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Click on each image to view in large detail. Be patient. It will take a few moments for the image to pull up, and then it will zoom to extents automatically. These images are scans of redlines of progress working drawings, produced on a boom tripod mounted digital camera and saved in JPG format. The digital camera is a very light weight and very portable collection of equipment. It weighs less than 10 pounds. The advantage for producing images with a digital camera is speed and cost. Using a remote shutter release and set up in the manner shown in the photo on this page, huge stacks of very large scale paper documents can be captured at the rate of 5 or 10 seconds per shot. The sheets are stacked loose leaf on the floor so that the tripod mounted camera is pointed straight down at the sheets. The process becomes very quick and repetitive….click the remote and flip the sheet…click, flip, click flip. It’s just that simple. Data captured in the camera can be dumped quickly into a computer and shipped via email, FTP or Remote Desktop Connection to any destination or multiple destinations in the world in a matter of moments. Digitally captured images are not orthographically correct. They are subject to foreshortening and distortion. The primary benefit of these types of images is in the capture of information, such as redlines or manufacturers’ cut sheets. These types of scans cannot be used for overlay drafting and modeling.
The equipment shown in the photo includes the following: Nikon D40X digital camera, Sigma DC zoom macro lens (17-70 mm, 1:2.8-4.5-a macro lens flattens the depth of field so that it more efficiently keeps the entire area of large sheets in focue), Manfrotto 488RC0 universal ball joint camera head, Manfrotto 055 XPROB cantilever boom tripod, Nikon ML-L3 remote shutter release. 
 Master First Floor Plan
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 First Floor Building Plan Division A
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 Master Second Floor Plan
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 Second Floor Building Plan Division A
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 Master Third Floor BUilding Plan
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 Third Floor Building Plan Division A
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 Partial Building Elevations
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 Building Sections
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 Wall Sections
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 Details
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This video illustrates some pointers about our recently completed computer cloud servers and workstations. This cloud is the result of several months of experimentation and research. We decided in April of 2011 to get into cloud computing, because of the many difficulties we had been experiencing with BIM and wide area networking ever since we first started using BIM about 4 years ago. Prior to BIM, all of our work had been in CAD, and we had used FTP servers quite successfuly for distribution and collection of CAD work product. We would do uploads about once every week or so. Everyone worked on their own local workstations, using their own local CAD programs. Our collaborators were able to use a variety of AutoCAD releases and could work on most any grade of computer workstation. BIM has been much more demanding. Everyone has to be on the exact same release of Revit. They need to have 64 bit operating systems, and they need a lot more bandwidth. Increasingly, our collaborators have not been able to keep their workstations upgraded sufficiently. Also, FTP servers have not been able to keep up with the demands BIM makes on having to continuously update data. Cloud computing takes away the onus of responsibility for our workers and FTP servers to keep up. Everything is placed in and stays right there in the cloud. Our workers only have to use remote keystrokes on whatever devices they might be using to control commands on the heavy duty workstations and latest updated software we keep in the cloud.
This is a screen shot of a floor plan view from a Navisworks Manage work session. Navisworks is an Autodesk application, which can import data from a wide variety of CAD and BIM applications not just from Autodesk products, but many other CAD and BIM products, too. It is capable of of assembling data and indicating by red color coding where conflicts in building models are occuring. These conflicts can be published in reports, which indicate via 3 dimensional written coordinates precisely where in the building clashes are occuring.
Click on each image to view in large detail. This development includes two clusters of dwelling units similar to the one shown here plus several other variations. Retail floor space is provided on one end of the First Floor. A Second Floor Promenade is located above the retail area. Construction is 3 story wood frame. There were about 130 sheets of working drawings, completed in approximately 6 months. Archline was brought into the project by the architect at the end of Design Development. Design refinements and revisions continued, while working drawings were being prepared.
 First Floor Master Floor Plan
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 Second Floor Master Floor Plan
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 Third Floor Master Floor Plan
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 Roof Plan
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 Typical Unit Floor Plans
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 Building Elevations
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 Building Elevations
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 Building Sections
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 Stair Sections
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 Wall Sections
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Click on each image to view in large detail. These images are scans of redlines of progress working drawings, produced on a roller scanner and saved in GIF format. We could have also saved in a JPG format. The scanner, used here, is a heavy piece of equipment, which sits on the floor. It measures about 48″ x 12″ x 36″ high and weighs about 500 pounds. It is not readily portable. The advantage for producing scans with a roller scanner is accuracy. The scanned image is pretty close to being orthographically correct. The primary error potential is mostly limited to whatever stretching or shrinking might have taken place in the paper upon which the original plots were made. These types of scans can be fairly efficiently used for overlay drafting and modeling. Obviously, when producing CAD or BIM data from this type of graphical input it is not a good idea to simply scale the scan. Each line and each object, which is placed into the file should be precisely and dimensionally set so that the scan is only used as a general reference background.
