12d Model 14 Highlights

12d Model 14…as presented at the 12d Technical Forum 2018!

When 12d Solutions Managing Director Dr Lee Gregory set out to write his opening speech for the 2018 Technical Forum, he decided it was time to make something clear…that we can confidently now call 12d Model the world leading Civil BIM solution! In fact, all the different types of data sets in 12d Model that have already been there for full 3D existed long before people started talking about the word ‘BIM’.

All the different attributes we had – String, Vertex, Segment, Model, Project – how many other packages have vertex and segment attributes as well as string attributes?

We actually showed reading and writing IFC data at our events here in 2010 and even earlier…at the time, many people said ‘why would we want to do that’? Now everyone is talking about BIM.

We’ve always been on the cutting edge of what’s needed…because we listen. Another good example is 12d Field – surveyors using 12d Model on tablets out in the field. Everyone is starting to do that now…15 years later.

We want to continue ‘pushing the boundaries’ (as per the 2018 Technical Forum theme) – that’s why we keep asking for user feedback.

Lee then proceeded to explain the 12d Model Release Cycle. In brief, the full release starts with a version C1a (‘C’ means ‘release version’). Then over the next two years, we release subversions C1b, C1c, etc.

Some developments within a sub version are bug fixes and the like, but we also add new options. So we don’t just stop when we first release a version; we keep working on that version for the next two years…e.g. ARR 2016 etc. went into 12d Model 12…also 12d View.

So we never stop – there is continual development over the lifetime of a 12d Model version.

For example, 12d Model 12 C1a was released in October after the 12d Conference 2016…and that was the time we began work on 12d Model 14. But work still progressed on 12d Model 12 C1b, C1c, etc.

12d View is a free 12d Model viewer. It can use existing 12d Model 12 nodes file and dongles. Users on Maintenance simply register to have access to this handy functionality.

The 12d Technical Forum 2018 is now over, and what a success it was – over 530 attendees!  From this very event, users on Maintenance will gain access to the ‘Technical Preview’ version of 12d Model 14. This is the final Beta version – we’d love for you to give us your feedback before we finally release 12d Model 14 in October. If you notice things that are missing or could be done better, feel free to let us know. Once we release, we can’t put anything new into the database, so we like to get everything as complete as possible before then.

Then we’ll start working on 12d Model 15…but we’ll continue adding things to 12d Model 14 until the 2020 Technical Forum.

As previously mentioned, there is no 12d Model 13. We once released a version on Friday 13th and it was a disaster. We’re not generally superstitious, but it seemed sensible not to ‘tempt fate’, as it were!

These features of 12d Model 14 were covered in the ‘What’s Coming’ Webinar earlier this year:

• Model tree
• Project settings
• Civil BIM and IFCs
• Combined 12d Field
• GDA2020
• ARR 2016
• Point clouds
• Multipage Plots
• MTF on steroids
• Attribute Manipulator
• Setting out BIM
• 12d View

This is what’s happened since that webinar…

We’ve rearranged the Main Menu – e.g. added BIM menu, Volumes menu, and Water menu; relocated Edit, Drafting, and Window.

We’ve added loads of new features for Water – e.g. the ‘Drainage-Sewer string’ has been replaced by a ‘Water string’, references to ‘pit/manhole/maintenance hole’ now refer to ‘nodes’, references to ‘pipe’ now refer to ‘link’ (this is all better terminology).

You can now display Node HGL and Link HGL in 3D…we’ve added extended nodes and risers for nodes in the Water string, added a Setout diagram for Nodes as well as User defined house connections…and more settings; the list goes on!

Brief notes on ARR 2016, or Australian Rainfall and Runoff 2016 (actually available in 12d Model 12 if you’re on Maintenance):

• Events are expressed as Average Exceedance Probability (AEP in %), not Average Recurrence Interval (ARI in years). AEP is approximately the inverse of ARI
• For each duration (10min up to 7 days), there are 10 events
• Each event is run and the trimmed mean of the 10 storms is calculated (this is the mean excluding outliers e. 2 standard deviations from the mean). The event closest to the trimmed mean is then used as the critical duration
• The critical storm is the worst case of all the critical duration events
  This is done for every attribute result (catchment flows, pipe flows, pipe velocities, HGLs, volumes…)
• Is not Rational method – Dynamic instead. You need the Dynamic Drainage module to use it
  10x as long to run but works to standard so necessary
• GPU usage for TUFLOW calculations.

Trimeshes were introduced in 12d Model 11 as a generalisation of TINs to represent objects that fold back over themselves. Trimesh usage was expanded in 12d Model 12, and they are now a fundamental part of 12d Model. Trimeshes appeared in many places during the Technical Forum – in User talks, Birds of a Feather sessions, with BIM, Snippets, MTFs, etc.

