Navisworks Hacks for Efficient Workflows

JOSEPH HUANG: Good afternoon, everyone. Can you guys hear me OK?

AUDIENCE: Yeah, we can hear you.

[LAUGHTER]

JOSEPH HUANG: Thank you. I can speak louder, but I cannot change my Chicago accent. And actually, it's a Chicago-Taiwanese accent.

Welcome to the class-- Navisworks Hacks for Efficient Workforce. So starting with a brief introduction of Autodesk-- I mean, the AU speakers. I'm Joseph Huang. I'm BIM Practice Leader at Stantec, licensed architect registered in Illinois with experience cover from buildings vertical construction to wet infrastructure. And I'm glad to be here to share our story, lessons learned.

RAGHAVENDRA BHAT: Hi. Good afternoon. I'm Raghavendra. I'm the Pune BIM Leader at India office, and I'm basically a civil engineer. And I've been a speaker for the previous years, and today I'm going to be a core speaker with Joseph.

JOSEPH HUANG: So hope you guys downloaded the handouts, because we spent almost two months to develop 34 pages with all the [INAUDIBLE] documents. So with that said, I'm not going to do this class summary, but this class is going to cover the best practice of using Navisworks for clash detection. With limited time, we are not going to cover all the functionalities inside Navisworks, especially like [INAUDIBLE]. But at the end of this presentation, we also want to emphasize some advanced digitization, like virtual reality, augmented reality, to incorporate as part of clash review in [INAUDIBLE].

And some key learning objectives. So hopefully, after this class, you will be able to plan your clash detective strategy and embed that inside of BIM Execution Plan. That's important. Knowing the big picture-- review the big items first, and reduce the tolerance in steps.

Also, set up the clash templates and search sets in Navisworks and using Revit to build up a clearance zone for the hard clash. I'm going to explain more details later. And the last learning objective is, view the clash groups from Navisworks Manage and push back to the BIM 360 Glue. I will explain why later.

So here's a key-- here is the agenda for today. And as you can see, I'm going to cover these one by one, and we'll definitely finish in time, because we practiced three times yesterday. I'm still nervous, yeah. We did one class this morning, but this is a full class, totally occupied. Thank you for coming.

So BIM Execution Plan. Why this is so important? Because BIM Execution Plan is not a new concept, but still new in terms of clash detection. We can put the LLT requirement. But sometimes people forgot to put the clash detection frequency tolerance on the plan.

So BIM Execution Plan is a comprehensive document, or a collection of documents. And the document is intended for reference. So during the project, define who is doing what, responsibilities, standards, BIM usages, and the expected outcomes. I highlight one that's a client specific, US Air Force and the army. Also US Army Corp of Engineers, they are very good for standards. They just lay out so clear. You have to follow. Otherwise, don't take the job. So for a client like this, of course that's a government. We have to follow.

Then if, for any particular project, like a private owned commercial project, they do not provide us the BIM Execution Plan internally, we use a SharePoint to build up the BIM Execution Plan template. But that's more like a simplified version. We also have paper-based version of BIM Execution Plan, and we can start to craft as the project needed. Because every project is slightly different. But the importance I want to highlight here, why this is related with this cause, because it is critical to state the minimum size of design object required to be model. And we call it modeling thresholds for each specific systems or assemblings. And without doing that, we cannot get a queued clash result.

So here's another table, and usually showing our BIM Execution Plan. We use the Navisworks for the clash review. We treat that one as a part of QA/QC, Quality Control/Quality Assurance process. So there are four different type of checks from a visual to the interference check, standards check, and model integrity check.

Also, so we need to define a strategy. And again, this is part of a template and people can modify it from project to project. The example here is more for like a vertical construction. And we need to define the System A compared with System B in which stage of a design phase. So if we divide it 30/60/90-- our schematic design, designed development, construction documents-- then we can, for example, change fire protection versus mechanical. I should use this, yeah? Forgot a tool. Yeah, something like that.

Also for the different project type-- like this is another project type-- is water treatment plan. And you probably cannot see like a building mechanical because for that type of particular project, process mechanical, it dominates all the design. So you'll see like a P. Means Process Mechanical almost everywhere. And this is just an example, like an analysis strategy.

