12d International Technical Forum 2018 – Thoughts by Lee!
The 12d 2018 Technical Forum was a wonderful way to crown a record-breaking year for 12d Solutions. We had well over 500 industry professionals from survey, construction and design, and data management join us. All the seats were taken up – we were literally bulging at the seams, with standing room only.
It’s always fantastic to see the innovative ways that customers use our products. They often find applications that we had never thought of. We see people using certain features over and over again: features which even the developers had never imagined being that important.
Getting to grips with BIM
BIM was the major discussion topic at this year’s conference. The majority of presentations addressed how different companies are dealing with BIM, especially from the civil engineering point of view. Most AEC professionals have had it rammed down their throats about vertical BIM and buildings. But now they’ve really shown how they know what civil BIM is all about, and how Australia is leading the way because most people aren’t doing it around the world.
We’ve seen fantastic projects where everything’s been done inside 12d Model, modelling everything, federated models, clash detection, the whole lock, stock and barrel. So people from all over the world are coming to Australia to take a look and see what our users are doing here.
As Richard Russell from Arcadis put it: “You don’t have to be a 12d user to come here and get value from the conference. Currently in the industry there’s a lot of talk about BIM and where BIM is going, and a lot of misinformation out there. The 12d Technical Forum is a really good place to properly understand what the software is capable of, and what’s been done for years already. We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel.”
Fast-growing 12d community
2018 has seen record sales of 12d Model, as well as record numbers of people coming to training. 12d Synergy also enjoyed a record year, boosted by the arrival of version 4 with its enhanced CAD management features. Since 2016, 12d Synergy has experienced a 300% increase in users.
Many of our customers report that the new versions of 12d Model and 12d Synergy are changing the way they work – for the better! Whether it’s enabling civil designers to work flexibly.
As we grow as a company and as a user community, there’s more and more surface area and more things we can move into. The more we do, the more people realise what else they can automate. It’s really our customers who are driving what is important – after all, they’re the ones out there doing road design. We don’t design roads ourselves at 12d.
That’s why the 12d Technical Forums are so great, because we get to see exactly what our users want. They can interact with us, talk to our programmers, talk to our sales and support people and that’s telling us where the future’s going to be.
Getting user feedback is critical for how we develop products in future, and understanding how they’re using our software and what works best for them.
–Dr Lee Gregory – Managing Director, 12d Solutions Pty Ltd