each other. And that's one of the most common requests we see from a lot of customers. They want to see Civil 3D into Revit or Revit into Civil 3D or any combination of some of these different platforms working with each other.

And if we're going to make any sort of forward-looking statements, the ultimate goal is to make data the critical aspect of this to make it so that the data in the center is more important than whatever platform is being used here. So unifying these products and the workflows to making it possible so that infrastructure and buildings, that whole process works together in a seamless environment, so in a common data environment.

And you're going to hear that a lot talked about here at Autodesk. So with that, let's jump into the Construction Cloud. And I'll hand it off to Drew for a second.

DREW OLSEN: Great, Ben. And similarly to the way you're discussing where we're moving with design tools, the AEC collection, data at the center, hopefully getting more widgets and tools to be able to modify and interact with that data and sharing that data between tools, et cetera, that is a huge goal. We've made great progress. And again, like you said earlier, we're going to see some of that in some of the videos that we show in a bit.

But then on the construction side of the house and trying to move to cloud, both design intent to the cloud and then usher that design intent through the lifecycle, design, precon, field execution, close out so we can start to package that up. And for infrastructure, that means a heavy connection now to ESRI. This is where things are getting very interesting with the cloud and the data at the center, like you're saying, Ben.

But what we've done in construction to move a little faster to help us build that platform out, it started with BIM 360. You guys are well familiar with that from the past five to six, seven years. Well, we needed to go faster. Once we stood up that platform, moved our design tools to read from the cloud, so we're moving that data to the cloud to get it more expanded for more team members and more usage. Well, we had to start to build on then the functionality to usher that design intent, again, through field execution.

So we knew we had to go faster in construction. And that's where these large investments over the last three years or so have really come from. So like you knew, we were building out the BIM 360 platform.

And we wanted to go faster in construction. So that's where you saw the acquisition of things like BuildingConnected, PlanGrid, Assemble, just to mention a couple. So we spent the next year or so opening up those back ends, like Ben was saying, on our own tools as well, opening these acquired tools up so that we could share that data and workflows amongst those products to start to connect these right out of the gate on acquisition day.

And then finally, what you're going to see today and what is in the Autodesk Construction Cloud, it is the evolution of the BIM 360 platform plus these acquired tools like PlanGrid, to mention one big merging of tools into the unified platform. So that's what we're going to focus on today is this unified platform of Autodesk Construction Cloud and what it really means to put it to work in the lifecycle.

So let's see what managing design looks like on the cloud. Let's look what it means to move into those precon activities on the cloud field. And then finally, we'll end with how we wrap this all up and do a really nice robust connection with ESRI. So along those lines of building out this cloud platform of the Autodesk Construction Cloud, we had to take on the lifecycle. So of course, we're in plan, design, build, operate.

You'll see, if I got just a little bit granular here, what did we invest in to move faster? Well, at the end of the design pillar here, model conditioning, quantification, bid management, and then really this whole build phase here. It really came faster through acquired tools. So these are the functionalities that we have been extracting out of these acquired tools, layering them into the new Autodesk Construction Cloud platform, and wrapping those workflows around the design intent or the data, if you will.

That's where this is getting exciting. So to cut a little bit of the confusion out of it, this is a little bit of a packaging slide, if you will. So the idea is that Autodesk Docs, which by the way is included with your AEC collection, so it's the first introduction to cloud, we provide the common data environment with AECC. And then the modules that we're building out the functionality on all sit on top of that Docs common data environment.

So again, data is at the center, maybe at the bottom of this visual. But data is at the center. And all of these modules are all wrapped around that data. So common data environments, the first big check mark we had to do, attach our design tools to it, and then start to implement these workflows in a cloud and mobile based environment.

So that's what we've done in the Autodesk Construction Cloud. And so instead of rammering more about that, let's touch on what it means for a collective platform. So now let me try to explain what this move to a connected platform looks like and means. So why did we do it? Well, we've all seen this slide. It's at every conference we've gone to for 15 years, right?

It's the data drop and high cost of lost data as it moves between siloed phases of a life cycle, especially impacting the owner of these jobs. All of your customers or those owners in our crowd today, thank you for being here. But all of our customers, I was a consultant, Ben was a consultant, so the owner is the one who ends up having to take the worst part of that hit on these data losses. And this is why it's a data nightmare still for them today.

