Photo courtesy of Bechtel Bechtel and Crossrail are testing mobile-device zones, sectioned-off areas on jobsites that are clearly labeled and removed from safety hazards so engineers and contractors can safely use new apps. Related Links: Better Building with iPad: An Apple Feature on Bechtel Virtual Reality at Intersection of As-Built and Design The largest construction project in Europe leans so heavily on mobile technology that its managers are changing safety policies to protect employees with "mobile-only" zones in which workers also can test new mobile apps for construction."You must have your full attention on the surroundings in order to stay
Related Links: Share 3D Beta Test A 3D communication and documentation software company's new 3D-model viewer and sharing platform enables for mobile sharing, mark up and collaboration of 3D files. It is now open for public beta-testing.Publisher 3D can turn a 3D model from SolidWorks, Inventor and other 3D modeling software into a file that's light enough to be viewable with an iPad or iPhone and sharable in a browser, says Brian Roberts, president and a founder of QuadriSpace, Allen, Texas. “The models can then be made privately available to anyone.”ENR used an iPhone 5 to test the iOS version
By DamWatch DamWatch is a dam-data aggregator that is being implemented nationally to monitor the 12,000 watershed dams across the U.S. Related Links: Dam Watch DamWatch Evolved from ScourWatch Beginning in the late 1950s and for the next 20 years, the U.S. built an average of one dam a day under the Watershed Protection Act of 1954. Most have a 50-year design life. Soon, those dams will start reaching the end of their design lives—also at the rate of one dam a day—for the next two decades.The clock is ticking.Flood-control system managers—such as the Natural Resources Conservation Service, which represents
Image Courtesy PlanGrid PlanGrid's app update automatically links all detail references (in purple) in a set of plans to their full-size versions by learning to recognize the shapes of the plans' call-out notations. Related Links: PlanGrid PlanGrid App on the Mac App Store PlanGrid—an app for collaborating with project plans, specs and photos on iPads, iPhones or any web browser—is launching an upgrade with a significant new call-out feature.In the current version, available since March 2012, drawings uploaded as PDFs to the PlanGrid cloud automatically sync to every team member's mobile device in real time. Markups, notes, attachments and updates
Related Links: NDToolbox What’s the use of technology advancing at lightning speed if we only use it to develop new digital image filters for our pictures of dinner so we can share them with more people who don’t care in the first place? Sharing information that adds value to the actual world should be the real goal, and that can be plenty exciting. One new, public site that will never net a big-fat IPO or a $1-billion takeover bid is one that is likely to have a very positive impact anyway, by advancing the application of technology to test our infrastructure
Photo Courtesy of HoverCam Related Links: HoverCam Solo Camera Sunglasses Allow Hands-Free Site Documentation The HoverCam Solo 5 is a tabletop document scanner, HD webcam and presentation device. Marketed to schools, the device allows teachers to stream a live, real-time view of textbooks for remote and in-class students. Updated video-recording software and the ability to share large documents make it a good fit for the AEC industry as well.Hovercam, made by Pathway Innovations and Technologies Inc., San Diego, is powered by and communicates through a single USB chord. When plugged into a PC, Mac or most white boards, the internal
Photo Courtesy of Sierra Nevada Corporation An ORBCOMM second-gen satellite is prepared for system-level vibration tests before launching late this year by SpaceX. Related Links: ORBCOMM Website SpaceX Website A worldwide provider of satellite and cellular equipment-monitoring devices is releasing a self-powered, heavy-equipment tracking piece of hardware that is powered by the sun and sends information from anywhere on earth using a network of private satellites.Rochelle Park, N.J.-based ORBCOMM's GT 1100 won an E-Tech award in May at the 2013 Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association's annual meeting. Its built-in solar panel allows it to send 2,900 messages from anywhere in the
Courtesy DreamHammer Inc. Related Links: Dream Hammer Inc. Georgia Tech's School of Civil and Environmental Engineering Like a real-life Tony Stark—the engineer-protagonist of the "Ironman" movies—software developer Nelson Paez has created a technology that could help augment and automate operations of everything from military weapons to construction machinery, pushing forward the unmanned-systems industry. But also like Stark, Paez doesn’t want to license his technology exclusively to the armed forces. His new software for controlling unmanned vehicles will be commercially available this August.“Exactly what happened in the mobile and in the PC industry can happen in the unmanned-systems industry,” says Paez,
Related Links: Planning To Punish Structures With Rain, Hail, Wind and Fire Maryland closed a loophole in its building code with a law signed May 16. The measure prevents jurisdictions from weakening Maryland's Building Performance Standards for wind design and windborne debris resistance."The legislation signed by Gov. [Martin] O'Malley (D) corrects a previous flaw in the...statewide building code," says Debra Ballen, general counsel and senior vice president of public policy for the Institute of Business & Home Safety—a Tampa, Fla.-based insurance industry group. The flaw Ballen refers to allows local amendments to weaken the wind resistance provisions in Maryland Building
