A CAD tech who knew the value of digital design

(GISuser Autodesk U feature) Getting in over your head?… In order to realize the true value of digital design data the objective is to keep data digital, improve project workflows, and enable a multi-user workspace. We heard from one user who took a lead role in a mammoth project because he was the one person on staff that had "some" CAD experience. A keynote presentation generally serves to pump you up and get your creative juices flowing. The session on Wednesday at Autodesk U. was no exception as we heard from Autodesk Management, strategic business partners and clients about their problems and solutions as they relate to digital design. Of particular interest [to me anyway] was a presentation made at the keynote session by Ron Reim, an architect with Oculus Inc. [hope I got that right!]. Reim described how he was thrown head-first into bringing digital design to his company after they had won a huge project to design a building that was to be more than 1 million square feet. Reim’s tale is very familiar; having won their bid, his company had to search for someone who had enough computer experience to lead them into a more competitive environment, enabling them to get an edge on the competition. The long and short of it was that a single user with “some” CAD experience was charged with leading change and the switch to digital design. The company switched to digital technology, they shared data, much manual input and redundancy was eliminated, they gained a competitive advantage… how familiar does that sound?

Ron Reim had the vision and understood the value of digital design data

The lessons of this session are familiar, simple in concept, and effective. Autodesk’s 2004 product suite has a number of solutions that address the issues that Reim was faced with. Keeping data digital, enhancing the project workflow, facililtating a multi-user work environment, adhering to open standards, working in 3D.

For more information about Oculus Inc., see this article. Thanks to Adena Schutzburg for the pointer! Ron Reim is the Founder and Principal of Oculus Inc.