For the fourth year in a row, we surveyed people in the MEP industry about their use of BIM. Next month we will release the full results from our survey. For now, we want to focus on one finding in particular, because we think it is the most important result.
In our original survey in 2010, we asked respondents to make a prediction: “Three years from now, what percentage of your projects will include 3D collision detection?” This year, we asked respondents a related question: “Today, what percentage of your projects include 3D collision detection?” We can now finally evaluate the accuracy of the predictions.
The result: far fewer projects today include 3D collision detection than people predicted 3 years ago.
We are going to begin beta testing the next releases of Design Master very soon. If you are interested in testing the software, send us an email and we will put you on our list of testers. You can read about the new features at the following links.
Design Master Electrical: There are a lot of major new features in this release that were implemented in response to specific customer requests. Highlights include:
Design Master HVAC: There are no major changes in this release. Instead, it is a number of minor improvements to make the software a little bit easier to use. Highlights include:
Design Master Plumbing: The changes to plumbing are modest in this release. The main new features are related to new label options.
We are hoping to bring back support for BricsCAD in the next release of Design Master.
BricsCAD is an alternative to AutoCAD. Their basic sales pitch is that it can run programs like Design Master, but is cheaper than AutoCAD. A license of Bricscad Pro is $735 versus $4,195 for AutoCAD. In our testing, we have found it to be a little different from AutoCAD, but not worse.
We attempted to support BricsCAD in 2011, but had to stop supporting it in 2012 because of changes in their software. Since then, we have continued to test our software with theirs, waiting for a release that solved the problems we found. Their latest release, V14, appears to work with our software again.
Our next step is to do some real world testing with customers using Design Master together with BricsCAD. If you are interested in participating in this testing, send us an email and let us know. It is important that you still have access to AutoCAD, just in case we discover a problem in BricsCAD that we cannot work around.
Established in 1981, Cheatham and Associates, P.A. is a consulting engineering firm providing plumbing, mechanical, and electrical engineering and design services. Based in Wilmington, North Carolina, Cheatham serves municipal, state, federal, institutional, commercial and industrial clients on a full spectrum of projects. A family oriented company with a strong reputation for exceptional service and integrity, Cheatham offers planning, design and construction administration capabilities built on superior experience and a client-centered approach.
