Martyn Day

Oxford

Co-founder and Consulting Editor at AEC Magazine

Co-founder and Consulting Editor at DEVELOP3D

Design Tech journalist, co-founder of DEVELOP3D, AECMagazine, D3DLIVE. Based in the Brecon Beacons. I Know Words, I Have The Best Words. Brexit was moronic

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Articles

From 2D to 3D and back

1 month ago | aecmag.com | Martyn Day

Widespread adoption of 3D technology and the growth of BIM expertise have transformed AEC – but the most important output for any firm is still documentation — more specifically, the production of 2D drawings. Before the arrival of BIM, CAD represented a way to accelerate workflows, a speedy alternative to manual drafting. It supported quick drawing, fast editing and some automation.
Snaptrude reimagined

1 month ago | aecmag.com | Martyn Day

BIM is dominated by monoliths. These are single programmes that aim to support the full workflow from concept to documentation and everything in between. If its intention was to compete head-on with these monoliths, albeit with a new, cloud-based offering, a start-up would probably be inclined to build out a similarly monolithic, do-it-all system. However, it’s starting to look very much like this is not the way that BIM 2.0 will play out.
Dassault Systèmes launches new AEC team bundles

1 month ago | aecmag.com | Martyn Day

Catia sits at the Ferrari end of the manufacturing CAD spectrum. It’s typically used in demanding engineering design projects in the automotive, aerospace and maritime sectors. Here, the CAD package built and sold by Dassault Systèmes demonstrates its strength in handling complex geometries and huge assemblies, with advanced simulation and analysis thrown into the mix. All this means that applying Catia to AEC projects might initially seem like overkill.
Cyclops from Foster + Partners: environmental analysis

1 month ago | aecmag.com | Martyn Day

Signature architects sit at the cutting edge of design technology and typically use a vast array of digital tools and services to define their buildings. When they can’t find a commercially available software solution to meet their needs, they turn to their own teams of in-house developers to create custom code instead. The code built by these brightest minds might be intended for a specific project, or applied time and time again, on different work.
Higharc AI 3D BIM model from 2D sketch

2 months ago | aecmag.com | Martyn Day

While AI is in full hype cycle and not a day passes without some grandiose AI claim, there are some press releases that raise the wizzened eyebrows at AEC Magazine HQ. North Carolina-based start-up, Higharc, has demonstrated a new AI capability which can automatically convert 2D hand sketches to 3D BIM models within its dedicated housing design system. This type of capability is something that several generic BIM developers are currently exploring in R&D.
Polycam for AEC

2 months ago | aecmag.com | Martyn Day

Precise reality capture has come a long way. We are in the process of moving from rare and expensive to cheap and ubiquitous. Laser scanning manufacturers are currently holding their price points and margins, but technology and mobility are closing in from the consumer end of the market.
Autodesk Tandem in 2025

2 months ago | aecmag.com | Martyn Day

Project Tandem, as it used be known, was initiated in February 2020, previewed at Autodesk University 2020, and released for public beta in 2021. Four years on, there are still significant layers of technology being added to the product, now focussing on higher levels of functionality beyond dashboards and connecting to IoT sensors, adding systems knowledge, support for timeline events and upgrades to fundamentals such as visualisation quality.
Regarding digital twins

2 months ago | aecmag.com | Martyn Day

It’s tough being one of the first to enter a market but for Space, one of the country’s most BIM-centric architectural practices, it was a case of needs must. In 2016, its BIM consultancy spin-off, BIM Technologies, identified a need for its clients to be able to access their model data without the need for expensive software or hardware. Development started and this eventually became Twinview, launched in 2019.
Motif V1: our first thoughts

2 months ago | aecmag.com | Martyn Day

With its stated aim of developing a next generation BIM tool to rival Revit, Motif’s initial offering was bound to be a small subset of what will be the finished product.
Higharc AI delivers 3D BIM model from 2D sketch

Feb 13, 2025 | aecmag.com | Martyn Day

While AI is in full hype cycle and not a day passes without some grandiose AI claim, there are some press releases that raise the wizened eyebrows at AEC Magazine HQ. North Carolina-based start-up, Higharc, has demonstrated a new AI capability which can automatically convert 2D hand sketches to 3D BIM models within its dedicated housing design system. This type of capability is something that several generic BIM developers are currently exploring in R&D.