CAD

CAD at Your Fingertips

6 Jun, 2012

Handheld devices and a rapidly expanding selection of apps are usurping laptops for access to data from virtually any location.

In the 1960s, Intel cofounder Gordon Moore predicted that the number of transistors incorporated in a chip would approximately double every 24 months. Over time, what's become known as Moore's Law has been revised to double computer chip capacity every 18 months and expanded to apply to technologies such as CAD. This rapid growth of chip capacity is the force behind the increasingly powerful hardware and software we have at our fingertips today.



During the past decade, these technological improvements have spurred tremendous changes in the way design professionals work. No longer is the traditional design–bid–build progression relevant for most AEC projects. Integrated project delivery (IPD) and building information modeling (BIM) have introduced new processes for design teams along with new software. Technologies that were considered optional when they were introduced — such as 3D design, BIM, geospatial information systems and mapping, and wireless printing — are now a critical part of today's integrated design processes. Many clients have come to expect the benefits of these technologies as well, from the cost and time efficiencies gained through BIM and IPD to photorealistic design renderings and even animated presentations.



The latest step in this evolution has been to take these tools on the road, enabling design files to be accessed, modified, and shared from virtually any location using a tablet or smartphone. True to Moore's Law, new mobile apps are arriving on the scene with increasing frequency, each one more powerful than the last. Welcome to the world of mobile CAD.





A contractor views CAD drawings of a project on AutoCAD WS, and is able to make real-time edits and markups to share with team members in other locations. Image courtesy of Autodesk.





What Is Mobile CAD?



You might be wondering what all the fuss is about. In a sense, CAD has been mobile for a long time. After all, laptops are mobile by definition, and file-sharing technologies such as Citrix mean CAD users are no longer bound to their offices. But laptops can be cumbersome, they require a Wi-Fi network to connect with others — and they only offer flexibility in where you work, not how.



All that has changed over the past two years thanks to the explosion in popularity of handheld devices and the growing number of CAD apps that run on them. (For a sampling of available apps, see "iOS and Android Apps for Mobile CAD Users.") These applications are being developed by established software companies including Autodesk, Bentley Systems, Newforma, Dassault Systèmes, and Robert McNeel and Associates, as well as newer, niche companies such as CadFaster, Simulation Lab Software, and Maide that are filling market needs left unmet by the larger providers. What was recently a nascent trend is quickly becoming mainstream. In fact, a report on cloud trends by research firm IDC predicted that 46% of all professionals will be mobile-only by 2014 (according to Steve Blum, Autodesk senior vice-president of worldwide sales and services, in a presentation to the media in late 2011).





Mobile CAD goes where work needs to be done. This field worker is using Bentley's iPad apps on site. Image courtesy of Bentley Systems.



A Bit about the Cloud



Cloud technology is the enabling force that's allowing CAD users to become mobile-only. Shanna Tellerman, product line manager for Autodesk Cloud Services and Applications, explains, "The cloud streamlines information and allows people to manage large volumes of data."



The complex nature of the design and construction process means many different people are responsible for particular pieces of a given project, and keeping everyone up-to-date is a huge challenge. The ideal solution has yet to emerge, Tellerman says, but that's changing.



"The promise of the cloud is actually providing a single source of data — or a 'single source of truth' — that all of the collaborators are referring back to," Tellerman states. "As new pieces of information are added, it's automatically updated in the model that's living in the cloud. That single source of truth is what everybody is referring to [throughout the design process]." The collaborative nature of the cloud is what makes mobile feasible for multi-user projects. Without the cloud, project versioning and data synchronization problems can undermine success.





Data security, however, is a big concern for design and engineering firms considering cloud-based CAD services. Fears about protecting designs and other intellectual property give pause to professionals in AEC as well as manufacturing, but Tellerman believes that as cloud adoption grows organically, its acceptance as a secure option also will increase. She predicts that users quickly will become more comfortable saving proprietary design data in the cloud, just as we've become accustomed to file-sharing on Box, a popular cloud service, and online banking, which saves the most critical personal data in the cloud.