Let's move into the Navisworks clash review workflow. So this is just an example. And we developed this internally for a particular project because a client requested so. The client wanted to question us like, do we really know how to launch the clash detection and review? Also specified, you need to give me a lot of different format, like from HTML, PDF, and the Navisworks publish file, NWD file. But basically, the process from left to right.

Once we have the model authoring tool like from the BIM play form, say Revit, Civil 3D, or if our consultant using a different vendor, say Tekla or SolidWorks, Solid Edge, then we can bring that into Navisworks. So the first stage is like we have a federated model in Navisworks. And with a federated model, we can apply the template. We can apply some settings. We can apply the display using a display profile. Later on I will explain more detail.

Then usually, we provide the NWT, that Navisworks publish file, to the design engineer as a daily basis. I mean, it depends on the project. Sometimes daily basis, sometimes weekly basis. And they are reviewing the issues rather than identify the clash detected problems. But later on, during a milestone, major milestones, or any more aggressive schedules like design/view projects, we can do that one. We could be on bi-weekly basis. Then we can run the clash detection again.

So you may see a little bit of confusion, like why there are two NWF. Because the first NWF, Navisworks file state, is for consolidating everything as a federate model. The second Navisworks files state, NWF file, is for a clash review. So we recall all the clash test results under this file. So even this file got something changed, we still have this. And from the Navisworks NWF file we're exporting now has a few options, like a clash report, per our client request, HTML format.

And you know, the clash report also got a supported image. You can zip it, or we just convert it as PDF so the image is there. It depends on the kind. Some clients to try to calculate how many numbers from last month's to this month's. Did you guys reduce the issues, clashes? And some are more emphasized, like a big picture.

And let's move into the clash types. This is very straightforward. And I have to cover all the different levels because when I submit a class, it's for all levels. So for some of you, this is too easy. This is from Autodesk Help file. There are three different clash types. One is hard, the other one is clearance, and the third one is duplicated.

But one thing I want to highlight is, there is something like confusion, soft clashes. Soft clashes is not equal clearance. Soft relate is 4D. It determines like, OK, detect potential clashes between two moving objects. So we need to use 4D TimeLiner to detect. There might be a potential crash when a crane moving some object from A Location to B Location and bumped a beam which is already built there.

But with today, we just focus on three typical clash types and just give you some example. The first one is so straightforward, hard clashes. And we use this 80% of the time. And we find out some serious one, like a steel beam penetrate with a huge pipe. And the steel dots for the wall is the engraves, the door. And even engineer, they don't agree. Say, oh, no. That's a model. Model is problem. Yeah, but actually that's an issue. So at least we identify. Someone need to correct that.

Then the second clash type is the clearance. Clearance is very interesting. You need to set up. By default, it's hard. And change to the clash type as a clearance, and put a tolerance. And basically, you select two different systems or two different objects. So for example, it's running the clearance crash check between the HVSE ducts and the piping. Anything less than-- I put a tolerance before-- like three feet, it will raise the alarm and highlight. So a typical color is green and red.

But when we really ran this through a complex project, we found out, no, we cannot specify every single clearance between the systems. It's not so accurate. And I know some software, like Solibri Model Maker is rule-based. You can put generic settings, especially for ADA. We all learned the building code. It's like in front of a door and the other side of a door was a certain distance.

But for our projects, it's more like for mechanical equipment. They got a sensibility requirement. They got a maintenance requirement. And each type of equipment is different. And when the engineer provides the requirement, we just build out a big pink box. And it's very easy. You can make that one as a standalone, or you can associate it with a specific equipment family and also upload it. So once we put that one to Navisworks, we can just run the typical hard clash. And it's very easy to identify. We also can group that one.

RAGHAVENDRA BHAT: Yeah. So with the normal clashes that we usually do, we had a scenario in which we had the scans received from the surveyor and we had the proposed modern built. So we were trying to figure out the way in which we can actually do these clashes with the point clouds. The only way we thought was to build up the model based on the scans. But there was an alternate way to where we could actually bring the point clouds into Navisworks.