We dreamed of BIM being that top-line curve that smooths out all those data losses and drops. Model-based anything is not coming as fast as we all wished it was. So what we have really found out through this journey is, it's the data in a common data environment that smooths that line out for us. And to be a little bit more specific on it, I'm encouraging owners to take control of that data and that ownership of that cloud platform so that then they can bring in the design team to the data.

As it moves to build, it's not just spitting out a stack of paper and handing it to bid for a contractor. And they don't know anything else that was learned through planning and design. No, we're not doing that anymore. Owner is going to bring that contract construction team to the data in the same platform so that they can then pick up the ball, work through all their work executing the project, ending up with As-Built in the system that they leave behind.

They don't leave with the data. The customer stays with the data. That's what we've done for a connected platform. It is to smooth out these data losses and drops across the lifecycle. Took a little more time on that than I probably intended to. But I think it's important to really make that connection that it's the common data environment that we want the data and the project insights to live in for the lifecycle.

If I take another graphical look at it then, sort of, this is the Autodesk Construction Cloud platform in the middle. The design tools is the first thing we had to hook up so that no more local area network. Now everybody's working on the cloud. That was the first big step. We want to get the data going.

And then it's a modular-based approach, depending on what you're doing in the lifecycle of what tools you would use. But you're all accessing the same data. The last point I'm going to make on this slide is Autodesk Forge, if you haven't gotten into it yet, it's worth a few Google's and checking out, extremely powerful. This is the underpinning technology that our cloud platform is built on.

So not only do our design products and teams utilize that Forge interaction to connect their data and to work those workflows of design management. Just as importantly is the third-party applications that we so much love that build on our platforms for the past 35 years plus, Forge is already a developer network package now that these third-party applications can move faster to interact with our data on the cloud, either pull that data out to do something in them and return a result to us, or even to do something on our cloud with it.

That's the power of this. And you'll see some of that I'm sure all week at AU. Lots on Forge, lots of connections, so I encourage you to dive into that stuff, super interesting.

So the last one here on packaging a little bit, this is what it looks like. Your design tool is on the left interacting with the Construction Cloud as that creator of design intent. As we capture that design intent, move it through the lifecycle and manage those workflows on the data.

These are the tools you do that with. Ultimately, ending in-- you're going to see a lot about this at AU2 this year-- Autodesk Tandem is our first big push into a digital twin platform, first starting with Revit. But also, on this idea of digital twin, really great what we're doing with tandem. But at the same time, linear and infrastructure sometimes is a bit different than buildings and things like this. So digital twin can mean two things I think in our world.

And so where Tandem is where we're headed with the future and really getting down to nuts and bolts on these models and these assets and these facilities. But then we are going to show you today. Also where we've invested in with ESRI and made a lot of these connections as well to think about a larger linear digital twin tied to ESRI tied back to our design tools like InfraWorks, which you'll see quite a bit of, and sharing that line between digital twin and engineering, digital twin and ESRI and GIS and asset management.

So that's the package, the flow. These logos at the bottom is just another reminder of these additional Construction Cloud tools that we've been acquiring. And these are the functionalities that you're seeing sprinkled into these platforms from design to the ACC and Tandem for that matter as we're moving forward, so the continual evolution of what we're building out here.

OK, that's been big picture. Now let's talk specifics for just a second. And I think this is kind of the core of what we're going to show you today. The idea is we need to begin with the end in mind. This is not coined by me, of course. But the point for what we do in infrastructure is ultimately, 90% of the time plus, we want to try to hand off some more intelligent data from construction into that asset team, asset management, facility management, that's what we're trying to connect here in the end.

I think that's really the Holy Grail that's going to finally truly connect life cycle for our owners today. So to do that, we've got to start at the beginning. So today, this might look like a stack of paper that gets pushed around for years and then ends up being an As-Built and in a box somewhere, right? Yes, that's still happening today.

What we're moving to, first of all, is just this idea of collecting the data and integrating, just so digital platform that we can house the data. And we can interact with those, today, paper-based workflows. Think RFI, think design reviews, think submittal tracking. This kind of stuff is what we're wrapping on the data in the platform. And you're going to see bits and pieces of that today.

So that's the heavy lift of the shift of going digital, I would say. It's adopting a platform, getting your data up there, and then moving your workflows today back to the platform and not allowing people to cheat in email, text message, all this kind of stuff where we're always chasing that information then. That's the heavy lift. Next though, that's not enough. I know that.

