Manufacturing engineers call it the “death zone”. Some call it the “scaling conundrum”. Once a design is finalized, and a prototype made, it’s frequently expensive and difficult to create the pilot runs and small volume production that’s essential to test market and validate a new product. It’s far too expensive to tool up for mass production of a part or device based on only a single prototype, but how can an innovator bridge that gap?

At AU 2025 in Nashville, Tennessee,  Autodesk Fusion Community Manager Jonathan Odom demonstrated a short run manufacturing platform that allows innovators to program and control multiple production technologies, from multi-axis machine tools to 3D printers, and significantly, to share designs with contract manufacturers that offer both manufacturing capacity and useful design expertise of their own.  Is this the universal tool for making anything and everything? Odom explains all to Jim Anderton. 

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The post One tool, to make everything? appeared first on Engineering.com.

COVID 19 generated an unprecedented demand for remote work and created a demand for mass collaboration tools that let designers work as unified teams, without a physical presence. For many tasks, it’s relatively simple, but in the architecture, engineering and construction space, substantially different systems, designs and skills must be sequenced correctly to deliver a project on time and on budget.  Effective project management of an already difficult task, along with simultaneous mass collaboration, is highly challenging. 

Autodesk Workshop XR Senior Director and General Manager Nicolas Fonta talks to Jim Anderton about how the power of artificial intelligence allows widely dispersed engineering and design teams to work cohesively to deliver projects on time and on budget. 

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Building engineering is a unique form of craft and science, blending multiple materials, processes and design methodologies. Cabling a modern structure means coping with power and signal conductors which must be routed efficiently through complex structures, a 3D puzzle which challenges even the most experienced engineers.

Toronto-based Augmenta is an AI powered generates optimized layouts without tedious and time-consuming at the design level. Augment co-founder Aaron Szymanski discusses this design first with Jim Anderton.

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With the environmental impact of infrastructure projects under increasing scrutiny, the conversation around carbon emissions is changing. Operational carbon now dominates sustainability discussions, and embodied carbon—emissions generated during material production, transportation, and construction—is emerging as a critical and under-addressed factor. In many infrastructure projects, embodied carbon accounts for more than 50% of total lifecycle emissions.

This shift in focus caused infrastructure professionals to reimagine their approach to design and delivery. Leading the charge is Bentley’s Carbon Analysis, a new tool that turns embodied carbon from a reporting obligation into a powerful design parameter.

The embodied carbon blind spot

Infrastructure assets are typically designed with operational efficiency in mind, as designers work to reduce energy consumption, optimize usage patterns, and integrate renewable systems. But embodied carbon is often locked in during design and construction, well before the asset becomes operational. Once materials are selected and ground is broken, the window to reduce these emissions narrows dramatically.

Despite its environmental significance, embodied carbon is difficult to measure and manage. Traditional workflows rely on manual data entry, siloed spreadsheets, and post assessments, all too slow to influence early-stage decisions. And because carbon data rarely flows seamlessly between phases, vital insights are lost or outdated before they can be acted on.

This is where carbon intelligence becomes essential.

What is carbon intelligence?

Carbon intelligence is more than just tracking emissions—it’s about embedding carbon as a core decision-making parameter across the design and delivery of infrastructure. Carbon intelligence enables real-time visibility into the environmental impact of materials, layouts, and construction methods, turning sustainability into a live design variable, rather than a post-design audit.

By leveraging carbon intelligence, project teams can evaluate the trade-offs between design options based on their carbon footprint, alongside cost, safety, and performance. This evaluation allows them to answer key questions during the design phase, including:

• Can changing to a different material reduce carbon without compromising structural integrity?
• Can a design modification lower emissions without inflating cost?
• Can reordering construction sequences result in carbon savings?

Carbon intelligence transforms carbon from a retrospective report to a part of proactive design, unlocking early-stage decisions that yield long-term emissions savings.

Bentley Carbon Analysis: Embedded carbon intelligence

Bentley Carbon Analysis bridges the gap between ambition and action by integrating carbon insights directly into infrastructure design workflows. Built on the Bentley iTwin platform, this cloud-based solution enables designers, engineers, and stakeholders to calculate, report, and visualize embodied carbon in context within a digital twin environment.

