Pawel Piechnik
Along with the 2021 release of Autodesk® Robot™ Structural Analysis Professional software, we would like to give you some insight into the future plans for Robot Structural Analysis and share a refreshed product roadmap.
If you have read our recently published Point of View on the future of Structural Analysis you know that we are working hard to making engineers more connected to BIM through modern analysis workflows. We see the future of Structural Analysis requiring robust analysis and design tools that are modern and more collaborative. Robot is well-positioned to be part of this future vision with its versatility and quality solvers supporting multiple industry segments across broader, conceptual to detailed, design phases.
Public roadmap sharing ground rules:
This roadmap may make statements regarding future events and development efforts for our products and services. These statements reflect our current expectations based on what we know today. Our plans are not intended to be a promise or guarantee of future delivery of products, services or features and purchasing decisions should not be made based upon these statements. We do not assume any responsibility to update this roadmap to reflect events that occur or circumstances that exist after the publish date of this roadmap.
We use these marks and colors to keep track of the roadmap details.
Modeling and BIM Connectivity
This is a category of improvements that is important as it sets forth and responds to requirements around desired analytical modeling productivity and collaboration practices. Not only does it need to foster engineering productivity and freedom of capturing design decisions in modeling environment, it should also help engineers work with the broader design team when needed. Having Robot shipped and developed along with the Revit BIM authoring platform in the Autodesk AEC Collection provides the opportunity for further modernization of the overall user experience in regards to the BIM workflows.
Analysis
Even though Robot comes with a set of renowned quality solvers supporting multiple types of analysis, there is still work to be done to expand the types of solvers to match the changing responsibilities of engineers and to make the job of structural engineers easier and even more assisted by analysis. One example is when engineers use analysis methods to support early design decisions (e.g: structural columns arrangements, building forms assessment, etc.). Another is when responding to the industry’s changing requirements and regulations around security and sustainability goals. Below you will find development focus areas that serve to help address these requirements for analysis.
Code Design
In this category we invest in code design compliance. This is an area where some out-of-the-box codes of Robot are indispensable to run analysis and to make mainstream and detailed design decisions. At the same time Robot, along with Revit, is open for specialized and tailored-where-needed code design tools from the broader partner ecosystem, especially in the areas where it intersects with model based detailing workflows.
This is all for now. Stay tuned to hear more about BIM-centric analysis workflows from us. I also want to encourage you to share your feedback along the way via Robot’s forum, Idea station, direct emails, linked-in messages, whatever works best for you.
Robot Structural Analysis Team