We've got As-Built this data. Then we want to do more than that. We want to start to collect attribution on those As-Built elements. And then that attributed data is what we're talking about handing and pushing and connecting to ESRI, which you will see all of this today.

And my little funny graphics at the bottom, not so much funny, but crawl, walk, run, fly, is the idea I want to remind everyone here. We don't have to wait for model-based design and model-based construction to start. This could be all paper-based today. And we're digitizing and making a huge impact all along the way, starting to drag out some of that design intent with it to get these field staff and everybody else a little bit more comfortable bringing more digital data out with their traditional PS and e-packages today.

Believe it or not, we're going to see that today. It starts with Autodesk Docs as that underlying pinning common data environment that we talked about, I think. This is your folder structure, permissions, all the things you would expect with a common data environment. But also then, we've got the viewers that we read like 80 file types, I think, so no longer needing design tools just to access and view the data or the attribution on it. You're going to see a lot of that today in the videos.

We run design reviews right here in the Docs environment. So no more sending out 10 packages for review and getting back 10 sets of comments and having to go through that whole reconciliation process. We're going to do that. Ben is going to touch on that and show you some of that live today.

So common data environment is really the crux of it all. And then we want to start to show you the workflows as we start to touch on these the lifecycle phases and some of the things that happen in those phases to give you the a real idea and what this looks like. Ben, you want to take it from here?

BEN WARDELL: You bet. So let's jump into the project lifecycle now then and talk about where we're at when it comes to these different phases. So your typical project, we're going to run through these different elements. You're going to look at the planning phase. And we're going to talk about the different stakeholders that are going to be involved with each one of these phases.

You've got the owners. You've got the planners. You've got the different stakeholders that are going to be involved with these different phases. That gets handed off to the consulting team, who's probably running with their information to create the design. That then gets handed off to the contractor, who's responsible for making the reality happen, to build this thing.

And ultimately, that gets handed over back to the owner where they're going to do asset management throughout the life of the project. So with all of these things, the way that this all functions, we're going to break this down and talk about each one of these in a little bit more of a granular, a little more broken down level so that we can see how we're utilizing both the AEC collection and the Construction Cloud like Drew talked about there.

DREW OLSEN: Hey, Ben, could I add one right there to that view?

BEN WARDELL: Please.

DREW OLSEN: What I love about this is that you even-- we all still have the vocabulary of handoff, handoff, handoff, which is the problem of the old days. It would be, maybe we should have overlaid that old data drop graphic right to this almost because now the point really is, as planning occurs and data is being created, we bring the design team to the data, no more of a handoff. The owner is running the line to smooth this out, bringing contractor to the data, bring operations in on the process.

So again, I love the graphic. I love the idea of how it ties to getting rid of those handoffs and those data drops and bringing people to the data. Sorry for the interruption. But I couldn't resist.

BEN WARDELL: No, you're good. You're good because that's what this whole process is about. And so again, you're going to see this with most projects when we talk about the lifecycle is going from the planning phase all the way to the handoff to the owner to let them manage the asset. So we're going to get a little bit more broken down with that. And within those different phases, we're going to talk about these different project milestones.

So when we're talking about this planning phase of it, we're really going to get into things like the alternatives analysis, then the detailed design and how that aspect works, how that design and construction, how there's a lot of overlap when it comes to that and how that all works together and then ultimately, handing off that thing into the project to asset delivery and for operations by the owners. So in this case, we've got an example project that we're going to take a look at.

We've got basically two aspects of this that we want to really sort of focus in on. In this case, we've got an arterial roadway that's connecting a freeway intersection with a fairly large subdivision. And this road is woefully insufficient in this area. Demand has exceeded the capacity. And so we're going to take a look at a couple of different options that might be able to alleviate the traffic congestion that is found on this particular roadway.

Not far from here, we're going to take a look at another project that's more on the rail side. So there's an existing light rail transit line that ends right here at the end of the project. We're going to take a look and see what we could do as far as adding a high-speed rail line that's going to go south from here. And this is south of Denver. And again, a theoretical project entirely.

But then we want to incorporate this whole aspect of building around it, this transit-oriented development and how that all factors in and how we can incorporate all these things on the roadway side, on the rail side, the structure side, the building side. So really want to kind of take a look at this from any aspect that a civil engineer might be able to consider to really see, OK, how can we get all this meshed in and really blend these things in with, when it comes to the platforms, getting it onto the cloud and working together as this team through the entire duration of that project.

