Autodesk address immediate need for better, more connected data

The acquisition of Datum360 is said to enable the company to better support the near-term data management needs of our Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Operations (AECO) users.

Post-acquisition, Datum360’s technology will help Autodesk bridge a gap in current offerings and expand support for non-model data and compliance reporting.

Autodesk says that Datum360 can connect data stored across disparate silos, and empower AECO stakeholders to make better decisions by increasing the accessibility of model data outside the design authoring environments. 

Construction Briefing spoke to Sasha Crotty, AEC data lead at Autodesk, on how Datum360’s technology will integrate with Autodesk’s existing tools and what immediate benefits users can expect post-acquisition.

“In the short term, our goal is to integrate it with existing systems, focusing on basic identity and consistent login features. As we expand our granular data ecosystem with the new arc Data model API, we aim to bring in more targeted data into Datum 360.

“Additionally, we see an opportunity to introduce CLS standards management classification capability across Autodesk, standardising it as a feature for all our tools. This will allow us to involve owners early in the project life cycle and establish a digital thread that runs through the entire project, enabling us to define and maintain it from the beginning.”

With the release of the AEC Data Model API, the company is introducing a new paradigm in which data can be accessed either via files or at a granular level–the underlying data that makes up a model or a file at the most elemental level is often referred to as granular data.

The AEC Data Model API is said to be the first deliverable of a broader granular data ecosystem that Autodesk is building–called the AEC data model–that seeks to improve data quality and eliminate the bulky file-based exchange of data.

In the future, the API will expand to provide access to additional types of data, as well as data from other Autodesk products to power experiences and applications for stakeholders.

Autodesk highlights that over 95% of all data created goes unused in design and construction, and “bad data”– data that is inaccurate, incomplete, inaccessible, or inconsistent – is estimated to have contributed to US$1.8 trillion in losses worldwide for the construction industry in 2020 alone.

Based on these statistics Construction Briefing asked Crotty if any strategies or features within the AEC data Model API and Datum 360 are designed to increase data utilisation and reduce losses from bad data.

Crotty suggests that if we can all speak the same language, which the AEC data model already utilises, we can achieve much more consistent data.

She adds, “At the end of the day, I think it would be difficult for AEC to have just one standard. This has been proven over many years. However, if we can allow these different standards to communicate with each other and use them interchangeably in an efficient way, then we can truly make a bigger impact on AEC.