• Automated material quantity extraction: Instantly extract material quantities from 3D design models, eliminating manual input errors and saving valuable engineering time.
• One-click carbon reporting: Generate accurate, standards-aligned embodied carbon reports with a single click. Integrated with trusted LCA platforms like One Click LCA and EC3 from Building Transparency, embodied carbon reports cover A1–A3 life cycle stages and follow EN 15804 and ISO 14040/44.
• 3D heatmap visualization: Carbon data is displayed as intuitive heatmaps directly within your model, allowing engineers to identify high-impact materials and structural elements in real time.
• Cloud-based collaboration: Enable seamless teamwork across disciplines and geographies. Cloud architecture ensures carbon data is always accessible, always current, and always aligned with the latest design updates.
• Digital twin integration: When used with Bentley iTwin technology, teams can create “carbon twins”—digital replicas of the asset that track emissions across all phases of the project lifecycle, from concept through operations.

Built for engineers. Designed for results.

Carbon Analysis gives infrastructure professionals the tools they need to make meaningful decarbonization decisions without disrupting fast-paced project timelines.

• Faster carbon assessments: Go from weeks to hours with automated workflows.
• Better design trade-offs: Compare material options based on carbon, cost, and performance.
• Fewer late-stage changes: Catch carbon-intensive design elements before construction and procurement begin.
• Improved sustainability alignment: Demonstrate measurable carbon reductions to clients, regulators, and investors.

By making carbon data visual and actionable, Bentley enables engineers to drive sustainability outcomes, not just report on them.

The strategic edge of carbon intelligence

Carbon intelligence is not just a sustainability tool—it is a strategic advantage. Firms that can measure and reduce embodied carbon are better positioned to:

• Win sustainability-conscious clients and green finance
• Comply with evolving regulations in global markets
• Reduce material waste and construction costs
• Deliver more resilient and future-ready infrastructure

By embedding sustainability into the design process, teams can make smarter trade-offs, optimize across the project lifecycle, and ensure their assets align with both climate goals and community values.

A carbon-intelligent future

As infrastructure professionals embrace digital transformation, tools like Bentley Carbon Analysis are poised to become foundational. They offer a scalable, intelligent pathway for infrastructure professionals to not just meet but lead the sector’s decarbonization efforts.

Engineers, designers, and asset owners no longer must choose between performance and planet. With the right tools, they can optimize for both.

The era of reactive sustainability is over. The future is carbon intelligent.

Start your journey toward carbon-intelligent infrastructure today and explore Carbon Analysis to design responsibly, build efficiently, and lead with data-driven sustainability.

Sponsored by Bentley Systems

The post Why Carbon Intelligence Is the Next Frontier in Infrastructure Design appeared first on Engineering.com.

“The building must be alive,” Claudia Guenzi, head of smart infrastructure for Siemens in Italy, said at a recent press conference in Milan. “That means understanding and controlling its behaviour in real time. And we can’t just keep digging up grids. Software is the only scalable answer.”

It’s an important point, especially in areas with old infrastructure and legacy technologies to consider. Software may promise smarter, more efficient systems and buildings, but it remains a challenge to get it right. Without clear incentives, inclusive design, and a culture that understands its role and purpose, its value risks going unrealized.

As Carlo Ratti, director of the MIT Senseable City Lab and founding partner at Carlo Ratti Associati, told Engineering.com, “data is everywhere but insight is rare. Building owners collect huge volumes of information on energy use, occupancy patterns, and maintenance. Yet much of it goes unanalysed and unused. The issue isn’t a lack of data, but a lack of interpretation.”

This is where developers like Coima come in. Coima is working with Siemens at Porta Nuova, helping to deliver a building management system that integrates HVAC, fire safety, intrusion detection, and electrical systems into a unified platform. According to Siemens, energy use in Gioia 22 has since been cut by 75%, avoiding over 2,200 tonnes of CO2 emissions annually.

Data is now defining infrastructure

Yet even where the technology has demonstrably improved performance, there are signs that not all tenants fully understand or use the tools at their disposal. As Stefano Corbella, Coima’s sustainability officer, told Engineering.com, “most people who own buildings don’t know the data in their buildings, and it’s a shame. Because without data, you cannot manage properly.”