So in this first portion, we are going to dive in to, on the planning side, we're going to talk about the purpose and need. Typically you will always have one of those as well as an environmental assessment, and the alternatives analysis. That's always going to be one of these things that planners and owners are going to start out with. And when it comes to this kind of data, they are going to need existing information.

So a lot of the existing information that they're going to really be keen on is are going to be existing traffic flows as well as projected traffic flows. So utilizing a lot of the tools that are available within the AEC collection, InfraWorks specifically, you can take a look at some of these mobility simulations with traffic. Then start to consider some of these alternatives that might need to be considered. In the process of doing that, there are always going to be restrictions, whether they're environmental, there's an environmentally sensitive area that we can't get into.

If there's a future development, this is a parcel that's going to be slated for something else. What this allows us to do is really explore this whole idea of these different alternatives and these alternatives analysis. Here we've got a restricted area where we're considering one of these alternative alignments for the high-speed rail. As we evaluate this further, maybe cost is coming into factor. Or we see we've got an impact in a drainage detention basin. And that might not be something that we can really consider.

So within these tools, again, we have the opportunity, or the planners and developers have the opportunity to utilize these tool and very quickly put together some of these concepts that might be just throwing darts at a wall to figure out what's going to work. Again, getting into not just the traffic simulation, but also getting into more of this people-mover situation where we're looking at mobility simulation. What happens if we've got restrictions? We lose access to elevators or whatever it is.

Can we accommodate some of those things and looking at this with the transit model as well? Tying back in, and this is where Drew can come in and say something about this as well, all of this is connected on the cloud. So now we know that everybody is-- a lot of companies are moving away from a centralized workspace. They've got access to this information, whether it's on the cloud, they can get to this.

And this is going to depend on the permissions level. Like Drew talked about before, the owners are allowed to look at this. They can see the development of their plan and how that's being taken, not just from this planning phase, but now into getting into design. So this is the information that they've work on, they've utilized, and now they're going to hand this over to the consultant who is then going to take this ball and get into the design phase of this.

All right, so let's jump into the design aspect of this. So the next part of this is going to be one of these integrated and essential connections between Autodesk and ESRI. So we're going to get into the ArcGIS connection. Libraries of information are available. And again, the more information that a designer, an engineer can start with, the better their design is going to be.

I can't tell you how many times that you run into some problems as an engineer where the problem is what you just don't know. But as we can gather this data from an ArcGIS standpoint or wherever it comes from, that's going to make a better basis for design. So in this case, the design starts out, we've collected some of this data. And in this case, we're going to talk about the survey team.

That data that the survey team has collected, the existing conditions, the property maps, the detention basins, any of that is now shared with some of these other teams. And so the civil team goes out in the design collaboration module and can evaluate and then extract those files that they're going to use for their design as a basis for their design.

So they bring in the topo mapping, the contours, the water, the 100-year flood plain level. All that information, the property mapping, all that information is now serving as a basis for their design. And they're all linked together. They're using the most accurate and up-to-date information. They're not on old information.

They're able to connect all to the same files. And now once they've got that, now they can set this up just as we said before. This is just the way a LAN environment would work.

So we're setting up data shortcuts here for the surface, for the alignments, for a lot of these base files, just the same way we would in an office environment. So if you've got people who are working in Denver or in San Francisco or in Boston, they've got access to the same information, again, because of the cloud and because of that cloud platform connection. Now they've got access to the most current and up-to-date files, all at the same time.

DREW OLSEN: Ben, you show it a lot there. So I just wanted to sort of restate two things that jumped out at me that we were seeing that we always talk about but you didn't mention because we always talk about it. So the two things I'm seeing is number one, especially in that rail data set, you are really showing how far we've come by being able to share Civil 3D and Revit data, without saying it. I mean, and often we show cool data sets, but you don't know how much work went into it to get that stuff there.

The point here is, this is all working now like you expect it to. We're able to share corridors, share buildings back and forth between Revit and Civil 3D, super-critical point for the design folks out there in cyber land. But then the other one is, and you kind of went over very quick, is the GIS stuff. And yes, you showed it and why you get it and what the use case is.

But what you skipped over was the actual connection, ESRI reconnection to ArcGIS in the Civil 3D application. And this is no longer figuring out how to get shape files and like-- it's none of that. This is truly pulling direct read, write access between ArcGIS Online and our design tools within the platform. So it's worth reiterating. I mean, it's so good, I got to say it.

