What ae you using ""in the field"??

[pauljordan]

OK, so I'm doing piping detailing at this job and I'm wondering if anyone has a solution for being on the jobsite and someone asking about a dimension for this pipe or that wall, or how far is that cable tray from the ductwork?

BIM is great and all but, I need something that will allow me to walk out on a jobsite and answer the questions that my foremen are asking on the spot.

I've tried dimensioning the heck out of things and making them .pdf's, then trying to view them on my IPhone but, that's pretty much next to impossible. Files are too huge to be able to do anything in real time.

Autodesk used to have Autodesk View which worked with PDA's and worked quite well I thought, then it vanished.

I've got a pretty decent PDA and I'd love to be able to just pull it out, pan to where I'm at and do a quick measurement, something as simple as the measuring tool in Navisworks. Heck, I'd be happy with Design Review if I can pull it up in 3D and take a shot.

Has anyone tried Navisworks Viewer on one of those little netbooks yet?? What about Design Review?? Anyone care to try??

What's your solution? We're slowly moving towards a paperless world and this would be a great step if we can figure it out.

Ideas??

[pauljordan]

Wow, 65 views and not one comment?

Is no one else doing this in real life??

[Brian Myers]

Hello Paul,

During my short stint away from the reseller world I worked for a construction company that also had an architectural wing. A solution the guys on the construction side came up with was to use a Tablet PC with Design Review. A few even used Navisworks Freedom to see the work from various trades combined for interference checking from using Manage on their main PC in their office and transferring it to their tablet PC. They swore by it, it costs a bit but its worth it for the end product which is the ability to review projects from the field.

[pauljordan]

That's definitely the kind of info I'm looking for Brian but, I'd like to go smaller still.

I think I need to get my hands on one of those netbooks and see just what they can do. I'd love to see if NW Freedom will run on them but, Freedom doesn't allow you to do any kind of measurements which would be great for answering that "What's the elevation of this pipe supposed to be??" question that always comes up.

Clash detection is totally sweet but, it can stay on the more powerful office laptops or desktops. Maybe it's time for a wishlist item..

[William Troeak]

What I have done for a similar situation was to use a DWF and a Laptop (the laptop did get bet-up) I would be curious to see if a NETBOOK can load the DWF viewer or if it will open the DWF with IE8.

I would also leave Navis works on the Desktops...

[Ryder76]

I wrote this in the Hardware area, but I thought I should say it here. My co worker runs ProgeCAD 2008 on a netbook. It is Verizon's HP MINI 1000 and has WIFI. He is able to connect to our company's server and the internet via Verizon minutes. Costs about $60 per month for a 5 GIG limit.