Last week I attended the Autodesk Developer Conference, which was all about platform technologies and data-driven workflows. It was an incredibly inspiring event and I had to cut my originally planned summary down to a few highlights, otherwise it would have been a book! 🙂
By the way, you can also find a video about DevCon on my YouTube channel!
DevCon 2024 took place on May 28 and 29 in Munich, whereby it is particularly noteworthy that this was the flagship conference - the main global conference with over 500 participants. This meant that many Autodesk executives were also on stage and opened the two days with exciting keynotes.
Ben Cochran, VP of Developer Enablement at Autodesk, reminded us right at the start of the event of the incredible amount of data that is currently generated every day: 2.5 EB (exabytes - or 2.5 million terabytes).
Unfortunately, much of this data still remains unused - and there is often a lack of quality and structure to meaningfully integrate this data into new AI-supported workflows.
Shelly Mujtaba, VP of Product Data at Autodesk, illustrated why we urgently need to change something here: He mentioned that ⅓ of building materials are wasted, while at the same time the cost of these building materials has increased by ⅓. In addition, a third of architects, engineers and construction workers will soon be leaving the profession due to old age. So it's clear that we need to improve the way we work in the AEC industry and ultimately adopt AI workflows wherever we can!
You can find out more about these figures and the current state of our industry in the latest State of Design and Make Report from Autodesk.
The Autodesk Platform Vision opens up a completely new approach to data, based on three approaches: Granularity, Interoperability and Accessibility - each based on the Autodesk Data Model, Data Exchange and, of course, Data Access for regulating access rights and capabilities.
In general, we are talking about 3 Autodesk Data Models built on top of Autodesk Platform Services - Forma for AEC, Fusion for D&M and Flow for M&E. While the principles are largely similar, we will focus on the AEC Data Model.
AEC Data Model
The AEC Data Model is based on the concept of granular data that is stored in the cloud and made accessible via Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) .
This also means the step from files to data, and enables a more open way of working beyond the limitations of file formats.
Farzad Towhidi (Sr. Manager of Product Management) and Tobias Hathorn (Director Data Interoperability) mentioned a great metaphor in their session that explains the concept: The file-based approach can be described as a traditional road atlas, where you have to manually browse and search for locations, while the data model is more comparable to Google Maps, where you only have to enter the location you are looking for in the search field.
The data model enables a variety of use cases, such as design validation, live dashboards, model comparisons, as well as various custom workflows and integrations with other tools and services.
Avixi, a US-based company, presented an impressive use case where the AEC Data Model API was used to simplify the extraction of data from Revit models for quality checks. Avixi was able to achieve a 5x time saving by completely replacing the manual process of accessing and opening Revit models, creating tables and exporting them by using the AEC Data Model API . And that's just the beginning!
The best thing about it, however, is that the AEC Data Model offers GraphQL integration in the browser and is therefore easily accessible not only for developers, but for everyone. GraphQL is a query language for APIs that was originally developed by Meta and is now available as open source. Anyone can already use this interface to query data from a Revit model that was created with version 2024 or later and is stored in the Autodesk Construction Cloud.
The Autodesk Data Model is currently available as a beta. All information and the link to the beta can be found here: Autodesk AEC Data Model API | Autodesk Platform Services
Data Exchange
Autodesk Data Exchange enables interoperability between certain desktop tools using special plugins (Data Connectors) that exchange subsets of granular data - Farzad and Tobias explained this again with their Google Maps analogy: "If you think of the data model as Google Maps, then Data Exchange is basically the route planning that only provides the information needed to get from A to B. It also enables workflows such as validation and data transfer, but also the exchange of native model elements - as is already possible today for beams between Tekla and Revit.
Data Exchange enables workflows such as validation and data transfer, but also the exchange of native model elements - as is already possible today for beams between Tekla and Revit, for example.
A whole series of Data Connectors are currently being developed, which you can access as part of the beta program. All information can be found here: Data Exchange | Autodesk Platform Services
On the Data Exchange Roadmap | Autodesk Platform Services you can also get a great overview of the currently available plugins, as well as ideas and current developments, and you can also vote on your priorities.
I would definitely recommend the Revit and PowerBI Connectors, which allow you to analyze your Revit model in PowerBI with just a few clicks. You can find out more in this blog post: Autodesk Data Connectors for Power BI, Dynamo, and more... - AEC Tech Drop
Conclusion
DevCon 2024 was an outstanding event with more than 500 participants and many inspiring presentations on various Autodesk Platform Services APIs.
DevCon also made me realize that platform and data-based workflows are blurring the lines between developers and tech-savvy AEC professionals. I think more and more of us will start to explore these possibilities and perhaps develop some basic workflows ourselves. I don't mean that we're all going to become full-fledged developers - but it will be very helpful to understand APIs in order to better appreciate the new possibilities. What do you think?
Safe Harbor Statement: As an Autodesk employee, I would like to point out that beta versions and roadmaps should never be used as a basis for purchasing decisions. The features described in this article are available as part of the beta program and may change in the future.