BEN WARDELL: Absolutely. So and we'll actually touch on that a little bit more because we've got it on both ends. Not only can you extract the data that's coming down from ESRI, from ArcGIS. We've also got the ability to push that stuff up. We'll get to that toward the end of this demonstration as well. So now let's jump into the detailed design.

The point that we want to emphasize here is, not only are we utilizing all this data that's available to us as a basis for our design, but there have been design tools that have been implemented and added to Civil 3D specifically to not only create detailed corridor models for roadways, but there have been a lot of investment to implement this information on the rail side as well. It's why we want to show that here.

So here, we're creating an equilateral turnout for a center pocket track on a curve. Not ideal to do. But you can do it now. And with the tools that are implemented between the assemblies that are available and all these different tools that have been added to Civil 3D, you've really got the ability now to really create a truly accurate and detailed model, whether it's the roadway or the rail side. Design automation, that's a big thing as well that we're going to talk about as well.

When it comes to these routine tasks that just take time, sometimes they'll take so much time that they're not worth doing like creating plinths here that are on the deck of the rail or the overhead contact poles. A lot of times we won't create that information. With design automation, you can iterate this design to see, where does our clearance envelope fit? How do all these elements fit in together? Then you've created objects, and we'll get into this as well, objects with intelligence that create a true model that's going to help us with a complete design of this whole project.

Getting into the structural aspect now using InfraWorks, we've imported that Civil 3D model into our InfraWorks model now. And so now the structural engineers, the bridge engineer can come in, create a very detailed structural model of that bridge, and take that, connect it directly into Revit, and then create things like the rebar layout. All of this comes together through Civil 3D, through Revit.

Whatever platform we're using, now we can create these plan sheets that are all connected and that really represent that 2D aspect of our design. But again, it's linked directly to those models. Now we get into Drew's favorite part of this. And so we get into the sheets that are now connected directly to the platform, to the Autodesk Construction Cloud. These sheets are intelligent. No longer are the days where it's just a 2D snapshot of what's going on. These are connected to each other.

So if you've got information where you've got a section, you can actually link to that section. It'll take you to the other sheet that it's referencing. This information is now intelligent. It's connected. This all comes from the plan grid and through these acquisitions from the Autodesk Construction Cloud to really make this a full-scale environment to where we can look at design models and the plan sheets as well, whatever they might be, if they're sections, if they're plan view. We're getting into to all these different details. Those are all available right there.

Now we'll get into the design review. And this is really just going over the process of creating the design aspect. Like Drew talked about before, gone are the days where you have to submit 10 different-- make 10 copies of a planchette and submit it to 10 different people and then hope that they deliver their comments on time. And then you've got to compare them against each other.

Right now, we've got the ability to submit a design review. And now the designers, the reviewers can create comments within the plan sheets within the model itself. And all of that information is now communicated back to the designer of record so that they can see exactly what sort of things they're missing out on. Within the model itself, now we're in a 2D or a 3D environment, we can create comments. We can add issues, whatever we see.

They may have missed something. In this case, it look like we missed a couple of drainage inlets on that new portion of the alignment from that alternative alignment that was picked. Those comments are all available. We can review all of these things, go through the comments, accept them, approve them, approve them with comments, reject them if need be. And again, just so that we're comfortable, if we need a data source or getting back to this Excel environment, we can create that kind of a report as well just so that we've got it in hand.

DREW OLSEN: If you just can't let your spreadsheet of your comment resolution log go, here it is. We'll give it to you. But you don't even need to go here. This has all been captured from what Ben was just showing in the videos, clicking around, making comments, who made the comment, what sheet, all that stuff. It's all in digital now. But if you want to print this out and put it in three-ring binder, knock yourself out, right, Ben?

BEN WARDELL: There you go. That's right. That's exactly right. So now implementing this design from the designers aspect, we can look at this now. If I've got comments from Drew and we realize we miss a couple of these things on this new alignment, we've got a culvert that needs to be replaced. We've got a couple of inlets that we just overlooked. Those weren't incorporated into the design.

That's communicated back to the design of record. That stuff is implemented into the drawings. Those sheets are now updated. Again, the process is the same as it would work. It's just much cleaner now because everyone is involved. And you've got a central hub for where all of this information is being filtered into.

Wherever whatever sheets or models were included in that design review process, we've got that ability to look at this. We can also look at this from a comparison aspect as well to see, what changed from our plan sheet? What changed on our design file? Getting into more information into the model, now we can start adding things like solids.

