Over the last month I have found myself wrapped up in delivering a project that I hope to tell you about in the next month but has kept me from my blog. However, I have had the opportunity to spend time looking at lots of bits of technology and I thought I would share some of the things that have impressed me.

Antialiasing in Revit – a small thing but it makes such a difference. The image below just looks smoother and modern than the 3D Revit views in previous versions of Revit..

Revit workflows – suites are really starting to make sense

Especially if you have Building Design Suite Ultimate. No excuse for missing Revit MEP families with the BIM Exchange connectors within Inventor. Creating MEP parts is even easier with this release.

The Vault 2013 Revit compatibility is getting there, here’s what it promises

This subscription extension provides enhancement to the Revit Integration for Vault Workgroup, Vault Collaboration, Vault Collaboration AEC and Vault Professional. These enhancements include functionality for better adding and managing Revit families, smarter "check-in" and "check-out" of Revit files using new Save to Vault and Open from Vault features, establishing linked files to Revit files within Vault, and downloading missing children. Additionally, the user experience is streamlined for working in a single file or worksharing environment.

Download it from

http://subscription.autodesk.com/sp/servlet/download/item?siteID=11564774&id=19328092

There is now a linkup between AutoCAD WS and Google’s cloud storage known as Google Drive. This is significant because the first time you are able to use Autodesk’s Cloud computing facility with 3rd party storage.

Take a look at the following link

http://www.autocadws.com/tutorials/autocad-ws-and-google-drive/

As more and more companies look to laser scanning and point clouds for providing accurate, easily collect as built conditions there is another option, photogrammetry. Autodesk 123D Catch beta, previously known as Project Firefly, is very impressive. It’s free to try and I suggest you give it a go.

The link to download the trial is at

http://www.123dapp.com/catch

Finally I have been struggling to communicate my ideas for our smallest bedroom. Autodesk HomeStyler is perfect for the job and my layout has won the day. You can even generate a panorama of you design.

Take a look at

http://www.homestyler.com/designer

I have thrown a load of links at you here but if you have any questions about these topics or why I think they are important drop me an email on nick.harris@cadline.co.uk.