COURTESY OF INSITE SOFTWARE New vectors Software displays multiple views and grabs selected contours. A new release of an earthwork estimating tool should make tracing contours on most site plans obsolete. Replacing tracing, the software allows a user to click on the end of a line to extract vector data from CAD files and—remarkably—many commonly distributed PDFs.InSite Software released SiteWork 11 on Jan. 24. The product's new automated, vector-based contour-tracing function is quite different from the contrast-based automated tracers available in previous versions, which are easily fooled by intersecting lines. By importing a CAD file or first-generation, vector-based PDF and

Starting in its 2009 survey of users of architectural and engineering software, Cyon Research began asking respondents how they expected their companies’ revenue would change that year and the following year.  In 2009 negativism was rampant as the United States plunged into a severe recession and 57% expected revenue to decrease and only 23% were looking for revenue to increase. The 2010 survey was more optimistic and in 2011, respondents had totally switched their outlook on the economy with 70% expecting revenue growth in the second half of 2012 and less than 10% expecting revenue to decrease during that period.This

A British company has a reassuring answer for safeguarding data on USB flash-drive devices, which are all too easily lost or stolen.Conseal Security Ltd. on Jan. 17 released a new version of a locally installed software, called Conseal USB2, that password-protects such devices and then enrolls them in an online "dual lock" password-checking system. Whenever the device is jacked into a computer, the drive checks in with a server that turns back to the software's local management consol to verify the credentials.Because the device is managed from the local administrator's console, access rules can be set at a variety of

Guest Commentary:  Images of projects are a critical component of any architect or engineer’s portfolio. Photos of completed work, perhaps plans and sketches for work-in-progress, floorplans and elevations are all stock-in-trade. Often, websites contain media files. Perhaps a PDF download of a notable press mention, or a video or audio file of an interview on a project, or a talk on a panel or at a conference.All are great marketing assets. And online, all these photos, images, files, movies and sounds are all but invisible to search engines. Unless you make them otherwise.Search engines can't "read" anything but plain old

Photo Courtesy of HzO Many new products strive to protect mobile devices from water. HzO Inc. uses a chemical process to protect electronics inside and out. HzO's latest "waterblock" technology for protecting mobile devices may have been one of the hottest displays at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It certainly was the wettest.The Salt Lake City company helps make sensitive electronic devices impervious to water and will be incorporating the feature in many big electronic manufacturers' product lines this summer, according to Paul Clayson, HzO president. He says the product coats critical components inside the devices to

A federal executive committee has reported to the Federal Communications Commission that a proposed national, hybrid satellite and terrestrial broadband network to leverage repurposed satellite spectrum cannot work without significant disruption to existing global positioning system devices.In a Jan. 13 letter, the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing Executive Committee, which was asked to evaluate proposals for the network offered by LightSquared LTE, said, "Based upon this testing and analysis, there appear to be no practical solutions or mitigations that would permit the LightSquared broadband service, as proposed, to operate in the next few months or years without significantly interfering

A new technology that uses videogrammetry—overlaying stereo video feeds—to deliver 3D views as big as a building and derive real-time digital measurements of nearly any object with 15-mm precision is being refined and readied for commercial use by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta.

image courtesy of The Materials Project The Materials Project is documenting all known materials in a database. A research partnership between Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has launched an online tool that lets researchers virtually mix, match and compare chemical compounds by calculating the resulting properties through the magic of supercomputing. The goal is to help registered users find substitute materials to replace existing components of objects and improve them—whether the item is a concrete column, a battery, an alloy beam or even a teddy bear.The effort to develop the site, called the Materials Project, sprang

Photo courtesy of Inthinc Technology Solutions Cellphone Nanny is installed either over, or under the driver's seat to monitor just that area. When integrated with a telematics fleet management system, if the driver uses a phone to call or text while driving the system warns them to hang up, and if they do not, it reports them to the boss. Related Links: NTSB Report Federal Rule Banning Cell Phones While Driving Contractors Support Bans on Distracted Driving Into the debate over whether all drivers in the U.S. should be banned from texting or talking on cell phones comes a new

The new year will be the year of mobility; construction's Technology Spring, when the constraints on the flow of data into and out of the field, and the use of mobile devices to collect, share and present it, give way for good.That is one of the expectations of ENR technology editors and they prepare for the year ahead by trying to anticipate where current trends will lead. Expect to see field deployment of technology gather steam at companies as a driving force to efficiency gains and process innovation.Watch for wireless networks, technology kiosks and pads, and tablets to sprout on more