Autodesk, Bentley Continue to Expand, Agree to Collaborate

This rendering of a section through a prototype elementary school for Albuquerque Public Schools by Van H. Gilbert Architect was done in Autodesk Revit and analyzed in Autodesk's Green Building Studio.

Fresh off a series of acquisitions early in 2008 that provide energy modeling capabilities to complement their building information modeling (see EBN Vol. 17, No. 3), both Autodesk and Bentley are at it again. This time, Autodesk bought Ecotect and its related tools from Square One Research, while Bentley has obtained the exclusive worldwide distribution rights to the Tas line of energy and fluid simulation tools developed by Environmental Design Solutions Limited (EDSL). As these acquisitions were being finalized, the two companies also announced a mutual commitment to ensuring interoperability between their tools for the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) community.

With the purchase of Ecotect, Autodesk has obtained the most visually appealing and architect-friendly of the widely used modeling packages. “Ecotect offers a more complete sustainability analysis of buildings” than Autodesk’s previous acquisitions in this area, according to the company’s senior product manager for sustainability, John Kennedy. Ecotect is highly regarded as a teaching tool for the visual feedback it provides on physics, solar angles, daylighting, and acoustics. Autodesk’s acquisition also brings Ecotect’s creator, Andrew Marsh, Ph.D., to the Autodesk team. Both the software itself and Marsh’s skills should help Autodesk move towards its vision of providing instant performance feedback for designers within its design tools. Meanwhile, Autodesk’s challenge, according to Kennedy, is to help designers understand how to use instantaneous feedback, such as the energy, water, and carbon predictions already available from Green Building Studio.

Bentley is pursuing a similar vision, according to Huw Roberts, a global marketing director for Bentley. “We’re excited about integrating that analysis into the workflow,” Roberts said. Looking into the future, he envisions a scenario in which, “as you make the window bigger in the room, the impact on your analysis could be presented to you right away—perhaps even putting limits on the edits that you can make based on that analysis.” Bentley’s partnership with EDSL and its Tas software is consistent with Bentley’s traditional strength in especially large and complicated projects. Tas Building Designer incorporates both natural and mechanical airflows into its energy models, while a second tool, Tas Ambiens, uses a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) program to display a cross-section of microclimate variations within a room.

While Autodesk’s recently acquired Green Building Studio and now Ecotect are both especially useful for early feedback during conceptual design, Bentley’s tools are more sophisticated and demanding to use. The collaboration announcement should ensure that designers using either company’s BIM tools can continue to take advantage of the broad array of analysis tools. Roberts touted the agreement as a specific arrangement that will provide for low-level integration across the two companies’ tools, but Autodesk’s senior public relations manager for the AEC industry, Paul Sullivan, is more reserved: “This deal was announced because we want people to be aware of it, but details will emerge over the next couple of years,” he said. Either way, the promise of real-time performance feedback within the design environment is challenging enough that each company will likely be most effective at delivering it within a software environment that it totally controls.

– Nadav Malin

For more information:

Paul Sullivan, Senior PR Manager, AEC Industry
Autodesk, Inc.
Manchester, New Hampshire
603-206-9187
www.autodesk.com

Huw Roberts, Global Marketing Director, Building & Structural
Bentley Systems, Inc.
Exton, Pennsylvania
610-458-2705
www.bentley.com

August 1, 2008

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