 Site Plan
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 Master Floor Plan
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 Detail Floor Plan
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 Building Elevations
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 Building Sections
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 Wall Sections
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 Wall Sections
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 Wall Sections
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 Details
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 Details
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Making preparations to use a cloud environment for collaborating over long distance, which some people might otherwise call outsourcing, seems to present new challenges every day. We finally got user names and passwords assigned to the various workstations for our cloud, and so I decided to spend a little time, playing around with it. We have three workstations all with their own unique user names and passwords. I tried something interesting. I have two laptops in my workspace, so I decided to attempt to log on, using the exact same user name and password in a permitted time slot for the same exact workstation. I logged on with one of my laptops and opened Revit. I then logged on with the other laptop, and I was successful. The two laptops were sitting side by side. I had Revit open on the first laptop, but all I could see on the second laptop was the cloud’s desktop. I opened Revit. It worked, too, but in a completely different session of Revit. Well, that was an unwanted surprise. Having two Revit sessions open simultaneously on two different computers is not a fair use of Autodesk’s software. So, I got on the phone with Phil, who built the cloud computer for us and discussed the situation. He said that he can toggle a setting in Windows 7, which only allows one user at a time to access a remote desktop connection. He said that setting was currently turned off. Turning it on would mean that any user already on the cloud would be suddenly and irrevocably kicked off the cloud if another user, having the same user name and password, were to log on. That sounds harsh, but that is the setting we are going to use. If we give someone a user name and password to get on the cloud and do work, we don’t want them to invite the whole neighborhood to get on there at the same time. This toggle will keep everyone honest.
So, the cloud is up and ready now. I want to identify several really top notch Revit users, who want to collaborate with us, and then we’ll be ready for sales and marketing. Sales and marketing is going to be done largely via email broadcasting, using some really cool online software from Fortune Flow. It’s not cheap, almost $2,000 to start and then about $125 per month after that. I am taking training on the software in four two hour sessions per day, starting Monday. I will let you know how it goes.
Contact us at (214) 353-6929 or email: archline@archline.com. We will take you for a flight in our cloud.
Management of graphics information is becoming complex, fast and expensive to handle.
It’s not just on-site to the office. It’s also office to on-site and many other round trips, including office-consultants, office-client, office-reprographics, office-remote collaborators and all of the above back and forth between any of the above. Added to this are constraints of distance. Project teams increasingly are getting together over very long distances, spanning not just city blocks, but continents. Previously, in the era of CAD we used FTP servers, and that worked well. BIM likes clouds, that is, private clouds. Cloud computing as a business model trumps everything else. The only problem is that every cloud computing service I know of slams you with high minimum volume and long term contracts. Except one, and that is Advance2000. They will go as little as 2 computers for 6 months, but you have to provide your own software, and they will not support free standing licenses of Autodesk products…just networked licenses.
Our company is about to launch unconstrained cloud computing on demand. Turn it on and off like a faucet, any volume, any time. I would be happy to visit with you in more detail about our offering. 214 353 6929 or archline@archline.com. www.archline.com.
For group fields marked with an asterisk (*), the most significant value from the group is shown.
Name1Distance*-0.34ftStatus*NewClash Point*-2.90ft, -9.23ft, 14.32ft
Item 1*
LayerFirstFloorPipeCoord|BeamsItem Name* CP20091119112316000460Item Type* 3D Solid
Item 2*
Layer1RAItem Name* SDS_FITSOL_GROUP_889Item Type* SDSFITTING
For group fields marked with an asterisk (*), the most significant value from the group is shown.
This sample clash detection report includes a red highlighted illustration of the clash along with x,y and z coordinates to tie down the specific location of the clash in the building project.
This morning I received an email from Phil Ryan, Archline’s computer consultant, who is building our new cloud computer server. He wrote, responding to my inquiry about why our interim cloud computer server, which had been online for the last month or so, suddenly was no longer accessible. He said that he had taken the interim server down last Friday to make room for the permanent server, and that the permanent server will be online with one workstation this coming Thursday 29 September 2011.
Then we will be installing the Autodesk Design Suites for the other workstations and then the automated timesheet application. Once the server and workstations are up and operational I will be emailing almost 2,000 contacts I have collected from various Internet social media networking sites, AUGI and Autodesk resellers throughout the world, seeking an elite group of Revit professionals to offer their skills, working together on our company’s cloud to provide BIM services to the building industry.
I am targeting an initial group of 9 highly qualified Revit capable professionals. We should be able to handle just about anything anyone might want to have us do. I am really looking forward to it.
The video above is from a 3D PDF file we made for a recent project.
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We are working with an automated timesheet programmer. Workers in our cloud will never touch their timesheets.
Our Beta version for our cloud computer server is up and operating now. Contact us at (214) 353-6929 or email: archline@archline.com. We will hook you up for a test flight.
Time sheet entries will be keystroke activated, based on links to project folders and files. When BIM operators strike the first keys in tagged files in tagged folders the timesheets open and start tracking time for those particular files.
Predetermined periods of inactivity will result in closing out the timesheets, such as when the workers go to lunch or leave work for the day, or go to the bathroom. Time sheet entries will be gathered and stored on the server, where they can be downloaded and dumped directly into Quick Books on one of our computers here in Florida.
Distance and latency can be problematical for cloud computing. You can go to http://www.speedtest.com to see what I mean.
Latency is the time delay required for computer signals to travel from one remote location to another.
Here in the US, for example, if we test a server location in Dallas, Texas against locations throughout most of the Western Hemisphere, we will usually get less than 100 milliseconds (ms) everywhere, extending down to the Northern portions of South America. Most locations in the balance of South America are too far for good latency testing results. A rate of 100 ms is a good rate. When we test in Europe, Asia, Africa or Australia the rate is higher and sometimes much higher. For instance, I ran a speed test between Dallas and New Delhi, India, and the latency tested at 550 ms. This means that remote keystrokes to issue commands from those remote locations take longer than if made from a closer location. The result is a loss in productivity and an increase in operator fatigue. I have heard that there are methods to work around this problem, but I suspect they are expensive. If latency turns out to be a long term operator constraint, then this can have profound economic and competitive consequences for international computer services access to US markets. More computer work will begin being produced here in the US than has been the case in the recent past.
I am anticipating that our computer cloud will be ready for production in early to mid October.
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