Kas Mohammed, VP of digital energy at Schneider Electric UK and Ireland, sees this dynamic all the time. “Some are [using the data], but there’s still a gap between collecting data and acting on it,” he told Engineering.com. “The best results come from collaboration. Data is powerful, but it’s even more valuable when combined with real-world feedback from the people using the space.”

So is software really eating infrastructure? Or is the infrastructure simply being upgraded to speak software’s language?

Either way, digital systems are no longer just supporting the built environment, they’re starting to define how it behaves, performs, and evolves over time. According to Nemetschek Group’s Jimmy Abualdenien, who is charge of the company’s digital twins, this transformation is not just necessary, it’s overdue.

“Digital twins and smart building platforms are not just justified by their operational and environmental costs, they are essential for achieving net zero targets,” Abualdenien told Engineering.com. “By integrating real-time data from IoT sensors and leveraging AI, digital twins provide actionable insights that optimise energy use, reduce carbon emissions, and extend asset lifecycles.”

Still, even among advocates, there is caution. Abualdenien notes that the biggest challenges lie not in the tools themselves, but in the systems that surround them—data silos, fragmented standards, and a lack of interoperability.

His call for open standards and collaborative workflows echoes a broader industry concern that the rush to digitize may create new forms of lock-in or technical debt. This is particularly relevant as building technologies increasingly resemble software stacks, where decisions made at the design stage can affect flexibility and viability for decades to come.

Ratti, of the MIT Senseable City Lab, goes further. “There’s no one-size-fits-all answer,” he told Engineering.com. “It depends on how, and for what, you use [these systems]. Let me use an analogy and take generative AI, for example. It can help optimise energy production and reduce emissions, paying itself back by many orders of magnitude. But if you’re using it to generate meaningless anime videos, the environmental cost is hardly justified.”

Ratti, who says he is already exploring many of these trade-offs through experimental projects at the 2025 Biennale Architettura in Venice, believes that intelligence alone isn’t enough. Purpose matters. So does ownership. So does design.

Empower engineers rather than dictate

That message is echoed by Arup’s Lindsay English, associate principal and leader of Americas Digital Rail, and John Hagerty, an associate leading digital master planning and smart buildings. For them, software is part of a toolkit, a means to an end, not the end itself.

“The toolkit is there to enhance the work of the engineers,” English told Engineering.com. “Yes, return on investment is important. But there are other outcomes that matter too. Reducing risk, improving project quality, helping engineers visualise interdependencies earlier.”

That shift from static models to dynamic systems thinking is already underway in Arup’s rail buildings work. English points to a project where a digital twin strategy wasn’t just designed for operations and maintenance, but was used during construction to manage contractor coordination, track construction progress in real time, and evaluate the sustainability and cost impacts of design changes.

“Most of the cost savings come in operations. But instead of waiting, we used the twin to improve delivery, manage risk, and model outcomes across multiple dimensions,” said English.

Hagerty adds that one of the most pressing challenges is not the technology itself, but the organizational structures around it.

“Clients can usually find the funding,” Hagerty told Engineering.com. “But if they’re not structured to support these systems over time, with an internal champion, a plan for evolution, and alignment across teams, then they fall apart.” He cites the common scenario where a client invests in smart systems for a new flagship building but ignores the legacy estate that makes up most of its footprint.

The tendency to focus on new builds risks missing the bigger opportunity—retrofitting the systems we already have. Here too, interoperability becomes a sticking point.

“Always avoid vendor lock-in,” said English. “We don’t know what the future will hold, but we do know that assets can last 100 years. You want a foundation that’s flexible enough to adapt.”

Expectations are changing

Mohammed, the VP at Schneider Electric, agrees. “In older buildings, facility managers often have to deal with separate, unconnected systems. This makes it hard to see what’s working well and what isn’t. But with modern BMS [battery management systems] and sensors, managers can quickly respond to how the building is being used and to changes in the environment,” he says.

Siemens takes a similar long-term view. “We do not consider the journey finished,” says Guenzi. “The technology is scalable and ready for future development.”

