Kosrae is an island in the South Pacific, whose rich history is unknown by the people who live there, as well as the handful of scuba divers who visit annually to explore the pristine coral reefs surrounding the island. That’s why Autodesk is teaming up with KnowledgeWell (a non-profit dedicated to transforming the barriers faced by under-resourced nations into opportunities for successful business and public sector programs) to create a 3D model of the island and help tell its story to the rest of the world.

DLT Solutions and [acronym] Magazine cosponsored the Public Sector CAD Awards last week. This two-part, four-question series will recap a conversation with the four judges called “Digital Design Tech, Trends, and Talking Points for 2013 – A Q&A with Public Sector Industry Pros.”

A CAD event isn’t one without a certain Autodesk Evangelist showing up. Thankfully, Lynn Allen not only made an appearance during [acronym] Magazine Public Sector’s CAD Awards virtual event, she gave the keynote talk. 60 AutoCAD Tips in 60 Minutes provided users with more valuable tricks and shortcuts than a magician carries up his infinite sleeve and within his endless hat. We caught up with Lynn afterward to bring you her thoughts on her most useful tips, cloud, and the next five years of digital design.

With roadway design and construction outsourcing costs rising and growing pressures to maximize tax dollar value, state and local governments are increasingly looking for better ways to improve transportation design projects – on a lower budget. Outsourcing has its advantages, providing convenient access to skilled expertise while helping agencies ease their workload. The process, therefore, of moving this function back in-house is often easier said than done.

Back in June, I wrote a blog introducing the new Autodesk BIM 360 cloud offering. Available mostly to Autodesk Subscription customers, BIM 360 gives users “anywhere, anytime” access to design models and BIM workflows through a variety of services offered on Autodesk’s cloud-based platform.

Last week Autodesk extended its Autodesk 360 cloud offering to the realm of building information modeling (BIM). If you are a subscription customer, then you can now get “anywhere, anytime” access to your design models through a variety of services offered on Autodesk’s cloud-based platform. What does this mean? Well, you can free up your desktop by moving computing-intensive designs and processes, such as clash detection and energy analysis to the cloud. Field construction personnel can also access BIM models from their mobile devices in the field. Users can do all this while giving team members, contractors, and other stakeholders access to the same models for improved collaboration.

Who doesn’t like free apps? Autodesk has launched a free app that allows you to take a picture of any object or person and get it translated into a virtual 3D image that you can zoom in on and rotate. The “123D Catch” app works for those who have iPad 2 or the new iPad with a built in camera.

By Brian Skripac, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP BD+C, Director of Building Information Modeling (BIM) with DesignGroup, Columbus, Ohio This blog is part two in a series that discusses the challenges and process involved in implementing BIM at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, a project which saw the team win the 2011 [acronym] Magazine Public Sector CAD Award. Partnership & Collaboration As Joe discussed in the previous post, the Ohio State’s Wexner Medical Center had already reached a decision to adopt BIM in order to get more value out of its space data and transition from AutoCAD, but he now needed to better understand how to implement it. Having decided on Revit Architecture as an important foundation to their overall BIM initiatives, the team still needed to have a much deeper understanding of the technology and more importantly how it would integrate/redefine their existing team and processes. The conversations that Joe and I began to have were driven from DesignGroup’s leadership with BIM through our early adoption of this technology in late 2005. As we’ve evolved into a 100% BIM environment, since the beginning of 2009, Joe had the assurance that we could successfully lead his team through their BIM implementation. Ultimately, the idea of partnership and collaboration became the cornerstone of our success and provided a mutually beneficial outcome for both of our organizations.

A recent article by a friend of ours, Caron Beesley, editor of [acronym] Online, discussing the innovative steps that the federal government is taking to overcome many of the challenges of “going green” and meet a range of fast-tracked mandates, has been getting a lot of great press lately. In Fast-Tracking A Greener Government – Meeting Those Mandates, Beesley noted that, as the largest consumer of energy in the U.S. economy, federal government energy efficiency projects have often been hampered by cumbersome infrastructure, regulatory hairballs, and energy upgrade limitations on buildings.

Eagle Point announced recently AutoCAD Civil 3D will become its development platform. It seems like a no-brainer given the obvious benefits of migrating from traditional 2D design solutions to 3D design solutions.