A mid-day situation report from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Mississippi Valley Division indicates all "major" structures flood control structures in the Greater New Orleans Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction System are closed, including the West Closure Complex.
Major elements of the new storm defenses encircling New Orleans saw action for the first time in storm conditions on Aug. 29 as the battle to shield the city from Hurricane Isaac's floods and storm surge ground on through the day and into the night.
Photo by Tom Sawyer New York City building permits are sprouting up with QR codes that instantly unlock vast amounts of project information. Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri thought of it, and so far, New York City may be the only city doing it, experts say, although they believe the idea will spread to other cities soon. Related Links: On the Road to Digitization Speeding Construction Recovery With Streamlined Code Review Building permits posted on New York City construction sites are sporting an intelligent look these days as older permits give way to new ones bearing QR codes—those stamp-like squares of
Related Links: Engineering News-Record Information Technology Resource Commander Integrating time, production and equipment data with accounting has long meant deciphering handwritten notes or re-keying information on spreadsheets and forms to data-entry screens. Contractors now are cleaning up that workflow with mobile data-collection systems.One enabler is ACS Connect, Brandon, Fla.,a construction software developer and consultant. Data from ACS's time-, production- and equipment-tracking product, Resource Commander, can feed into many back-office systems. The product has a growing list of users and is about to get a boost from Viewpoint Construction Software, Portland, Ore., which is preparing to release an iOS- and Android-compatible
The Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety conducted the first side-by-side, high-speed-wind performance test of two full-scale, commercial-style buildings on July 17.
In an experiment to sort out the differences between manufacturers' claims of individual component performance and the real-life delivery of installed photovoltaic collector arrays, one California electrical contractor has built a test facility on top of its headquarters.
Photo by Tom Sawyer Smart Pick: Sonim's XP3340 is durable and will call if you fall. Photo courtesy of URS Corp. Instant Message: Just speaking into a NoteVault-equipped phone routes time-stamped observations and attached photos into a report e-mailed for approval. Jobsite communication tools are appearing as fast as device makers and app builders can churn them out—just keeping up could be a full-time job.But contractors don't need another full-time job. They just need to share critical project information quickly in the simplest, most reliable way.For years, Nextel's push-to-talk phones were the standard in construction, with PTT's instant voice contact
Related Links: Vela Systems FAQ on Acquisition In the wake of Autodesk's acquisition of mobile software tools provider Vela Systems, the companies are taking steps to reassure customers about Autodesk's support of Vela's products. The deal brings Vela, a field-management software player with BIM-in-the-cloud expertise, into Autodesk's orbit of CAD and BIM tools for every sector of the construction industry.As the companies merge sales teams and develop marketing strategy at Autodesk's Waltham, Mass., headquarters, customers should see no changes "in terms of what they can expect from their Vela relationship," said Jim Lynch, vice president of Autodesk's Building and Strategic
Photo courtesy of Autodesk Balfour Beatty work crew with Vela Systems on an iPad The acquisition by Autodesk of Vela Systems on June 8 pulls into Autodesk's orbit a company known for leveraging cloud computing and mobile devices to link building information modeling with the physical activities of construction.Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Jim Lynch, vice president of Autodesk's Building & Strategic Technology Group, says after three years of partnering and working together, Autodesk approached Vela with the proposal and they came to terms quickly. "We signed and closed the acquisition in one day," Lynch says. "We
An industry group that hopes to automate code compliance checks for 3-D building information models scaled back its proof-of-concept project recently because the process it hoped to measure against—manual 2-D plan review—turned out to be wildly erratic.