That foundation, increasingly, is data. But the value of data depends on its usability.

“I can’t tell you how many portfolio owners still rely on phone calls and clipboards to get the answers they need,” says Arup’s Hagerty.

The goal is not just a single source of truth, but a shared one, where engineers, operators, and tenants can all access and act on the same information. But even access isn’t enough. As Ratti puts it, data is everywhere, but insight is rare. The risk is that we end up designing for complexity rather than clarity. That risk only grows as AI becomes more embedded in design and operations. While tools like generative AI can dramatically accelerate information retrieval and automate workflows, they also raise questions about privacy, governance, and control.

Hagerty suggests the industry is just beginning to reckon with these implications.

“Clients are already asking what all this tech means for privacy. That’s going to become mainstream much faster than people think,” he said.

Where does this leave the engineer? According to Hagerty, the role is evolving fast. “It used to be that a building engineer focused on mechanical systems. Now they’re fielding calls about IT infrastructure, cyber risk, and AI-driven control systems. The skillset is changing.”

So too are the expectations. As infrastructure becomes more software-defined, the traditional boundaries between architecture, engineering, and operations start to blur. For Arup, the answer lies in flexibility, in building foundations that support change rather than resist it. That may require new procurement models, new forms of governance, and a rethinking of value that goes beyond cost per square metre.

“Smart infrastructure shouldn’t be an optional extra,” said Hagerty. “It’s already part of most modern systems, whether people realise it or not. The question is whether we make those decisions thoughtfully and build systems we can live with in the long term.”

The future of infrastructure, then, may not be one where software simply eats the physical. It may be one where the physical and digital co-evolve, sometimes uneasily, often messily, but with an eye on what matters most. As Ratti reminds us, quoting Cedric Price, “technology is the answer. But what was the question?”

The post How software is redefining sustainable building engineering appeared first on Engineering.com.

Infrastructure teams today face a difficult balancing act. Urban populations are growing, climate targets are tightening, and there is rising pressure to deliver projects faster—often with constrained budgets and leaner workforces.

To meet these demands, organizations are turning to digital tools and collaborative workflows to help make better decisions earlier in the project lifecycle. From residential developments to transport hubs, recent projects offer a closer look at how this approach is working in practice.

Coordinating complex projects with limited time

One of the more challenging aspects of infrastructure delivery is coordinating multiple disciplines under tight schedules. With overlapping scopes, even small misalignments can lead to costly delays or rework. Under these pressures, many teams are using federated modeling and 4D planning tools to visualize logistics, flag conflicts early, and keep project delivery on track from the start.

Take John Sisk & Son, who used Bentley’s digital tools to manage construction of a two-tower, 463-unit residential project in Leeds. The team created a federated model early in the bid phase, then layered in construction sequencing to develop a living 4D plan. The model helped teams visualize temporary works, delivery flows, hoarding access and more. In one case, they identified a conflict between pod delivery paths and mast climber locations, and resolved it digitally before it created problems onsite. Across the project, the team tracked nearly 800 risks and opportunities, estimating £4.6 million in cost avoidance as a result of the modeling effort.

Designing for real-world behavior

Urban spaces are shaped by more than just building codes; factors around how people move through a city must be integrated into design. For example, consideration should be given to whether people are alone or in a group, in a rush or carrying luggage. Traditional design approaches often miss these nuances. To better account for real-world behavior, planners are turning to performance-based design and simulation.

In Madrid, Buchanan Consultores used Bentley’s LEGION software to model pedestrian and traffic flows at a stadium, a multimodal transport hub, and one of Europe’s largest redevelopment initiatives. The agent-based software allowed teams to simulate crowd flows using behavioral algorithms that account for speed, comfort, personal space, and direction of travel. The models also considered elements like stairs, signage, and narrow corridors.

For example, at the stadium, Buchanan validated that ongoing renovations wouldn’t compromise crowd movement on match days. Elsewhere, they evaluated how new transit connections would affect pedestrian and cycling flows, and proposed design changes to improve walkability. In one case, Buchanan’s team even created a digital twin of a metro station to assess how a larger station would accommodate more people and how far they would need to walk. By grounding their work in behavior-based simulation, the team helped ensure that the public spaces would function well once built.