And there is a feature here-- I'll actually use this-- where you can actually select the points here and set your settings so it's clearance. And you can actually vary the tolerances. It is based on the clarity of your scans, actually. So it can vary those tolerances there and run the clash in between the proposed model and the as-built point cloud scans. That's a trick which we learned on one of the projects.

Before you do that, you would also like to check the options editor inside Navisworks. There's an option for importing the ReCap scans. And you need to set the maximum interactive point sizes. We tried putting it as eight and it worked for us, but you might have to actually fluctuate it a bit up and down to see if it suits your needs.

Now we'll try to cover some of the best practices that we have learned on our projects and incorporate it into some of the projects. Usually on the projects that we work on, we have a lot of Revit models from every discipline. 70-odd models on a project. It is really difficult to create an NWC file from each and every file and start putting into a consolidated NWC file or NWF file. So what we learned is, it's best you have one consolidated Rivet model which has all the references put in. We have work sets based on which we can create multiple different views, and export out a batch NWC export from a single file instead of opening all the Rivet models. That helped save us a lot of time.

Also, we devised a way in which, if you want to get multiple, like I said, 70 different Rivet odd models, back into one single Navisworks NWF file, instead of actually referencing it one by one, we actually had the process model set up as a gatekeeper. So we had all the process, structural, electrical, and other discipline models referenced into process as attachments. And we referenced the process model into a site model.

And that way, it controlled the amount of information. We could easily control how much is coming into the site model. And from there, we could export it out to Navisworks NWF file. This is devised for a certain project. You can actually vary the priorities, however task you comment. But this was devised for a certain project.

JOSEPH HUANG: So once we have a design model exported out from Revit or from Civil 3D, then the next step, open Navisworks. We need to bring those files in. And from time to time, the first-time user open a Navisworks, ask Joseph, where is the import button? And in Navisworks, we don't call import, we call append. So you need to append those NWC inside of Navisworks.

And there is more than one way to run the clash detection. Of course, right now in the company, and I believe in most organizations, you guys probably set up a template. But even without template, we still can run something like by discipline, by a category, by label, or by specific items. The logic behind just, I select something in Section A versus Section B and set up the clash type, typically it's hard. And put the tolerance. And I mentioned the template.

But before I mention a template, I want to mentioned some stuff. So I can reuse the clash test from the previous project or from a company standard. So I can import. I also can export the XML. It's the same button, import/export. Also, the concept to set up the clash template or clash test template is about search sets versus selection sets. And this is a concept inside of Navisworks. And some new users, they need to learn.

So selections sets is dynamic groups of items. We search that one by keyword. We search that one by the Revit categories. That's search set. And selection set is manually select. You can manually select something and hide it, or you can manually select all the status and call it static search selection set.

In the following video, I'm going to show a kind of concept, but also innovation. I can highlight two such sets. One is clearance. The other one is door in blue. The dropdown under Select All, there is Invert Selection. It's hiding there. Sometimes Autodesk software is hiding something under the manual. So why I need to do that? Because I create a new selection set called All Except Door and Clearance.

In order to run the new type of clash detection, code the Egress Path. Because, you know, architects are so imprecise about that. I just criticize with my colleague like you know-- and again, this is overcriticized. It's recoding, sorry, but I still can say that. This year is the exhibition hall. There is no clear sign for circulation. And we waste the time to get out in case of emergency. How can people run? OK, sorry. That's an architect's opinion. So I try to emphasize this.

So we start to review Egress Path, and we can use 3D Egress men in Revit and just follow the Egress Path defined by architects. And later on, we explain more details. But in this case, I can run the Egress Path compared with everything except door and clearance. Why I need to do that? Because this is now really live, so the door won't automatically open when they go along in here. Also, the clearance box is an abstract concept. So anyway, just to show you some idea.

OK, let's move back to the Navisworks template. Having a handy Navisworks template for your organization is very important because that will make your life easier. And some requirements. First we need to have search sets. So it's better to define some search sets to find out all the piping, all the cable trays, all the mechanical HVSE docs. Then once you have that, Selection A, Selection B, your new clash review is based on the selection sets instead of manually selecting something.

