Issue #781
The story is mostly in the German press, and so you may not have heard of how just three prestigious building projects are sticking e7.3 billion ($10 billion) in cost overruns to taxpayers. Each one is a horror story with the same plot line: politicians immature enough to put themselves in charge (to create legacy projects for themselves), and then proved to be inadequate to solve the problems that arose.
On the technical side, the projects serve to illustrate what BIM software cannot do.
I've been following the stories as they appeared in the German media, and Der Spiegel recently interviewed the head architect for each project:
Herzog & de Meuron designed Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie concert hall
- original cost and completion date = e187 million by 2009
- current cost and estimated date = e865 million by 2017
- being built on the Elbe River, looking like giant waves on a square box
- was to originally cost Hamburg tax payers nothing
Gerkan, Marg and Partners designed Berlin's Brandenburg International Airport
- original cost and completion date = e1.7 billion by 2010
- current cost and estimated date = e4.3 billion by 2014
- meant to replace three aging airports, including history-famous Tegal and Templehof
- is completed, but the fire suppression system does not work and so airport is abandoned for now
Christoph Ingenhoven designed Stuttgart 21, the new underground train station
- original cost and completion date = e2.45 billion by 2010
- current cost and estimated date = e6.5 billion by 2021
- grassroots protests and feature-creap delayed construction; existing train station is not being kept up
The architects listed the following problems in driving up the costs:
- designs were incomplete before construction contracts were let
- shut downs attempted by grass roots protestors and Green Party politicians
- difficulty working with the building contractors
- politicians, who are not experts in construction, claiming competency in oversight
- "Department for the Invention of Additional Features" in which construction companies figure out how to squeeze more funds from the owner
Project-specific problems included these:
- Brandenburg Airport was to pay for itself through passenger fees, but no one knew how many passengers for which to plan
- City of Hamburg provided the land for the concert hall and investors were to raise e40 million by other means; but then a second concert hall was added, best-in-the-world acoustics were desired
- Cost of the actual train station rose only 10%; the expense comes from the new tunnels, rail lines, and logistics
- Soundproofing of residences around Brandenburg Airport was to cost e139 million; soundproofing regulations changed, and the cost went up to an even billion dollars; meanwhile, the size of the airport increased from 2.1 million square feet to 3.4 million
Brandenburg Airport is complete, yet faces a multi-year delay due to a single problem: the failure of the fire suppression system. Politicians in charge of the project decided irrationally to award the contract to two firms, Bosch and Siemens, ensuring incompatibility. As a result, the smoke exhaust system does not work, but by the time the two firms get it working, it could be that the European fire safety standard changes, and work will have to start over. This occurred with the Stutgart 21 project, where regulations changed part way through construction, requiring fire rescue times to be twice as fast while doubling the fire load.
The funniest-saddest story of all is that no one can find the Off switch for the lights, and so the empty airport shines brightly 24 hours a day.
For all its built-in intelligence, BIM software can't account for human nature. Architect Christoph Ingenhoven summarized like this:
"Even an iPhone doesn't always work, even though it's a global brand, costs a lot of money, and has an incredible image. So why should something that's vastly bigger than an iPhone (and isn't even finished yet) be 100% functional right from the start? Mistakes are an implicit part of the [building] system; it can't even be done without mistakes and problems.
"The mistake is that people don't communicate or cooperate with each other, but actually work at cross-purposes."
All About the New Russian-developed 3D Kernel
Part 3: A full set of tools for geometric modeling
by Leonid Baranov, Sergey Kozlov, Dmitry Semin, and Nikolay Snytnikov
Standard and Advanced Functions. The kernel provides functions for solving a wide range of geometric modeling tasks. These can be divided into "standard" and "advanced" tasks. The standard set of functions and options comprise the backbone of general purpose capabilities found in CAD. These include operations for generating base bodies, and local and global modifications of solid bodies and surfaces. Advanced functions include the creation of complex forms, building up multi-dimensional deformations, and so on.
To create the surfaces of complex shapes, the kernel fully supports methods, such as sweeping profiles along 2D or 3D curves with settings for bending and scaling, and rules for treating discontinuities on sweeping trajectories. There are generators optimized for the special cases of helixes and springs, with user-defined options, such as changing the radius or screw pitch. These make them powerful instruments of creating models of complex shapes.
The lofting generator supports sections with multiple contours, tangency conditions, axis curve definitions, and so on. When sections have different topology, the generator's algorithms can automatically coordinate them by taking into account the number of discontinuities and the number of segments in each G1-continuous interval of a segment. Application developers can set correlations between section points.
Another important method of free-form modeling is the deformation of solid and sheet bodies under various rules, such as bending, translation, freeform and sculptural deformation, and deformation by curve and surface. In the course of deformation transformation, many body surfaces can change their type, changing from analytical surfaces into NURBS.
The geometric kernel includes a full set of functions for solving the task of blending of two and three surfaces, and of covering the holes with irregular shapes. Blending can be applied with continuous or variable radii and sections; special surface functions are used for its representation in the form of a surface, enabling it to represent the results precisely, and, if necessary, to convert it into NURBS. Algorithms include rolling ball and disk blending with a given or computed axis curve. The task of n-sided patch coverings can be solved for an arbitrary number of boundary segments, with the requirement of joining through G1 patches.
