clawsa cad event

Following the success of our last IT event, CLAWSA arranged another evening at the Global Cafe. This time we focused on CAD and its integration with the Internet - what opportunities it may have to offer architects and their clients.

The Internet is already being used widely by architects, both for electronic communications and marketing. Does it also have a place in the design process? Is it feasible for the design team to share data over the Internet? If so, how does it actually work? Which CAD system is the leader in this field, and do they really live up to their authors' marketing blurb?

Clawsa's first event of the new programme was attended by 75 architects at the Global Café, Golden Square, in Soho and featured a presentation by Meta4 Systems Ltd (a relatively recent agglomeration of three CAD Consultancies with a fourth share taken by Bentley Systems - the developers of MicroStation and the fastest growing AEC software house in the world). This featured a new document and drawing management programme called ProjectWise, which allows various parties to a project to be able to distribute, amend and review project information over the Internet, with definable levels of access for each authorised member and automatic generation of a document's history as it is distributed and refined. It can be used to open and save MicroStation or AutoCad files and work on them in either application. The system requires a dedicated server with Internet enabled links for full versatility, although it is also aimed at 'In-house' or Company wide only Extranets where no outside access is desired.


David Wylie, CLAWSA President introduces the evening.	A Meta 4 split personality.

We were treated to a mini soap opera demonstrating a typical dialogue between client, surveyor and a rather uppity architectural technician, supposedly on different continents. This was fairly convincing in encapsulating the benefits of the programme in controlling the development of a document and enabling the appropriate level of review and comment along the way. The evening was rounded off with a traditional networking session, dominated by Architects bemoaning how we are misunderstood but proving that events of this nature are a good forum for finding out how colleagues are keeping ahead and sane.