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Published on March 5, 2008

This change from 2D to 3D modelling will have the same impact as when blueprint drafting was moved from paper to computer screens with the introduction of AutoCAD in the eighties, said Ray Purvis, global CAD (computer-aided design) manager for Hyder Consulting.

By allowing owners, architects, engineers and builders to work from the same software platform, the Autodesk Revit 2009, and sharing the same data - while able to simulate the finished buildings from how the sunlight will fall onto the building to how the electricity wires will cross - companies can keep costs low, said Ho Chow Jin, Autodesk's senior business development manager for architecture, engineering and construction products.

Streamlining operations is important in an era of voracious consumption and dwindling resources.

According to statistics from an Economist Intelligence Unit report in 2001, buildings consumed 70 per cent of total electricity, produced 65 per cent of all waste, emitted 30 per cent of total greenhouse gas emission and used 12 per cent of world's water.

And demand is there. Autodesk senior vice president Patrick Williams said that Asia will need 242 billion square feet of residential space, doubling global energy needs, by 2025. Overall building project growth will rise by 45 per cent this year. China alone has plans to build 37 new airports while India wants 41,000 kilometres of roads.

Asia's rise to the global centre stage has led to what Denis Branthone, regional director of Autodesk ASEAN, termed a "design anywhere, build anywhere" business model. As local companies start to do their own design and development, there is a growing need in the manufacturing sector to outsource design. Already Autodesk Inventor, with major updates to follow later next year, has made product time to market shorter. Branthone said that to compete internationally, Alla, a Thai manufacturer of port hoists and cranes, has used the Autodesk programme to hasten the design visualising, simulating and analysing process, giving an example of how a manufacturer in Thailand can move  to a design-centric business model.

 "[But] poor CAD skills continue to cause 30 per cent wastage in the construction industry," he said, adding that data often fails to translate onsite.

Despite its acquisition streak, the company is revving up training programmes across the board in the region. Tom Joseph, director for the education programme in Asia Pacific, said that Autodesk will roll out more interdisciplinary alliances with major Asian universities, focusing on emerging markets.  In Thailand it has established close ties with Chiang Mai University's Department of Architecture.

Ki Nan Tsui

The Nation