If we want a 3D model so that we can really compare and see what we've got in our model so that if things are going to conflict, we can create that aspect of it as well as property set data. We can add those and implement that information into there as well. So whether it's our information, those objects that were created from a design automation standpoint, or from the corridor model itself, we can add data to that. And that's going to include things like, who built it? When was it built?

Who was the inspector? What were the construction specifications? Whatever level of detail we need to include on those properties set data, that's all incorporated into the model as well. And that was all just based on some comments that we got from the owner, from somebody who reviewed this to say, let's incorporate some of this information as well.

So now we're going to get into the part that I really think is cool. And this is where we merge between the engineer and the contractor. They seem to always butt heads. I know that as a designer, you always are fighting with the contractor. The contractors always fighting with the designer. This really gives you an aspect of how we can merge together and really satisfy and help both people out.

So in this model conditioning, we're going to take a look at how we can start, again, making this model more intelligent. It may be geometrically accurate. That's great. But that's not the only thing that we care about.

We now want to have intelligence in this model that tells us exactly what we're looking at. So in the corridor itself, we can add pay item data. So that we can quantify that information to see exactly what it is that we're dealing with. What are we looking at for asphalt tonnage, for sub base, for excavation, whatever it is. That information is all available in that model. We can now review that and see exactly what we've got in our Civil 3D model.

But that's not the limit of it. We can also do the same thing when it comes to some of these objects that we've created. On the rail side, we've got a lot of different objects that we may have created with design automation from a systems aspect. That information, we need to have that quantified as well.

It's not just available though to view and review on the Civil 3D or on the platform side. We're in the Autodesk viewer now. And we can see that property data is all available as well.

Anything that was incorporated into that model now, we're showing some of the review numbers of the pay item numbers, everything that we need to, that's all in there. We can take it a step further as well. So not only can we add the pay item data, we can actually add a hyperlink to this information so that we can go directly to the construction specifications or the special provisions. Here, we're looking at the rail aspect of it.

Those provisions, those construction specs, which Drew and I love to love to edit those, that was the highlight of any engineer's existence. That's all connected to this data as well. So in the platform as well, you can look and see, where do we have hyperlinks? Where is that information stored? OK, now we need to get to that. And maybe I need to compare some of that data that's available there. Whatever we need from it, it's all available.

DREW OLSEN: And Ben, I would just add right here on this view, as we move to this dream state of plan list designs, plan list construction, paperless, whatever you want to say, we got to have some way to communicate those details to construction. It doesn't just go away all of a sudden. Construction is not getting less information. We want them to have better information.

So this is just our a couple of designers first stab at, what does that mean? You know what I mean? So I love how you've done pay item code, specification, specification number, really down into the specifics, even those hyperlinking this to the document that's all on the cloud already for you. So these are the types of ways that we're thinking, dreaming of how you're going to be communicating how these things need to be built in the future if we're not producing that 5,000 sheet plan set with all the details that go along with it.

So we've got to somehow do better at tying specifications, cost item data, you name it, back to the design intent. And if it's a model, great because that's cool. But there's lots of ways to do that. It could be points, line, still, with those right data added to it, that goes a long way.

Again, so you don't got to wait for this perfect model the way Ben does it because he gets paid to do it. We can start at any stage of the game. And it's just adding value.

And I'm telling you now, if you start behaving like this with your customers out there and the owners that you work with, you are just going to shoot to the top of their preferred vendor list, you know what I mean, as you're doing this stuff. This stuff on the cloud, access to more people, it's unbelievable. Just with how you do your work today, moving it to the cloud changes the game for you, not even changing what you're doing yet.

It's all in natural state. But I love the property data set coming along for the ride outside of design tools on the cloud, mobile. This is really exciting here. Sorry, Ben. I had to add it.

BEN WARDELL: No, you're good. It's all good. Now we're going to jump into one of this part that, this is way more exciting than I'm giving it the time for when I show this right here. But this next aspect is, how do we get a Civil 3D model into Revit? The answer is IFC. This is being worked on right now. So I guess again futures statement here. This may be the one futures we've got here.

We've got our Civil 3D corridor. We can now export that with IFC and actually export surfaces, corridors, pipe networks, COGO points. And all of that information, all of that data attribution, is maintained by that. Now, they're brought in as generic objects. But you have the ability to select each one of these objects independently.