<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="https://communities.bentley.com/cfs-file/__key/system/syndication/rss.xsl" media="screen"?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/" xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/"><channel><title>Jason Coleman's Blog</title><link>https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog</link><description>The Tech. Writer's point of view</description><dc:language>en-US</dc:language><generator>Telligent Community 12</generator><item><title>M. Eng Students at Lehigh University use RAM Structural System for Final Group Project</title><link>https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/posts/m-eng-students-at-lehigh-university-use-ram-structural-system-for-final-group-project</link><pubDate>Sat, 06 Aug 2011 00:09:00 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">6dad98f5-dbc9-4c4d-a9ba-e9da8dc6aa8e:64dd4a46-8614-4658-b8fb-3bdacb84c025</guid><dc:creator>Jason Coleman</dc:creator><slash:comments>0</slash:comments><wfw:commentRss xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/">https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/rsscomments?WeblogPostID=180330</wfw:commentRss><comments>https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/posts/m-eng-students-at-lehigh-university-use-ram-structural-system-for-final-group-project#comments</comments><description>&lt;p&gt;The Civil &amp;amp; Environmental Engineering department at Leigh University in Bethlehem, PA&amp;mdash;like many engineering schools across the United States&amp;mdash;offer a Masters of Engineering degree in addition to the more traditional Masters of Science in Civil Engineering degree. In lieu of defending a thesis prior to graduation, &lt;a href="http://www.lehigh.edu/~incee/structural/structuralMEng.html"&gt;M.Eng. students at Lehigh&lt;/a&gt; perform the design of an existing structure as a group project. Over the course of ten months, groups of three to five students will start a project much like a practicing profession would. This starts with architectural drawings and relevant project reports provided by professionals assisting with the program. The students proceed with the design, presenting progress reports at intervals through the process. At the end of the course, the groups make a final presentation of their design to faculty and an executive review board.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;One of the tools the students at Lehigh use is the RAM Structural System. We were all very impressed by their modelling skills when we came across the presentation below. So check out what some of these young people are doing for their final project:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.lehigh.edu/~incee/images/2010group2.png" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In 2010, the students completed the design of two buildings, with a final design report on a 22 story office building in the Harlem section of New York city. This complex building consists of large, column free retail spaces at lower levels and an underground parking garage. Multiple roof setbacks and transfer trusses added to the challenge of designing this project.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.lehigh.edu/~incee/images/2010group1.png" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;One group posted the slides for their final presentation. You can see that these students did an excellent job of designing the complex systems and elements within this building:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;div style="width:425px;" id="__ss_5235631"&gt;&lt;strong style="display:block;margin:12px 0 4px;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.slideshare.net/EngineerGuerra/final-presentation-4-30-emg-final" title="Harlem Park Building Design Project" target="_blank"&gt;Harlem Park Building Design Project&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; 
&lt;div style="padding:5px 0 12px;"&gt;View more &lt;a href="http://www.slideshare.net/" target="_blank"&gt;presentations&lt;/a&gt; from &lt;a href="http://www.slideshare.net/EngineerGuerra" target="_blank"&gt;EngineerGuerra&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="clear:both;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="https://communities.bentley.com/aggbug?PostID=180330&amp;AppID=4163&amp;AppType=Weblog&amp;ContentType=0" width="1" height="1"&gt;</description><category domain="https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/archive/tags/RAM%2bStructural%2bsystems">RAM Structural systems</category><category domain="https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/archive/tags/students">students</category></item><item><title>Gimme Shelter</title><link>https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/posts/gimme-shelter</link><pubDate>Sat, 04 Jun 2011 00:14:00 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">6dad98f5-dbc9-4c4d-a9ba-e9da8dc6aa8e:6c1f5bdf-94c8-4cb9-8b35-e09947d3b483</guid><dc:creator>Jason Coleman</dc:creator><slash:comments>1</slash:comments><wfw:commentRss xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/">https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/rsscomments?WeblogPostID=173512</wfw:commentRss><comments>https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/posts/gimme-shelter#comments</comments><description>&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;If I don&amp;#39;t get some shelter, yeah I gonna fade away.&amp;quot; -Gimme Shelter by The Rolling Stones&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Growing up in the Southeaster United States, I was raised with both:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;a healthy fear of tornadoes, and&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;a love of the Rolling Stones.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The former was from my mother, who grew up near the coast under the annual threat of hurricanes. Upon moving west across the Appalachians, she was a shocked to learn just how devastating the high wind speeds of a tornado could be. &amp;quot;Pine needles shot into trees like nails.