Then you also can apply the appearance profile. I don't have an interface here, but again, this is industrial talk, not a concern. But you can find it. This is included in the handouts. So appearance profile can assign a color code for each search set. So if you want to highlight all the mechanical aspect to orange, you can do that. And once you have that, then you can import/export XML. You also can load ADSK visualization standard to the template.

Also, we can set up some rule, You know Solibri Model Maker is rule-based? Revit has a rule hiding here, rules. And you also need to click New and Edit. And instead of this default rules editor template, in my opinion, I think this is most useful, specific selection sets. And even here says selection sets, but actually you can select a search set. So I just select concrete and conduit. So basically, everything I select here means I'm going to ignore.

And I apply it to the clash test I already ran. So that means all of the clash identified, new crash items become yellow. And yellow means resolved. So let's talk about clash status versus color coding. There are five different colors indicating different status starting from New, Active, Review, Approved, and Resolved. And usually for the clash report, we emphasize New and Active because that's the issue we need to resolve.

Then another strategy, especially in the early phase of design when we run the clash detection, we need to emphasize the big picture and try to make sure that big items don't clash. Sometimes you will find a surprise, like elevator core is intersecting with the stair core. And we identify the issues relevant to resolve every single crash item.

Then the video here shows this is efficient, and kind of tips and tricks, to group the clash results. So usually, instead of select a new group and drag and drop all the clashes, we can hold the Control key and use the multiple select on the new clashes, and just directly use the group selected clash. So we can give it a new name. Like highlight everything that belongs to cut openings, and I just call it Cut Openings. That's a fast way to define the clashes, to group the crashes.

And why we need to group the clash? Because if we have a group, we can easily highlight a group, see all the clashes at one time. So sometimes, some engineers or some specific projects, they require to do that. They want to see the big picture.

Also, during the keynotes, and I'm sure for the entire conference, maybe this is a theme of this year, everybody talking about automation, machine learning, artificial intelligence. So from time to time when I'm so tired, logging and group all kind of thousands of clashes, sometimes I got lucky. And I'm still wondering, what is the logic? Sometimes the new crash items, the light items, automatically fall to the existing clash group. And I keep thinking that maybe there's logic behind, but we don't know. At least it's a potential for other tests, like machine learning. We can do more and better and less.

OK, compact clash test. Why we need to do that? Because we don't want to scare our clients. For a lot of new users using Navisworks, their challenge is like, oh, I'm not going to show this to my PM. That means I did a wrong job. I'm not going to send this to a client because-- why hundreds of crashes? Because you didn't review, you didn't approve something internally. Even if you review, this number still scares some people because the first column is accumulate for all of the-- the entire row is accumulate to here. You say 20 here, but because we resolved like 13.

So as long as you hit the Compact All button, everything turns to zero except New and Active. So for internal coordination, that's OK. We keep accumulated history. That means how many clashed items we resolved for our record. For the external, we want to make sure a clean clash report when we send to the client because they want to check our progress.

Also, there is more than one clash report format. So usually we use HTML table because that can create a very clear table. We also save as view points because once I save as view points, all the clash items are right here. And I can save as NWD, the Navisworks published file, send to the internal users. They can use Navisworks Freedom, that's a free viewer. They can see all the clash items.

So this is the format of HTML. And every single image you can click, it will enlarge. And it shows like this. You got a location, you got a picture, you got an element ID. And later, I'm going to emphasize using element ID to check some items.

And then the other thing is that some people complain, I'm not working for Autodesk. Can I change the company logo? Sure, you can change the company logo. Because the HTML file also requires another image support folder. And if you open HTML in something, a text editor, you will see it's reading logo JPEG. So as long as you print, you don't have to put a backup logo. As long as you set your company logo or client-specific logo override the original Autodesk logo that you pick, you can have your company's logo associated with the report. And that makes it more professional looking.

OK, the hidden setting. So my colleague accidentally found this one. And we can hold down the Shift key and select the options so you've got more options to select. There's a setting here. You can change the image resolution, the image on your clash report, HTML report. You also can change the JPEG to the PNG file.