Building flexibility and sustainability into design

Perhaps no expectation has grown more rapidly than the demand for sustainable infrastructure. Project teams face mounting pressure to incorporate smarter and greener designs, while keeping buildability and long-term flexibility in mind.

That balance was a key focus for the Arcadis team working on the new Cambridge South rail station in the UK, designed to support Cambridge’s growing biomedical campus and serve over two million passengers per year. The station is part of a broader three-mile infrastructure enhancement project, which also includes track, signaling, drainage, and overhead line work. The project is aiming for BREEAM Excellent certification and includes measures to achieve carbon net zero within three years and contribute to 10% biodiversity gain.

To deliver these goals efficiently, Arcadis used an array of Bentley tools including MicroStation, OpenRoads, SYNCHRO, and ProjectWise. Clash detection, performed monthly using federated models, identified and resolved over 26,000 issues before they reached the construction site. Tools like iTwin made it easier for those without technical knowledge—or even installed software—to interact with the federated model. Parametric modeling allowed for rapid iteration of earthworks and walkways. The team also used construction sequencing tools to plan complex activities—such as culvert replacement under live rail lines—in a way that minimized disruption. Arcadis’ design extended to include EV charging infrastructure and a scalable layout that would accommodate future expansion.

Conclusion

From residential towers to stadiums and rail stations, digital workflows are enabling infrastructure teams to work smarter under tighter constraints. Across the industry, organizations are rethinking their processes to integrate data and simulation so that teams can better understand their projects earlier, coordinate more consistently, and reduce avoidable mistakes.

To learn more, watch Bentley’s Going Digital webinar series.

The post How infrastructure teams are managing higher expectations on tighter budgets appeared first on Engineering.com.

This week I’m in Detroit for Realize Live Americas 2025, Siemens’ annual user conference. Siemens Digital Industries Software CEO Tony Hemmelgarn gave the opening keynote yesterday to more than 2,500 attendees at the Huntington Place Convention Center. He kicked off the conference with that famous Heraclitus quote—“No man steps in the same river twice”—before expounding on the Greek philosopher’s lesser known views on digital transformation and the Xcelerator portfolio.

Hemmelgarn’s keynote gave a high level tour of Siemens’ products and plans. He pointed out AI copilots in Teamcenter and NX CAM, discussed immersive engineering with Teamcenter Digital Reality Viewer, gave some love to recent acquisition Altair and acquisition-in-progress Dotmatics, and showed off deluxe customers including Rolls Royce.

Today’s keynote, headlined by Siemens executive vice president of PLM products Joe Bohman, continued that tour. Bohman talked about BOMs (a favorite subject of his), design space exploration with Simcenter HEEDS, electrical design with Siemens Capital, requirements management with Polarion and more. He also announced that Siemens is developing an “industrial foundation model” to train AI in the language of engineering and manufacturing, but we didn’t get many details on that.

Bohman previewed a couple interesting upcoming features for Xcelerator: one, a new personalized home screen for all users to simplify onboarding, and two, embedded AI agents to which users can assign a task at the click of a button. Oh, and he introduced something called Siemens Designcenter, which as far as I can tell is just a new way of referring to Solid Edge and NX.

One more NX goodie: in the NX CAD keynote by Bob Haubrock, senior vice president of product engineering software, we learned that the upcoming 2506 release will allow multiple NX users to work on the same part or assembly at the same time, with live updates between them à la Google Docs.

More to come as I hunt down details in Detroit. If you’re at the show and want to say hi, you can find me by the coffee (or send me an email at malba@wtwhmedia.com).

Arcol launches “Figma for BIM”

Another cloud competitor has entered the building information modeling (BIM) arena. Arcol, a New York-based startup founded in 2021, has launched its web-based platform for architecture, engineering and construction (AEC).

Arcol wants to “bring the magic back to building design,” according to Paul O’Carroll, founder and CEO, in the company’s announcement.

By magic, O’Carroll means an intuitive, playful interface and a web-first workflow that averts versions, foregoes files, and eliminates emails and exports. O’Carroll wants Arcol to be the Figma for BIM (and Figma CEO Dylan Field happens to be an Arcol investor, so the inspiration runs both ways).

