|
Document and manage your designs
By Deborah Snoonian, P.E.
Microstation V8 XM edition
offers a new user interface that better matches features
with tasks. |
MicroStation V8 XM edition
Bentley Systems
www.bentley.com
Windows only
Bentley’s upgrade of its design software for architects
includes four major improvements: a new graphic interface;
a customizable, structured workflow that offers users a streamlined
subset of tools for each design task; a structured view of
projects and files that users can navigate to create links
within and between projects, and track things like plot sets
and deliverables; and finally, the ability to create a PDF
file of a project’s documents—CAD files, 3D animations,
even Word documents—with a single mouse click. The resulting
PDF file, much less hefty in size than the group of files
used to create it, is well suited for client review and project
archiving.
Acrobat Professional 7.0 lets
designers save all types of project files to compact,
user-friendly PDFs. |
Acrobat Professsional 7.0
Adobe Systems
www.adobe.com
Windows and Mac
Adobe is making a play for this popular format to become
the de facto information exchange standard for the AEC industry.
Their upgrade to Acrobat Professional lets users save several
common AEC file types as single PDFs that can be shared, reviewed,
marked up, updated, and ultimately archived. Firms like Perkins
Eastman have been using it on tablet PCs to mark up and manage
drawings in the field; other testimonials posted on Adobe’s
Web site by its AEC customers note enough productivity gains
and savings to make a case for at least testing a PDF-based
workflow.
For surface parking lots, a
systemized solar panel structure by Kyocera generates
power and keeps cars cooler. |
Solar Trees
Kyocera
www.kyocera.com
Your car won’t take a pounding by the sun if you park
under one of these “trees,” a new photovoltaic (PV)
system consisting of modules of solar panels mounted on supports.
The first installation of the system, dubbed the “Solar
Grove,” was dedicated last June at Kyocera’s North
American headquarters in San Diego. The grove produces 421,000
kilowatt hours of electricity per year, the equivalent of
the demand of 68 homes in the San Diego area. Local architecture
firm Tucker Sadler designed the grove, which will pay for
itself in about 12 years with rebates and tax credits (not
a great payback period, but with energy prices on the rise,
some clients may be convinced).
|
Video