Huw Roberts, global marketing director for Bentley Systems, believes that the best solution for most building and infrastructure design projects at this point in time is to use a hybrid file storage environment. "There's some information that you definitely want to keep locked tight behind your firewall, so there's no access to it, and there's some information that you want as open and public as possible," Roberts explains. As cloud technology and mobile CAD continue to push into mainstream AEC practices, he believes that firms will want to use a combination of local area networks (LANs), Internet services, and cloud hosting to protect and share data, while retaining the ability to easily move that information around.



Projects that are in the early stages of design still may be very private and internal, Roberts says, but as they come under review, they will move out to larger audiences and, in some cases, public review. "That hybrid envi- ronment of cloud, server, local computer, and mobile device is the foreseeable future for everybody," he believes.



Why an iPad? A Civil Engineer's Perspective



For Kris McDonald, a civil engineering technician with Hall Engineering Company in Centerville, Iowa, the benefit of working on a mobile device is, hands-down, its ease of use. His mobile app of choice is AutoCAD WS from Autodesk, which lets users open and edit DWG files via an iOS or Android device or via a web browser from any computer, manage and edit drawing files, plot to PDF or DWF, and share those drawings with others.



Before the introduction of AutoCAD WS, McDonald relied on his HP50 calculator and a data collector for doing field calculations. "I was looking for an opportunity to speed up the process of doing math in the field," he explains. Instead of "having to save points and come back into the office, open up CAD, and do a bunch of linework," McDonald now can gather data in the field and use his iPad on location to directly upload that data to the original file.



"Surveying requires quite a bit of walking [and] sometimes finding concrete monuments or different section corners throughout a mile or two of land," he says. "Using my iPad, I can pull up that information right in the field and it gives me benchmarks on where existing stuff is, and I can measure how far to go to look for other section corners and other convenient opportunities like that."





Kris McDonald of Hall Engineering Company creates architectural drawings such as this using only AutoCAD WS for iPad. He drafts live and on site, using an EDM surveying transit to shoot points at various locations within the building, then importing them into the WS drawing. From there, he adds all linework within the app. Image courtesy of Autodesk.





In the past, McDonald tried using a laptop in the field. It worked "fine," he says, but it wasn’t ideal. In the end, using the laptop required that he return first to his truck to record the bulk of the calculations, then to his office to upload and reconcile the data to the file — duplicating effort and creating opportunities for mistakes. Now, before he heads out to a job site, McDonald downloads the most recent survey information into AutoCAD WS. Once on site, he can access and update the information quickly and easily, and because he's recording the calculations in real time, there are fewer opportunities for data to become corrupted.



"Just carrying my iPad — whipping that out and doing some linework — is far more practical than trying to lug a laptop someplace," he says. McDonald also appreciates that because he can access his project files via the iPad, he is spared the hassle of carrying D-size plan sets to the site.



In addition to AutoCAD WS, McDonald relies on mobile applications such as iGIS, which lets users create and export spatial data and embed it in a Google Maps background; Box or Dropbox for file sharing; GoodReader for PDF viewing; and remote-access apps such as LogMeIn.



One of the biggest surprises for McDonald in transitioning to mobile CAD was how simple it was to begin using the applications. Creating an account, uploading drawings to the app, and accessing them on a mobile device is extremely simple, he says. "It doesn't take a bunch of complex finagling to get it to work. It's been a very simple implementation."



"The real advantage to AutoCAD WS right now for civil projects is when you're done with the project [preliminaries], you can upload a whole plan set to your iPad. ... You can make all of your as-built corrections or field notes right within the drawing and it's automatically saved to the cloud," states McDonald. "You can go back to the office and print out the final set when the project's complete. Right now, where the framework of AutoCAD WS is, that's the most advantageous part."



Architects Weigh In



For architect William Campo and BIM Manager David Light, both based in HOK's London office, the benefits of using mobile devices for CAD work are threefold: great accessibility, coordination, and presentation capabilities.



Campo, a project coordinator, uses Autodesk's Design Review Mobile for viewing and redlining 2D and 3D DWF files. He can zoom, pan, and rotate drawings — which clients appreciate — plus insert text and comments in the design. He also is interested in exploring Bentley's Navigator app for 3D viewing and editing, and ProjectWise for content management and collaboration.





With Bentley's Navigator for iPad app, designers can review design models on the job site. Image courtesy of Bentley Systems.