So what can it do? Arcol offers real-time collaboration (supporting multiple users and commenting), geometric modeling tools (with familiar sketch and extrude operations), automatic data calculations (live updates of square footage, unit counts, parking, costs, etc.), and a presentation workspace called Boards that synchs with everything else.

Arcol’s data can be exported in the expected ways—STL, CSV, JPG—but there’s also a beta to export models to Autodesk Revit through an add-in. A company spokesperson told me that Arcol will soon support additional BIM platforms as well.

At the moment, Arcol is a conceptual design platform. But the startup plans to go much further in the AEC workflow. Its roadmap includes schematic design, design development and eventually construction documentation.

Arcol is now generally available following a preview release for select firms. The platform starts at $100 per user per month, though enterprise pricing is also available.

So… anyone else feeling déjà vu?

Everything about Arcol reminds me of Motif, another web-based BIM platform that launched in March. Both platforms are taking aim at what they see as the outdated BIM goliath (cough, Revit). Both are explicitly taking cues from Figma and similar web-based tools. Both are coming out of the gate with a focus on conceptual design and real-time collaboration. Both have a synchronized presentation workspace (Motif’s is called Frames). Both have an add-on to send data directly to Revit (though Motif’s is bidirectional, while Arcol’s appears to be one-way). Both are planning more BIM add-ons soon (Motif currently supports Rhino as well as Revit).

And, most interestingly, both have Amar Hanspal, former co-CEO of Autodesk. He was an early investor in Arcol and is now the CEO of Motif. What’s that story, I wonder?

I asked O’Carroll about Hanspal over email, and I’ll quote his deft reply in full:

“Amar was an early angel investor in Arcol and later started Motif, which was unexpected. He is no longer involved in Arcol. But Motif’s entry into the space is just further proof that the industry is really hungry for innovation — it validates our market opportunity. We are confident we are delivering the best experience for today’s designers, and we’ll keep raising the bar for building design. Others will have to answer for themselves.”

Quick hits

• IMSI Design has released TurboCAD 2025, claiming more than 70 updates to the latest version of the CAD software. Those updates include performance boosts, interface improvements, and “AI-driven tools to enhance rendering workflows, provide design insights, and facilitate part creation” in the form of the optional TurboCAD Copilot Professional plug-in.
• 3D software developer CoreTechnologie has updated its 3D_Kernel_IO SDK for CAD conversion. The SDK now supports the latest formats for Catia V5, Solidworks, NX, Creo and more.
• Siemens Digital Industries Software announced two new offerings of its PCB design software, Xpedition, to cater to small and medium businesses. PADS Pro Essentials is a basic version of the software for $999/year and Xpedition Standard is for intermediate users at $2,999/year. Based on the clashing names, it seems Siemens is doing a bit of portfolio spring cleaning. Siemens notes on the Xpedition landing page that “PADS Standard, PADS Standard Plus, PADS Professional and PADS Professional Premium are still current products in our portfolio,” and that users can contact the company for additional seats.

One last link

CIMdata’s Peter Bilello, an Engineering.com contributor and fellow Realize Live attendee (hi Peter!), with In the rush to digital transformation, it might be time for a rethink.

Got news, tips, comments, or complaints? Send them my way: malba@wtwhmedia.com.

The post Realizations in Detroit and the “Figma for BIM” appeared first on Engineering.com.

Today’s top story comes from Maxon, developer of the rendering app Redshift and 3D modeling and animation software Cinema 4D, among others.

Maxon announced last week that it’s on a mission to improve architectural visualization. How? With a series of new plugins for real-time rendering in popular BIM platforms, starting with Vectorworks.

“Maxon is obviously a leading 3D software provider, mostly in broadcast, motion graphics, game and visual effects,” Maxon CEO David McGavran told me. “We also have quite a large amount of high-end architectural visualization artists as customers. And so with that, we’ll be expanding our solutions that we bring to market, and we’ll be talking about it for the first time in June with one of our sister companies, Vectorworks, at AIA.”