So now we run the clash. We have a clash report. We distributed the clash results to the team member. No matter internal or external, the team. How can you resolve that one from your design model quickly? And we found out the fast way is using a switchback with a dual monitor with Revit open. And you need to open a Revit application with the same Revit version you're exporting now as NWC. Then you have Navisworks open at the same time. You need to click this one.

The interface changed a few times. But once you enable this one, it just finds a relevant Revit view. And you highlight almost the same view side by side. And very clear you can modify that. And once you have the revised Revit model next week or by the end of this week, you upload and update.

Sometimes it's not easy to find because it's like a hidden view or not suitable view. Use element ID to search the specific item. I mean, there are so many alternatives to adjust documents. Even we can use Dynamo. They call it DynaWorks, Dynamo for Navisworks. But we are not ready for meeting with Dynamo, so we don't want to confuse you guys. But this tool, in my opinion, is so similar to Dynamo. This is a plug-in code clash sphere generator by BIM One. And the changed name called BIM Check, I saw that from the exhibition hall.

So the tool here requires the BIM Manager to export now as XML format. But basically, it's acquiring the XYZ coordinations so they can generate the clash report inside of Revit. So basically, you see the Revit schedule. It's your clash report. And you can identify the color. But basically, the default is red, that means a new clash with a sphere, a ball, showing inside of Revit model. And you also can make that one as a new Revit link model so you don't have to damage your original model. That's possible.

And the slide here has nothing to do with clash review. But from time to time, I think this is useful, especially when BIM Manager receives a new model. You want to see, you want to quickly identify what's new. So the feature here, not so many people using that one are familiar with that. There's a Compare. So as long as you load two NWC file, append two NWC files in Navisworks, you can run the Compare. What's different? In the color code, it shows here red means items with differences. The cyan color means new added items. Yellow means removed item.

RAGHAVENDRA BHAT: With the differences in the models like just now, Joseph showed how you can check the differences in the Navisworks model. We just wanted to highlight that the BIM 360 Team-- I'm going play a video here-- you can actually compare the two different model versions very easily, and actually find the differences that's going on in the project. Right now, it's comparing two different versions and it's going to highlight the elements that have changed.

So the color indication is so clear. The green indicates the elements that have been newly added. The red indicates the elements that have been deleted. And yellow, the ones which have been modified. So imagine on a project where someone doesn't have Revit on their system, or Navisworks, they can actually go to the web browser and do this comparison, and start looking at the changes that's happening with the design team. And probably make good decisions on data for how it's going to impact their design.

Coming back to Navisworks, this is something that was used on a project where we had the Navisworks model provided by a third party. And we didn't have the Revit model. But we wanted to extract out information into a database so that we can use it. We use the Selection Inspector actually to create a set. And after creating that set, on the top right-hand side you can see here there's an option where you can export out the database to a CSV file. So no matter if you have the base file or not, if you have the NWD file, you can actually export out the database to a CSV file and use it as you need. More information about that is in the handouts, so we're not actually demonstrating that completely.

The Navisworks DataTools, this is another handy tool that is very useful. When you actually want to associate an external database to your Navisworks model and not your Revit model, then you can actually use Navisworks database. It can link XML files, CSV files, XLS files. You can actually import the database to the GYDs that are within the Navisworks model.

Quantification is another feature that Navisworks usually had. But probably many really don't use it because they try to extract out quantities from the base, like if the model is done in Revit. But if you have your templates, like Joseph mentioned, if you have your templates set up with the quantification features, like for concrete quantities, steel quantities that you want to extract out, if it's predefined, once you load the model into it, it's very easy to extract out quantities from the Navisworks file, too.

JOSEPH HUANG: Also, we can use Navisworks for visualization. And it's quite handy because most of the time our Navisworks model is a federated model including all the consultants' models. And it's easy to navigate because compressed file. So Autodesk 360 rendering is available with Navisworks since 2015. And we could easily just use the Render In Cloud button with some settings as long as you have cloud credits.

