Skip to main content

A lot of exciting news

Once again, about a month without posting...
An echo from the previous posts says I've been preparing my AU classess. Now finally all handouts are uploaded and classes rehearsed, so just waiting for the big day!
In the meantime, I've been working crazy hours in the office to finish a competition (still Under NDA, but I will share in due course some findings on Revit Conceptual Design you may find interesting...)

So this is my second day back to normal life, and I want to touch base on the different parallel projects I have been working on/following, and share some amazing findings I came across in these last days:

1. Revit Conceptual Massing: Autodesk has released a free "Revit Light" Conceptual Massing tool, that can be run from a memory stick without installing it... I'm not sure if you are as excited as me about this, but it looks so promising in so many levels I cannot even start to describe it!
Have a look:
Project Vasari on Youtube

1a. Still on the Revit front, I've been hearing some buzz about the "cloud" technology approach to collaboration... I haven't investigated much but I am looking forward to learn more!

 2. Genetic Design: I've been promising an update on my "Part 1" post for some time now, where I am aming to describe the complexity of setting the design procedure into a script. Of course Grasshopper is great to explicit the decisions you make in the design, yet it's difficult to get the optimization part right.
I couldn't believe when I found out that the latest release of Grasshopper has incorporated another plugin, Galapagos, that is nothing but a Genetic Algorithm Solver! Still getting my head around this, but I am hoping to translate my fairly complex Excel procedure to a complete Rhino solution.

3. Augmented Reality: I haven't mentioned it yet, but I'm trying to get some architectural project into AR, and thinking of the possibilities of interacting with them from a Design point of view: Either changing options, playing with phasing, studying relationships between volumes...
On this front I just discovered that some people are pushing the open source ARToolkit into Flash... and I'm hoping to work with Tim, our office Graphic Designer and Flash expert, to get it sorted somehow...

4. Finally, on the Android front, I am still waiting for 2.2 to be released by O2 (and the Samsung software for installing it is not exactly the most reliable piece of software engineering art), but playing with App Inventor is great fun. The App Inventor Extension is a great add-on, to get info back and to web pages. Still nothing mind-blowing from me, but I keep trying!!!

I wish I can get the Genetig Design working with the Revit Conceptual massing, into the Augmented Reality environment through my Android phone... Nice combination of all current projects, eh?

I have only suggested and never got to describe in detail here, but I have a long running background idea for an Artificial Intelligence system. I wish I had some spare time to investigate further... as there seems to be a lot of information available. Quick teaser and to grab comments of those among you already working on this, my idea is a cloud-type collaborative dual neural network, back feeding live information and self learning from simula... what do you think?

Post Script (this time in Spanish):
Espero que las clases de AU Virtual sean interesantes e informativas, dejen mensajes si ya se anotaron... nos hablamos el 31 de Noviembre!!!
Abuela, te mando un beso, espero que te mejores pronto! Nos vemos en Navidad, cuando viajo para Bs As!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

My reading list
Mathematic explorations

Back on the saddle after a long silence, this time bringing a list of books that have kept me busy... is this a good excuse for not writing blog entries??? With a deadline for this afternoon I cannot spend a lot of time describing each book... yet I want to push myself to communicate some of the mind-opening good reads I came across recently. Most are not new books, and probably you will recognise them. Without further introduction, here's a list of books about maths, with a twist: Godel, Escher, Bach: and eternal golden braid by D. Hofstadter The_Emperor's New Mind by Roger Penrose In Pursuit of the Unknown: 17 Equations That Changed the World by Ian Stewart Introducing Chaos, a graphic guide Art and Physics by Leonard Shlain Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension by Matt Parker So, these are some of my current and past reads. Have you read them? Any recommendations down these lines? In future entries I will explore books about design and programmi...

The ROI of BIM:
Why is it so difficult?

Decision makers often requests a calculation of the Return for their Investment. When it comes to BIM, the calculation of a single number (the strict definition of "ROI") is difficult and arguably limited in practical value. Decision makers are more interested in a wider understanding of what they (and their company) are getting back. In this note I present my thoughts on the ROI measurement limitations and how to address investment decisions for BIM. Introduction Return on Investment or ROI is a common evaluation metric to decide on investment projects. In certain contexts it is a back-of-envelope assessment of performance of an opportunity. It simply states the ratio between the expected returns and the required investment, and is often presented as a percentage value. (ROI = Return/Investment). The Return is the net impact of the implementation, meaning the difference between the value before and after the project is executed, or the gross return minus the investment...