That’s the AIA Conference on Architecture & Design 2025, which will take place in Boston from June 5 – 6. Maxon and Vectorworks, both subsidiaries of the Nemetschek Group, will be showing a demo of the new plugin at booth 563.

There’s more to come. McGavran said Maxon is planning to develop plugins for other popular BIM platforms after Vectorworks.

For more details from my interview with McGavran, read Maxon to release Vectorworks plugin for real-time BIM rendering.

The Engineering $alary $urvey

Engineering.com has released the results of its 2025 Engineering Salary Survey, conducted in partnership with our sister publications Design World, EE World, Fluid Power World, The Robot Report, Medical Design & Outsourcing, and R&D World.

“With data gathered from nearly 600 full-time engineers, this survey reveals more than just salary figures. It explores benefits preferences, vacation norms, job roles, and career trajectories, offering a detailed snapshot of the professional engineering landscape,” wrote editorial director Paul J. Heney in his announcement of the report on Engineering.com.

You can download the full report here.

The nTop Computational Design Summit

Software developer nTop has announced its 2025 Computational Design Summit (nCDS), set for June 24, 2025 in Los Angeles. It’s a one-day event featuring speakers from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Siemens and more.

“nCDS is an opportunity to showcase how computational design and AI are changing the way products are developed and brought to market—helping engineers shorten design cycles, improve performance, and meet increasingly complex requirements,” Bradley Rothenberg, nTop founder and CEO, said in the company’s announcement.

If you’re nTerested in nCDS, you can register here.

A P-1 AI update

A few weeks back I covered P-1 AI, a startup working on engineering artificial general intelligence (AGI). I still can’t tell if the whole thing is a joke or not.

There’s some more evidence for not with a new demo video from cofounder Aleksa Gordić, in which he shows Archie (the name of P-1 AI’s agent) helping design a residential cooling system. It’s not a particularly convincing demo, but at least it’s more than we got with the Archie demo hype reel from the company’s launch.

On the other hand, there’s also more evidence that P-1 is just putting one on. Not only does the new demo continue to propagate the preposterous claim that P-1 AI is working to build Dyson spheres (in addition to more boring things, like HVAC prisms), but the startup has released a new, even more terrible promo video called Archie biopic, in which “Archie” “narrates” “his” “life” over AI generated images culminating in, you guessed it, a Dyson sphere.

If P-1 AI is genuine, the irony is rich. Even as the startup ostensibly works to replace human engineers, it’s in full recruitment mode, putting out calls for “cracked engineers” to join the team (and crack themselves right out of a job).

One last link

Here’s a revealing look at the state of generative AI from R&D World editor-in-chief Brian Buntz: 8 reasons all is not well in GenAI land.

Got news, tips, comments, or complaints? Send them my way: malba@wtwhmedia.com.

The post Maxon’s archviz mission, and engineering salaries revealed appeared first on Engineering.com.

The developer of 3D modeling, animation, and rendering software, including Cinema 4D and Redshift, announced today that it will release dedicated plugins for several BIM platforms, starting with Vectorworks.

“The key feature that we’re bringing to this product is real-time visualization,” David McGavran, CEO of Maxon, told Engineering.com. “It’s going to be faster than anything you’ve ever seen before from Redshift.”

Redshift, but real-time

Redshift is Maxon’s GPU-based rendering software, used in several industries for production-quality renders. The new plugin is based on Redshift, but it’s adapted for real-time rendering in the Vectorworks environment. Architects will be able to fly through their scenes with Redshift-quality rendering occurring in real-time, according to McGavran.

The actual rendering quality will depend on users’ hardware. Like Vectorworks, the plugin will work on both Windows and Mac. The more powerful the computer, the higher the real-time rendering quality. McGavran says he’s been demonstrating the plugin on two laptops, an M4-equipped MacBook and a Windows PC with a high-end Nvidia GPU, and both provide full rendering quality.

Integration with Redshift and Cinema 4D

Users of the plugin will be able to move directly between Vectorworks and Maxon’s 3D software: Redshift for final production rendering and Cinema 4D for scene modeling and animation. The scene will sync back and forth with the host application, according to McGavran, who says the plugin will help expose architects to Maxon’s robust 3D design tools.