New trimesh-related features include Face Snap, which allows users to snap on to the face of a trimesh. This, of course, meant a new abbreviation for Fast Snap needed to be found, so it has been renamed to ‘Quick snap’. You can turn off Face snap, and if you’ve got Point snap on it will grab the vertices of a trimesh; if you’ve got Line snap on it will grab the edge.

Other new trimesh-related features include: Creating traffic lights as trimeshes, creating trimeshes from Tunnel Boring Machine (TMB) rings, creating trimeshes for pits, along a string, etc. We’ve also added functionality surrounding MTF for tunnels – inner and outer tunnel walls can be formed as one trimesh, and all the strings can be independently controlled in the MTF.

In fact, there’s so much in the way of examples of further new trimesh-related features that I’m just going to revert to bullet points again now…

• Invisible faces so closed for volumes for the inside of the tunnel
• Bridges created as trimeshes
• Data source on flip trimesh faces
• Create normals to trimesh faces
• Boolean operations – union, intersection, subtraction
• Cookie cut by polygon
• Toggle for applying texture mapping in perspective view
• Toggle Trimesh wireframe – toggle on/off in an OpenGL view
• Drawing density for perspective views – global, view, none
• Shade is now turned on by default for a new Perspective View
• Joystick – can now go over the top instead of stopping when almost vertical
• Move over TIN
• Trimesh Editor – add a vertex, delete an edge, pull a whole face out, etc.
  12d Trimesh edges can have colours and names – this is very important for setting out
• Set trimesh edge info by strings.

We’ve also added a new Settings option for saving various settings for an existing project (Project => Settings) – this replaces a number of files and defaults previously used. There are Named profiles of settings, and a different profile can be selected at any time in a session. Profiles can be duplicated, renamed, deleted, and all saved to a file, and a file of new Profiles can be loaded at any time in a session. You can now turn Super Inquire on/off, and save the Super Inquire style used. Another handy new feature is Autosave screen layout – when this is ticked on and a project is saved, the position and information for most menus and panels on the screen is also saved. The menus and panels will be restored when the project is reopened. We’ve even added the settings for Add/Remove models for Views to Settings, and now have different settings for Search Bar.

In the realm of File I/O, we’ve combined 12da and 12dXML in Reader and Writer, and the ability to write Hexadecimal floating point format to 12da and 12dXML (this is an international IEEE Standard for reading and writing floating point numbers without loss of precision). Real numbers look different but all the other text in the file is readable as normal. You can now tick on panels with anonymous functions, to create (or not create) one, and there are also options to read in KML files, and VISSIM files.

We’ve made additions to the Attribute Manipulator and renamed the menus so you know if a command applies to super strings, TINs, and/or trimeshes. The additions include X, Y, and Z co-ordinates; Element create and modified dates; and linestyles for Segments.

GDA 2020–MGA 2020…stay tuned for a separate piece on this important development!

Plotting in 12d Model has not escaped an overhaul:

• Extra Title Block Variables for PPFs
• Multiple time formats
• New Perspective Plot PPF – image of what is on a Perspective View and/or a 3D PDF
• New Section plot PPF (plots the Section View)
• New Node Diagram Plot PPF – plot an existing Water Network model
• Multipage Plots – MPS – total rewrite.

In 12d Field, we’ve combined Setout and Pickup…more information to come in future blogs on this!

Now, back to that great ‘buzzword’, BIM – Industry Foundation Classes (IFC)…we’re learning more about this every day. Again, though, it’s important to realise that our users have already been ‘doing BIM’ for years. Data in 12d Model has always been in 3D. ADAC for IPWEA – that’s a BIM system…trimeshes all go out to BIM…the list goes on.

IFC is the international standard for BIM; we supported writing to these already, and in 12d Model 14, we’ve added the ability to read IFCs including User Defined Property Sets for attributes. IFC GlobalUID (GUID) can be created and written out, and maintained when read in. For civil works, alignments and TINs are currently being added to the new IFC Standard IFC 4.1, and they are already supported in the IFC Writer.

Another new feature in 12d Model 14 that’s creating quite a stir is Model Tree – a tree name for models, TINs and functions, instead of just having a flat model name. Trees can be viewed as the tree or in a flat form.

We’ve also upgraded our Documentation and added more to the Help menu, which now includes the Reference Manual, Programming Language Manual PDF, What’s New PDF, What’s New Summary HTML, Getting Started for Design, and Getting Started for Surveying manuals.

With our new User Defined Main Menu, you can make up your own main menu up the top, and also define all the sub menus…complete with a button to take you back to the full 12d Model 14 menu if needed (this will be known as the “Sanity button” if you’re talking to Support!).

We could go on…there are over 300 new things in 12d Model 14…but for now, suffice it to say it’s going to be an exciting release and we can’t wait to share it with all of our customers on Maintenance!

Watch the full video here!

Click here to view an excerpt from this presentation from the 2018 12d Technical Forum: