Modeling Scaffolding Systems with Avontus

Issue #1,017

 

by Ralph Grabowski, with Brian Webb

Where there is construction, there is scaffolding.   Figure 1: Scaffolding at a building site (All images sourced from Avontus) Scaffolding is one of the most complicated parts of construction. (See figure 1.) Take, for instance, an LNG [liquefied natural gas] plant. The LNG plant usually comes as individual units that are assembled on-site. For most trades, completing the work (piping and insulation) is not that complex, but scaffolding is needed almost everywhere to access difficult-to-reach areas. Scaffolding is not always recognized as a specific trade, and it is often the last thing a building owner thinks of. Worse, it is a very competitive industry, so some contractors go for the lowest price, and others for the fastest installation. Labor is typically 80-90% of the cost of putting up (and taking down) scaffolding. The design can be complex, because there are so many ways of putting scaffolding together. A tall building could have 10,000 pieces delivered by eight to ten trucks – scaffolding verticals, horizontals, varieties of clamps, and decks -- making the logistics and  coordinating the erection complex. Lifting the material gets harder the higher it goes. It usually is done manually as cranes are expensive and used only for the highest levels.  Different parts of the world tend to have similar systems. Regular scaffolding parts are made of steel, but bamboo is still used in the Far East. The plant grows very quickly and is a strong, stiff material. Aluminum tends to be used in Scandinavian countries, where expensive labor justifies the more expensive systems; being lighter than steel, they install faster. See avontus.com/blog/major-types-of-scaffolding-in-construction/ for all the types of scaffolding in use today. One of the most difficult scaffolding installations is inside of coal-fired power plant boilers: everything must go through the ash hopper, which has a sloped floor. Scaffolding parts are lifted in place by hand, using a tedious manual process of passing equipment up person to person. See scaffmag.com/2015/10/guest-post-scaffolding-in-power-plant-boilers/ for the details of this convoluted work.   Software for Scaffolding Design "Our challenge was to have a software architecture that could handle any system, says Brian Webb. He is the founder and CEO of Avontus. "Our target market is not AutoCAD. Designers who use software such as AutoCAD need to trim entities and specify welds. We don't do that. Our goal is to create an easy enough to use product that the 50 people a designer serves can draw scaffolding themselves." As a result, the company uses Visio diagramming software, along with custom-written code. (See figure 2.) The screen is split in half. On one half, users drag and click scaffolding SmartShapes into the 2D Visio page; the other half shows the 3D view rendered in real-time as the user draws the scaffolding. The core of Scaffold Designer is an object-oriented middle layer that understands scaffolding, knows the bill of materials, and generates the 3D model in many environments. Figure 2: Visio coexisting with custom-written 3D module in Scaffold designer Ralph Grabowski: I guess the problem is that scaffolding is like viewing a wirefame model: too much detail? Brian Webb: We overcame that by using a simplified model, because the details of the connectors are not important; it is the placement of the horizontal and verticals. The problem we are solving is easier; we are only drawing scaffolding. I think it’s the nirvana of the CAD industry to be able to open up any drawing in VR [virtual reality]. Grabowski: Is this why you got into VR? Webb: Our end-users need to show their customer or foreman what is intended to be built. This is hard to do with a 2D drawing of scaffolding, even when it’s complimented with 3D views on the page. So VR was the solution, and now we are generating the same models in AR [augmented reality]. (See figure 3.) Figure 3: Viewing scaffolding on an Android phone Grabowski: Tell me a little bit about how it works. Webb: We push the 3D model from the desktop to the cloud, and then to the VR app to navigate around the design. You can put your phone in a cheap Google Cardboard viewer or our Scaffold Viewer Lens to walk around the design. With AR, you place a target on the ground, as well as in the drawing (as a SmartShape). The phone knows where to display the design in the field. For more on VR and AR, see scaffmag.com/2019/05/the-evolution-of-scaffold-design/. Grabowski: What is the line of software that you offer customers? Webb: We have three: Scaffold Designer designs the scaffolding; it does not matter who the manufacturer of the scaffolding system is, as we support nearly all the systems scaffold types available worldwide.   Scaffold Viewer works on PCs and mobile phones and communicates with a cloud service so that designs can be shared. You can view the 3D designs on PCs using a gamer view (and W-A-S-D keys to navigate) or else with a headset. (See figure 4.) Figure 4: Scaffold Viewer on a PC   Quantify is for inventory (or asset) management and tracks the inventory on big job sites or all the way down to individual scaffolds at an industrial facility. (See figure 5.) This is very important, as scaffolding is commonly rented per piece per day. Some pieces rent for as little as 30 cents/day. It gets tricky as some pieces arrive on different days and don’t leave at the same time, so different deliveries to and returns from sites makes things very complicated. Quantify also has a .NET API [application programming interface]. Figure 5: Quantify showing the scaffolding bill of materials   One example of a unique feature in Quantify is that it allows rental firms to carry a negative balance, such as when deliveries to a site are done in the morning, before arrivals from the night before are processed. The big ERP software packages don't allow that, yet it’s very common in our industry. Our software also manages damaged and re-rented equipment (where one scaffolding rental service rents from a competitor to provide enough parts).  Grabowski: What would your customers build on the API? Webb: Just about anything. Our user interface layer is built upon the same API that our customers use, so it’s really an open platform. It’s common for our industry to write custom estimating programs, or to integrate our software with the big ERP systems. www.avontus.com

And In Other News

Here are some of the most recent posts made to the WorldCAD Access blog: Why Google Music is a disaster and how to hack around it Archive: Q&A from CIMdata's Webinar on PLM Status & Trends - - - Verdi Ogewell in Engineering.com reports that Ericsson has, after three years, halted its Dassault Systemes 3dExperience (V6) PLM installation designed for 25,000 users due to data corruption: "Not once has it been possible to migrate old data." Details at engineering.com/PLMERP/ArticleID/19119/Telecom-Giant-Ericsson-Halts-Its-PLM-Project-with-Dassaults-3DEXPERIENCE.  Jaguar Land Rover suffered the same problem, halting a Dassault PLM implementation after nearly ten years of effort. - - - Anthony Frausto at Archintosh is looking forward to learning more about ArchiCAD 23's new Rhino-Grasshopper technology that pushes algorithmic BIM design further. "But we are not sure there is 'RhinoInside', per se."   architosh.com/2019/05/graphisoft-announces-release-of-archicad-23   - - - Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced that it acquired supercomputing legend Cray for $1.3 billion. Randall Newton comments on it: consiliavektor.com/2019/05/17/hpe-prepares-for-exascale-by-acquiring-cray/ - - - Nvidia's Q1 revenue of $2.22 billion was down 31% from a year ago. The net income of $543M was down from $1.29 billion YoY [year over year]. - - - British chip maker ARM, whose CPU design powers all smartphones, announced that its latest Mali display GPU, the D77, is designed for VR [virtual reality] headsets, with 40% reduced system bandwidth and 12%power savings.

Letters to the Editor

Re: DEX Expo It is not often that I take exception to your articles, but your recent comment, "In Canada specifically, colleges are stuck in providing two- and four-year programs, teaching in a way that doesn't allow the graduate to begin working immediately," merits a strong reply. I have a very strong academic bent and may be a bit of a dinosaur when it comes to universities. A university's function is to provide fundamental tools for students to advance the fields of study; they are not there to provide a "pool" of employees for industry. Technical schools and trade schools are there for that purpose. A university should not be providing "trained monkeys" for industry. The scope of the work undertaken by graduates is so broad that it would not be possible to address all areas. It is best that the tools required to address this be developed. Industry has the financial obligation and burden to provide the training, not universities. Co-op type programs are great and it could be implemented as part of the curriculum. These positions should be paid position, and not intern-type of free employment.     - Dik Coates The editor replies: I quoted the panel members' view of colleges and universities, and I believe that they all were strongly oriented towards the trades.  - - -   Which of the four speakers at the DEX EXPO mentioned the "work ethic system." I have spent some time googling this morning and this system seems to be a new concept, even for the four people on that panel.     - Lee Teschler, executive editor     WTWH Media LLC The editor replies: I did not know any of them, and was tweeting the panel discussion live. From the exhibition Web site, I got the list of names. I believe it was the first two who spoke about the system: Marcus Ewert-Johns, president of the BC Alliance for Manufacturing Brian Haugen, director of education and engagement at the International Union of Operating Engineers  Rich Gibbs, president of Neutron Factory Works   Brian Holmes, vice president and gm of Columbia Plastics.    Re: TwinMotion Free from Unity [From the editor: I had downloaded the free TwinMotion software from Unity, to find that it did not work on my laptop. Unity tech support replied to me through Twitter Direct.] "I see that this pc have a graphic card that not meet the requirements to running twinmotion. Keep in mind that the software is based on the unreal engine and provide a real time environment. At a cost of a gaming card or high end professional card."     - Unity tech support   Re: Computers in Design When I was teaching mechanical engineering, I would tell my students that the Boeing 747 and the moon rocket were designed using paper and pencil. I don't think they believed me. I have heard it claimed that the the British Admiralty couldn't launch a battleship until the weight of paper equaled the weight of the ship. And a further comment on the note about the "spiral designs displayed by galaxies." Nova did an interesting episode that touched on this topic. It seems that the spiral arms of galaxies, the curve of a snail shell, and the pattern of sunflower seeds can all be seen to fit the same basic curve defined by the Fibonacci series.      - Bill Fane The editor replies: Gosh, mister Fane, did they even have paper back then? - - -   Useful and interesting updates; thanks. I still have my drafting tools, even use them occasionally, some from (my) age 13 efforts. Conceptually, we grizzled veterans can draw anything manually, need arising. Needed in 21st century? Notwithstanding digitized 3D modeling, there are still multiple forms that are fussy and time-consuming to crank out of applications... BTW: Blame technology? Cars drive drunks, spoons make one fat, keyboards derive illogical conclusions, produce illogical assertions.      - Michael David Rubin, architect The editor replies: I loved the intimacy of working with manual drafting tools on the vellum -- even the erase dust was real! Mr Rubin responds: Ha! Yes, eraser dust building up on our ears & noses by 11 pm; wife/girlfriend complaining about shaking it out of our clothes later? I always preferred a generous scattering on drawings, to take up worse crud; then, insisted on the print shop to "bring up the background," simply to darken the linework back up to clarity in the prints. Yes, enforced intimacy, of sorts, in hot weather (who had A/C?), when one removes shirt, places old towel on edge of drafting board to to intercept sweat from stomach onto vellum/mylar. Seriously, Ralph, I've always found that the best design professionals have at least basic manual skill. Something about the hand-eye-brain loop. Or, so it has seemed -- taking nothing away from the digital-only design generations. Maybe just an architect's view of the work. Although the design intelligence of mechanical/civil/structural guys I've known often enough has come out in their having hands-on skill w/ tools, repairs, maintenance, diagnostics of equipment & systems, etc. Keep up your fine & informative work.   Re: Scaffolding  Did you mention scaffolding in [last week's] newsletter? I have some customers that uses Pon Cad for  that.  See meccad.net/software-cad-3d-scaffolding     - Ragnar Thor Mikkelsen     www.designdata.no, Norway The editor replies: The newsletter had the incorrect header, unhappily; scaffolding is this week's topic.

Thank You, Readers

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Notable Quotable

"Entrepreneurship is devoted to creation of new goods and services. Creativity is always surprising. That is why it cannot be planned or demanded by governments or even by customers."       - 'Knowledge and Power' by George Gilder.   *5340