You can get these kind of results. I mean, it's not fancy Hollywood effects photorealistic, but it's clear enough to communicate design intent. Also, one thing I really like is, once you spend time rendering in the cloud, you can have different output options. And one option we really like because it's engaged with VR, Virtual Reality. You can select stereo panorama output. So from the website, the A360 Rendering website, it provides a QR code. You can scan that. It shows from your iPhone/smartphone. You also can copy the URL and send to the client.

And talking about a cloud solution, another solution is BIM 360 Glue. And in our opinion, this is Navisworks on the cloud. And some people like, some people don't like. And some people don't like because they don't know how to use that one and leverage with Navisworks. And since 2016 Navisworks, they got integrated. So Navisworks can open BIM 360 Glue model directly. So we usually encourage people to use BIM 360 Glue for collaboration because you can quickly identify the issue and send out emails to the entire team. So it's more for reviewer. A PM can use an iPad and just start to check some issues.

But if you want to run the very serious clash detection, we would recommend opening the cloud-based model in Navisworks. And right now there's an issue. It's not easy to push the clash results from Navisworks back to BIM 360 Glue, but there's a workaround. The workaround is, as I mentioned earlier, it's very handy to group the clash results. So once you have a group, you use the share view here. And you can save all the clash results as a group. Then when someone opens the share view in BIM 360 Glue, they see all the results at one time.

So let's talk about some challenges because sometimes challenges could be the new opportunities. And the first one is Cut Openings. People may complain. Why there are so many clashes? Because we didn't model the opening. We didn't provide a void. And sometimes we provide. But for conduits like this, usually we don't have a budget to model these tiny openings. So usually any openings less than six inch, we skip that. But we have to classify when we run the clash detection. Group the results until someone can be approved or not. Sometimes the awkward situation is this because it's linked model.

So mechanical engineer, piping designer remove this. Social engineer, I don't know. Nobody told me. So it's this. So if we use some Revit plug-in like HEA Kit, then running the plug-in, you can quickly update the void, the opening.

Also, the other scenario, we call it parallel clashing. So this is a term I just invent and I put in my clash review. What is parallel clashing? That means this pipe is half exposed outside to the air, half embedded. That doesn't make sense. So in this case, it's wrong. We need to group and review. And sometimes it's not on the ground. Sometimes it's in the wall or in between another in-between space.

And this example, I explained earlier why we need to do that because it's impact to our life if we don't design that one right. I mean, this is my observation because being a licensed architect for a while, usually architects do the FLS drawings, the Fire/Life/Safety drawings. They treat that one as a schematic design or diagrams, following the building code with a minimum requirement. When the design changes later on, nobody pays attention to FLS diagrams. But who knows? Maybe the architect's assumption might not be right because there is a huge object in front of the Egress Path.

So by running this, this is not a typical hard clash or clearance, but we still check this. And I take this one to the project, and I say, oh, this is not right because you see like the Egress main is running into the wall, and with a lot of piping here. Also the tracks.

Also, another thing is that sometimes we model. And again, this is based on the BIM execution print or audit. Our design model is not based on the final specs. It's not for the fabrication label. So if we found this, is that OK or no? We don't know. But sometimes we need to put more contingency. Or classify/identify this, and then the GC to deal with that on the side. Or if this is a design build, then we have to model based on the specs. So every single clash with some meaning.

Then, we also feel like it's easy to find clashes by Navisworks, but not easy to resolve the conflicts among the disciplines in a timely manner. So Issue Tracking. In the traditional way, we use Excel and we document all the issues, and we cross out when we would resolve that. But that's very time consuming. So there are a couple new ways. One is like a case. And now, as we work, they develop issue checker.

We also can use Revizto. This is Revizto. And they have the better way to check that one. And this portion is similar to the BIM 360 Glue. So once they identify some issue with the location, they can highlight, they can assign the users and give a deadline. So by next week you need to resolve this one. And we can run the clash review again.

RAGHAVENDRA BHAT: In some of the projects, we actually noticed a very unusual behavior when changing the Revit content. Most of the projects that we do contains a lot of piping. It has a lot of valves, flanges. When we export this out, when the model is really heavy and then we take it out to Navisworks, it really doesn't happen every time, but sometimes we have noticed that some of the flanges or fittings actually blew up in size for some reason. And that's very strange behavior.

