As a civil engineer deeply involved in the BIM & GIS worlds, I’m always searching for platforms that can mix all these worlds in a presentable way. And while some well-known solutions are well-marketed and continuously developed, I find that all these solutions are far behind Autodesk Infraworks.
I’m not saying here that Autodesk Infraworks is perfect software. Still, I’m saying that it has great potential and if some of its problems are resolved during the upcoming years, it can be the ultimate BIM/GIS integration platform; below are some of the reasons:
- Infraworks is a great interoperability tool where the software can build you a terrain with satellite imagery and then adjust the terrain by importing your lidar scans or any other sources of Topography. You can also import Civil 3D surfaces, for example, design surfaces and use them to develop the project terrain further. In addition to the various design elements from Revit, Civil 3D, and Navis works, you can import IFC, Point Clouds, and Sketchup, amongst other BIM and 3D formats.
- On the GIS side, while the software gives excellent attention to the Geolocation and the coordinate systems, it also provides a seamless connection with ArcGIS online to import all your GIS layers. Also, there are other options to import GIS layers.
- The visualization side here is excellent; you can quickly get impressive shots or even a walkthrough video. However, you can export your model as FBX with its textures and use it in another software like Lumion.
- The “Create” tab has valuable tools for designing infrastructure elements, including transportation, bridges, and drainage.
- The software can work directly with BIM 360/ Autodesk Construction Cloud
The software requires some development and more tools to be added to make it more competitive, especially on the information side of BIM. However, it’s one of my favourite solutions as of today.
You can find more about the software and try it below link:
https://www.autodesk.ae/products/infraworks/overview