The kernel provides a set of classes and functions for solving basic geometric and mathematical tasks. These include operations of vector and matrix algebra, computation of geometric objects (derivatives, normals, curvatures, and so on), computation of bounding boxes, distances between objects, tessellation, and functions to access the geometric and topological elements of models.
Additional modules included in kernel are the geometric constraint solver for positioning solid bodies in assemblies or for simulating kinematic joints, and a converter that handles STEP import and export.
Low- and High-Level Operations. Kernel functions can be grouped under another criterion: low-level and high-level ones. The low-level operations include constructing curves and surfaces (canonical objects, NURBS, offset curves and surfaces, and so on), projecting points and curves on surfaces, intersecting and extending curves and surfaces, modifying topology (including Euler operations), and so on. Low-level operations enable application developers to modify kernel data in a most flexible manner, practically operating in manual mode.
High-level operations include operations that are standard for body generation, and Boolean operations on bodies (union, subtract, and intersect). It can be used with solid and surface bodies, and with combinations of the two.
High-Level Generators for Solid Body Modeling. High-level operations of body generation can be classified according to their use:
- Generating primitives: planes, spheres, cylinders, tori, cones, NURBS, and so on
- Generating kinematic operations: extrusions, revolves, sweeps of wireframes or surface bodies along 2D or 3D curves, springs, helixes with the option of setting linear and non-linear rules for changing radius and step, and so on
- Lofting and skinning: input sections can be both one- and two-parameter families, with requirements on their differential properties
- Global body modification: Boolean operations, bend deformations, rotation, scaling with different coefficients, and so on
- Local body modification: blends with continuous and variable radii, faceting, tapering, hollows, offsets, arrays of elements, face replacing, sheet sewing, surface extensions, covering of n-sided patches, and so on
- Projecting bodies on surfaces with hidden-line classification and removal
- A mechanism of grouping local operations to support development of the functions needed for direct modeling systems. As a result of them, a new body is generated using combined transformations, rather than a sequence of standalone local operations.
Next in part 4: Solutions for Standard CAD Tasks
[This article is an abridged version of the original, which appears on Russia's isicad.net at http://isicad.net/articles.php?article_num=16135. The Russian was translated into English by Olga Lukashenko.]
Out of the Inbox
It's coincidence that the week I write about Germany's Big Three Project Failures that Dassault Systemes starts talking about its new Co-Design to Target software. Says the press release, "...many companies fail to reach their budget, schedule, and specification targets due to increasingly complex systems, overly aggressive plans, and the premature incorporation of new technologies." Heh. Anyhow, the new C-DtoT software is a real-time progress tracker for airplanes, not buildings. http://www.3ds.com/solutions/aerospace-defense/industry-experiences
Professional 3D printer Stratasys bought hobbiest 3D printer MakerBot for an astounding $403 million (share purchase), which works out to a hugely expensive $36,000 per customer. VoxelFab explains why Stratasys felt forced into this move of desperation: http://voxelfab.com/blog/2013/06/stratays-makerbot-a-good-cat-in-the-bag/
Like being in on beta tests? IronCAD 2014 is open to all existing customers to try out the new functions, such as replicating parts and assemblies using patterns; editing multiple features at the same time; setting the default handle; and importing point cloud data. http://www.ironcad.com
Big news for Android users as IMSI/design announces it is adapting its TurboSite software to Google Glass eyewear; not expected to ship until later this year, so regular TurboSite is available through http://www.turboapps.com.
And GrabCAD releases its Android app for viewing 3D CAD models in all major CAD formats, as well as accessing GrabCAD's library and workbenches; free from https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.grabcad
BIM is brand-new for Bricsys, and so Rakesh Rao writes about the capabilities of this beta BIM Module at http://rakeshrao.typepad.com/work_smarter_geotools/2013/06/bricscad-bim-key-features.html
ASCON plows ahead, giving its KOMPAS 3D MCAD software the ability to read all major MCAD formats through technology licensed from a firm I had not heard of before, CT CoreTechnologie of Germany. The translator handles assembly structures, attributes like names and layers, and all entities, such as points, curves, and b-rep solids. http://www.ascon.net and http://www.coretechnologie.com
Autodesk now claims 120 million customers, up 26% in just six months (95 million announced end of November at AU). Of these, 108 million are fickle mobile app and social media consumers. http://www.forbes.com/sites/haydnshaughnessy/2013/06/17/autodesk-120-million-reasons-why-the-future-lies-with-makers/
Free plugin for DraftSight from Graebert. The plugin integrates ESRI's ArcGIS Online mapping with the free DraftSight. This is, no doubt, targeted at AutoCAD 2014's mapping underlay. Doubt no more at http://www.graebert.com/onlinemaps/
Notable Quotable
"The next time you copy something from someone, just say it's 'a combinatorial innovation'."
- Casey Newton, speaking of Facebook copying Vine
@caseynewton
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