And we actually put this up to Autodesk, too. But we really didn't find any solution from them. The only solution that we found was, if we go back to the Revit model, rename the family. We just had to rename it. We didn't do anything else. We had to rename it and then re-export it to an NWC file, and that fixed everything. So that's something that we learned. It's a trick that we learned on the project.

There is an Autodesk Point tool. There's a third part. Autodesk point tool can be installed into Navisworks. It can be installed onto AutoCAD or onto Revit, too. Why do we need to use Autodesk Point Layout? Using Point tools, you can actually locate the set out points onto the concrete structure, and export out the CSV file. You can directly export the CSV file and send it to a surveyor who can actually use it in a total station where the structure has to be located.

Because we have the model really coordinated and well-established in Navisworks, it's really best to have the set out points put up in Navisworks and export it out. From Navisworks, actually using the same tool, you can actually directly export it out to BIM 360 Field so that the surveyor can actually download these CSV files from his tablet.

JOSEPH HUANG: So moving forward, now I guess everybody needs to show this, yeah? But this is not just for fashion. We got this one in the main workflow. So talking about the evolution of design technologies. We evolve. The technology changed from the traditional 2D CAD drawings to the 3D BIM modeling, animation, rendering, to reality capture, virtual reality, augmented reality. And we are going to highlight some examples how we apply this during the design review process.

RAGHAVENDRA BHAT: What you see here is, most of our projects use Oculus to have people actually wear Oculus and start looking at the designs. Actually, review the models that they have been doing, and do the visual checks for the models. It makes it really easy for people to visualize it when they're actually looking at it, and make better decisions.

Something that we have also been working on is to do a realtime virtual collaboration where, actually, you can bring all the stakeholders into one virtual environment and start making discussions on how this particular pump has to be laid. So here you can see we have invited the contractor to come onto site virtually. And on the right-hand side, you can see the design software that we're using is Revit. We are making the changes there, and the changes happen in the virtual environment. And they can make better decisions collaboratively in one single platform.

JOSEPH HUANG: And unlike virtual reality, augmented reality is more like based on the real world, providing additional information and help for coordination for different type of vision. So the example on the upper left, that's using the iPad with a BIM 360 Glue or InfoWorks model. You can overlap your design model with the existing condition, the job site. And those two moving videos, that's using the AR player plug-in for the smartphone, iPhone, or iPad. So you can, by scanning the QR code, someone with the iPad can see the model like this.

And mixed reality is kind of combining both advantages, virtual reality and augmented reality. And we tried to apply mixed reality with Navisworks by a plug-in called HoloLIVE. And HoloLIVE is available for Revit plug-in and Navisworks plug-in. Let me just play the video for the time being. So it's a one-to-one scale model. I can see that one. It's just the whole way. And the key thing is, pay attention to the floor. I printed out a QR code. I use that one to identify the location and orientation to allocate this model. So imagine I can bring a QR code to the job site and just run it. So it's more like for the as-built comparison. Let me end this. OK, it's almost finished, this one.

Another example. This one also encoded song. So you can put a noise for specific equipment that may generate noise and overlapping the factory inside of the conference room. And this one is developed by Unity. So you drag and drop. Your scan the environment first. You drag and drop the equipment, like a vertical pump, to the table or to the chair. It will detect the height. So in the construction site, we can utilize that one for the virtually layout. Imagine that is a concrete pad.

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

- Asset information.

JOSEPH HUANG: This one using a voice command to pull out information for facility management.

- Asset performance. Close panel. Asset information. Asset performance. Close panel.

- [INAUDIBLE] The M3D team have been developing for use a virtual, augmented, and mixed reality in the infrastructure and construction sectors. At the recent Minworth Thermal Hydrolysis Plant access lifting and maintenance review, the team were able to put their latest developments to the test. Using the Microsoft HoloLens to project holograms into the real space, the onsite teams were able to immerse themselves into the proposed design. Seeing the actual existing assets alongside the posted new assets and modifications is a truly remarkable experience, ang gives a whole new and exciting perspective to the design process.

