Welcome to the Bricsys 2019 Conference! It's been a jam-packed day. It was an early start for the team yesterday but we made it to the stunning city of Stockholm and we're very glad we did.
The main message of the day: Bricsys, We Listen to our customers. The team demonstrated 100s of new features and user enhancement is driven by you, our users.
Back in Black
After a short introduction by Bricsys CEO Erik De Keyser, things got off to a flying start with Heidi Hewett, Hans De Backer and Robert Green showing you what's new for BricsCAD V20 core. They explained the extensive user research they conducted this year to deliver a product with its users at the heart of the design process.
New User interface, with redesigned icons and dark mode for V20.
The big news: BricsCAD has a new user interface and a much anticipated dark mode, optimized to reduce eye strain. The icons have also been redesigned with a modern look and the whole start-up screen has had an overhaul.
Performance enhancements allowed Hans to move 500,000 entities effortlessly at the same within the workspace and switch between view styles on heavy drawings instantly. He also loaded a 5km wide tiff image and zoomed in and out effortlessly.
Other new features included, but were not limited to:
- Stackable Panels
- Get Started Page with new, built-in app-store
- Copy Guided
- Blockify improvements
- Dynamic UCS for 2D entities
- Parametrize now works for 2D
- Blockify now finds and detects arrays
- Point Cloud improvements
- The Drag tool is now available for Pro users
- Render materials panel for Pro users
- Site tools for BricsCAD Platinum users
2D Parametric Blocks are also coming soon to BricsCAD, although they will not be available for V20.1. They will offer the same functionality for visibility states as Dynamic Blocks. We also hope to allow users functionality to convert Dynamic Blocks to Parametric Blocks, although no date for this has been set yet.
Collaborate
Without pausing for a break the room was introduced to the integrated Bricsys 24/7 panel that allows you to work collaboratively directly from BricsCAD. Bricsys 24/7 for design teams will now be free to all BricsCAD Maintenance customers. More details will follow tomorrow.
Robert Green on Stage presenting.
Clever CAD
Then it was on to Bricsys' Advanced Technologies team to present the latest AI and Machine Learning technologies and demonstrate some really cool AI developments to reduce the time spent on repetitive tasks.
New for V20:
- AutoMatch which automatically adds composition data to your mode.
- Copy Guided which allows you to dynamically add blocks to your model and even intelligently removing geometry.
- Parametrized details and a Propagate detail library.
Existing tools have been extended for V20; BIMify, Blockify, Parametrize and Propagate
They ended with a promise to use your feedback to make BricsCAD better.
"If you have any other workflows that you think could be improved, please get in touch."
Visualizing data
There was also a spectacular VR walkthrough by Geert Machtelinck: A complete scan of the whole town of Knokke, a small seaside town in Belgium, a 1 terabyte data file of around 25,000,000,000, points and a 1/2 terabyte point cloud file of a cathedral sampled at original resolution.
Both were streamed live, online at lightning speed. He also demonstrated the technology on a €500 windows tablet, with a promise to get the technology working on your phone, from "any point cloud size". Tomorrow visitors will have the opportunity to test this for themselves live.
Coffee Break
In The Zone the attendees had the opportunity to socialize and meet some of the 3rd party app developers. Many thanks to:
- SYSCAD TEAM GmbH
- Ax3000
- CAD Systems nv
- ASVIC Engineering Software
- CADWARE ENGINEERING SRL
- Roesberg Engineering
- EDV-Software-Service GmbH & Co KG
- SL-King d.o.o.
- CGS Labs d.o.o.
- STEEL & GRAPHICS SRL
- Civil Survey Solutions
- GTX Europe Ltd
- Hexagon
- Leica Geosystems
- WELLCOM Software GmbH
If you didn't get chance to speak to them today, speak to them tomorrow for day 2 of Bricsys 2019!
One product, one workflow...BricsCAD BIM!
Think BIM and .dwg don't line up? Think again. New BricsCAD BIM V20 features demonstrate that it really is possible to use BricsCAD BIM for every stage of the design process by continuously increasing LOD (Level Of Development).
To demonstrate this the Bricsys team brought out the crowning jewel of the conference: The Flowing Station. During the live demo two BricsCAD BIM users worked collaboratively, through the new 24/7 panel and BCF (BIM Collaboration Format) panel. Making great use of Xrefs, two major design features were created simultaneously for the Flowing Station.
The Flowing Station, rendered using BricsCAD and the new Enscape Plug-in.
Using the new Grasshopper plug-in a fully parametric canopy was edited. Using only a slider they cycled through a number of different permutations, previewed in real-time! Once "baked" the model was available to edit in BricsCAD complete with BIM data. I can't wait for the in-depth demonstration tomorrow!
Meanwhile, they designed an adjoining building, from scratch. Making clever use of the Shell and ConnectToNearest commands. Then they Propagated compositions along the model using the Details panel. Materials were applied and then copied using the new AutoMatch command. The floor layout was created effortlessly using the new, smarter Quickdraw tool, that can follow a 2D floorplan, even automatically adapting to the width of the walls. C shaped stairs were then added automatically using the new BIMStair Tool. Finally, they created elevation views with automatically generated hatching.
To finish they amazed the audience with some stunning renders created with the new Enscape plug- in.
Get real
After lunch it was time to see projects created by real, BricsCAD users!
First on the mike was Greg Schleusner from HOK Architects. He had the audience on the edge of their seat with the development process of the "extrovert" Kentucky International Conference Center: 1858 m2 (200,000 sq ft) of exhibit space, a 3716 m2 (40,000 sq ft) ballroom, a 175-seat conference theater, 52 meeting rooms and a kitchen capable of serving 15,000 meals per day.
Next came Joris Pauwels of Zaha Hadid Architects and Paulus Present, of Bureau Boutechnieck. The pair demonstrated the design process of the gravity-defying, award-winning Antwerp Port House. The two spoke in detail about how they were able to overcome the challenges of creating such a complex design and renovation project.
The Bricsys BIM Alliance
After a short break it was time to meet some of the key members of the BricsCAD BIM Alliance.
Civil Site Services demonstrated some really clever civil site tools.
This was followed by a laser display from Leica Geosystems, who amazed the audience with the seemingly endless possibilities of laser scanning and its impact on the world of CAD.
The first day ended with a surprise announcement with the Leica Geosystems and Bricsys "Scan-to-BIM" Initiative. They spoke at length of their vision for a system that automatically generates simple point cloud data, to full-BIM-ready models.
That was a busy first day at Bricsys 2019. However, it's not over yet. Join us tomorrow for day 2!
Enscape for BricsCAD will be discontinued and taken down from the Bricsys App Store on 22/10/2023. All active subscriptions purchased before this date will keep receiving support until the subscription expires. Bricsys will provide a version of “Enscape for BricsCAD” that will be compatible with BricsCAD v24.1 If you have any questions please click the “Contact” button in the App Store and create a Support Request.