“You’ll just be able to press a button and it’ll just open up your scene directly into Cinema 4D,” McGavran said. “You’ll be able to do your walkthroughs, all of your visualization, your movie exports, your still exports, using these tools that we’ve built for years and years inside of Cinema 4D.”

Architects may be particularly interested in Maxon’s 3D asset library, which McGavran says includes thousands of high-quality 3D assets that will “empower those architects to quickly decorate and make their scene beautiful at the highest quality inside of their tool of choice.”

For example, architects could decorate their scene with photorealistic flora. In January, Maxon acquired Laubwerk, a developer of 3D tree and plant models that will be available through the plugin.

What’s next after Vectorworks?

Maxon will show a preview of the Vectorworks plugin at the AIA Conference on Architecture & Design 2025, taking place in Boston, MA from June 5 – 6, at booth 563.

The plugin will go into beta for select Vectorworks customers this summer, but Maxon has not announced an official launch date. The company also hasn’t announced how the plugin will be priced or licensed, but McGavran asserted that it “will be a very, very price-competitive product.”

Both Maxon and Vectorworks are owned by the Nemetschek Group. So are Graphisoft and Allplan, other BIM developers for which Maxon may eventually develop a plugin. McGavran wouldn’t commit to any specific plugins beyond Vectorworks, but said “we want this to be available to all architects” and mentioned other popular BIM tools including Autodesk Revit, SketchUp, and Rhino as possible integrations.

“We’re very excited to expand our base of artists closer to the architect side of the world,” McGavran said.

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Infrastructure engineering software company Bentley Systems, Inc., based in Exton, Pa., has developed new asset analytics capabilities that apply AI to crowdsourced imagery for automated roadway asset detection and inspection.

“The collaboration between Bentley’s Blyncsy offering and Google’s expansive mapping and imagery databases has the ability to disrupt the tedious process of monitoring infrastructure conditions and damage assessments [after] a natural disaster,” says James Lee, chief operating officer for Bentley Systems. “Together, we can help infrastructure professionals better forecast maintenance needs long before they escalate into costly or hazardous safety problems, and respond intelligently and instantly to crises—all through the use of AI-generated insights pulled from constantly updated datasets and historical records of infrastructure.”

Unveiled at Google Cloud Next 2025, the new capabilities in Bentley’s Blyncsy software leverages Imagery Insights from the Google Maps Platform to rapidly detect and analyze roadway conditions.

Acquired by Bentley in August 2023, Blyncsy applies computer vision and artificial intelligence to analyze commonly available imagery to identify maintenance issues on roadway networks.

Bentley and Google partnered up in October 2024 to integrate Google’s high-quality geospatial content with Bentley’s infrastructure engineering software to improve the way infrastructure is designed, built, and operated.

“We have a history of leadership in applying repurposed imagery for roadway maintenance, and the addition of Google’s 360-degree imagery and AI will further enhance the value Bentley provides to transportation departments and engineering firms globally,” said Mark Pittman, director of transportation AI at Bentley. “The expansion of our relationship with Google will enable us to further develop our growing infrastructure asset analytics capabilities—initially in the transportation sector with other industries to follow.”

The combination of Imagery Insights from Google Street View, Vertex AI, and Blyncsy will make it easier for departments of transportation—and the engineering firms and consultants supporting them—to identify areas of concern and analyze changes in the condition of roadway and transportation assets over time.

“As our strategic partner, Bentley combines industry-leading infrastructure solutions with Google’s leading AI and mapping technologies, like Vertex AI and Street View, to bring powerful analytics to public and private sector leaders who need mobility insights for making more informed decisions,” said Yael Maguire, Google’s vice president and general manager for Google Maps Platform and Google Earth.

Google Street View’s global panoramic imagery gives Bentley highly detailed analysis of assets, along with visual references. Google’s Vertex AI builds and maintains models to alert transportation agencies of changes to infrastructure assets before they become safety hazards. In addition to supporting roadway maintenance activities, these capabilities can also aid in disaster recovery efforts, providing a cost-effective solution for conducting rapid damage assessments, which can help rebuild faster.

Bentley says Google’s Imagery Insights “will be generally available in Blyncsy in 2025.”

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