[END PLAYBACK]

JOSEPH HUANG: We'll cut the video here for the time being.

RAGHAVENDRA BHAT: Yeah. And this was on the last slide. We wanted to actually put up all the tips and tricks that we learned on different projects that made our lives really simpler, and also the visualization aspects that we actually are looking into in future. And we tried to put that up here. So we open for questions.

AUDIENCE: What software was that last one where you were able to look at the equipment and then pull the information?

JOSEPH HUANG: It's using the game engine Unity. You can use Unreal. You can use a lot of high end game engine with some post-production. Yes?

AUDIENCE: Currently, Navisworks has the properties shown for Lab 3D, for CADWorx, for other portfolios that bring you into Navisworks. But Advance Steel [INAUDIBLE] check what kind of steel, that is not the reality. So just showing [INAUDIBLE] as properties. So is there anything in the conference that--?

JOSEPH HUANG: So the question is about currently Navisworks can see the properties from a lot of different applications, but not available for Advance Steel. We don't know, but we can find out. A lot of things may not be available right now. And if the API is available, open, people can create a plug-in. If not, then usually just geometry only. We encounter some stuff like geometry only clash review. Or, as you say, it was a property. But as long as provide a property, we can use the data tools.

AUDIENCE: Yeah. But for example, like in CADWorx, the conversion does it right. And I can see the candles, the fires, the strength, everything. What material is everything? In any structure, what kind of field is that? What kind of code? [INAUDIBLE] nothing for the Autodesk product to advance to, right?

JOSEPH HUANG: No. Advance Steel is by acquisition as far as I know. But that's a good question. We will do some research and get back to you.

RAGHAVENDRA BHAT: Maybe one thing which you could try is actually Advance Steel can now import data back into Revit. So you can try doing that. You can integrate. They say that Revit and Advance Steel integrate really well with the 2018 version. So what you can do is, you can try getting the Advance Steel models back into Revit, and then export it out to NWC and see if it works.

AUDIENCE: Our Advance Steel [INAUDIBLE] from November of 2014. So it has been over a few years now in terms of the new version [INAUDIBLE]

JOSEPH HUANG: Any other questions? OK, yes?

AUDIENCE: So, how are modeling your Egress Paths in Revit? And is it just a generic model that you're using, or--?

JOSEPH HUANG: You want to answer that one? Egress model?

RAGHAVENDRA BHAT: We have a family created which actually calculates the number of footsteps. So on the plan, you actually just generate a 2D line, but actually it's a 3D. It extrudes. So a complete extrusion of a person actually walking through. So it's a family that we have created.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] We know that we just can't fix on that model. How can you do a clash checking thing for appearances between a vector model and any model available and that we scanned in? The point's going to hit the pixel. [INAUDIBLE] clash or clash platform, you know what I'm saying? How it works?

RAGHAVENDRA BHAT: Yeah, so it will actually show with a lot of clashes. So you'll have to actually sort it out. But the amount of time that takes to actually build up the as-built model based on the scans, and the amount of time it takes to do a quick clash run between the proposed model and the as-built conditions, it saves you a lot of time. So it depends on whether your client really has money to build up the as-built model, or just is happy with doing the clash with the scans.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] from clashes.

JOSEPH HUANG: [LAUGHS]

RAGHAVENDRA BHAT: Oh.

JOSEPH HUANG: You still have a question?

AUDIENCE: And then from Revit on, you guys showed optimum for convert to top strokes, right?

JOSEPH HUANG: Converted what?

AUDIENCE: Convert to top strokes. That way you're not getting a bunch of lines when you're importing into Navis as far as clash. And you can [INAUDIBLE]

RAGHAVENDRA BHAT: I'm sorry, I didn't get your question. Can you repeat that?

JOSEPH HUANG: OK, I know the setting, yeah. We didn't do that because we just used by default. And as long as we make sure to include the link models or not in current view. Yeah, but I know the setting you're talking about, yeah.

AUDIENCE: I'll just email you guys.

JOSEPH HUANG: OK, thank you. Yeah. If no questions, that's the end of the class. Thank you so much for attending. And you've got our email address. And please fill out the survey. Thank you.