&amp;quot; she would sometimes gasp.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The latter was from my father. Himself growing up near Memphis, TN, he listened to all the great blues, rock, and soul music from both the U.S. and the U.K. including, of course, the Rolling Stones.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Growing up, one of the often repeated bits of advice regarding tornadoes was&amp;mdash;should you find yourself in a car when within the path of such a storm&amp;mdash;that you should seek shelter under a highway overpass, presumably by hiking up to the abutment to sit out the storm between bearings. The thought being that the heavy and strong structure would resist the powerful winds. This is true&amp;hellip; for the &lt;i&gt;structure&lt;/i&gt;, at least.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;As it turns out, this is a &lt;i&gt;very&lt;/i&gt; bad place for a &lt;i&gt;person&lt;/i&gt; to seek shelter from the storm. The overpass can act like a channel for the strong winds and the debris which they carry. Large debris carried by the powerful winds can cause life-threatening injuries. Even dust or sand-sized debris can result in vision or respiratory issues. Lastly, any vehicles left stranded along the roadway can impede people hoping to flee the storm or rescue vehicles.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;So, what should you do if you find yourself in the terrible predicament of being in a tornado&amp;#39;s path? I&amp;#39;ll let &lt;a href="http://www.crh.noaa.gov/ddc/?n=over"&gt;the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) explain&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style="padding-left:30px;"&gt;The safest course of action when a tornado approaches is to &lt;b&gt;get out of the tornado&amp;rsquo;s path&lt;/b&gt;, or &lt;br /&gt;to seek shelter in a sturdy, well-constructed building. Lying flat in a ditch, ravine, or below &lt;br /&gt;grade culvert also offers protection from flying tornadic debris. Do not try to outrun a tornado in &lt;br /&gt;a car. Be aware of your surroundings, check&amp;nbsp; weather forecasts often in changing conditions &lt;br /&gt;and take personal responsibility for your own safety.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style="padding-left:30px;"&gt;Remember:&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; &lt;span style="text-decoration:underline;"&gt;Overpasses offer no protection from a direct hit from a tornado, and should not be used as shelter&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;As the U.S. has seen an increase in these deadly storms this year, I hope spreading some of the best advice on what to do is helpful.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;(Found on the BoingBoing blog.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div style="clear:both;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="https://communities.bentley.com/aggbug?PostID=173512&amp;AppID=4163&amp;AppType=Weblog&amp;ContentType=0" width="1" height="1"&gt;</description><category domain="https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/archive/tags/tornado">tornado</category><category domain="https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/archive/tags/Bridges">Bridges</category><category domain="https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/archive/tags/safety">safety</category></item><item><title>Time Lapse Bridge Replacement Video</title><link>https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/posts/time-lapse-bridge-replacement-video</link><pubDate>Fri, 11 Feb 2011 23:42:00 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">6dad98f5-dbc9-4c4d-a9ba-e9da8dc6aa8e:bf1eff72-4031-4ff3-835d-1cce65ce6f2a</guid><dc:creator>Jason Coleman</dc:creator><slash:comments>1</slash:comments><wfw:commentRss xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/">https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/rsscomments?WeblogPostID=160705</wfw:commentRss><comments>https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/posts/time-lapse-bridge-replacement-video#comments</comments><description>&lt;p&gt;Bridge replacements are far from uncommon (though, arguably, should be more commonplace) and shipping in prefabricated bridge pieces is also commonly used. However, shipping in an entire 2,400 ton (or, 4,800 kip, for us U.S. engineers) bridge is a little more of a spectacle.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#39;s just what New York did last summer when it replaced the Willis Avenue Bridge over the Harlem river. Photographer and film maker, &lt;a href="http://stephenmallon.com/"&gt;Stephen Mallon&lt;/a&gt;, was there to capture the entire thing and produced this terrific, time-lapse film of the process of shipping and placing the structure.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://vimeo.com/19020956"&gt;http://vimeo.com/19020956&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;










&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href="http://www.wired.com/autopia/2011/02/video-how-to-install-a-2400-ton-bridge/"&gt;Wired.com&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style="padding-left:30px;"&gt;The new bridge .. was&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://jalopnik.com/#!5597662/new-bridge-floats-under-old-bridg"&gt;shipped 136 miles&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;on a pair of barges welded together. This gorgeous time-lapse film shows the installation.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style="padding-left:30px;"&gt;The bridge was completed and opened to traffic Oct. 2, 2010. Although the $612 million it cost more than doubled the original estimate, the span was finished ahead of schedule. The New York City Department of Transportation says the four-lane span carries approximately 75,000 vehicles per day.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div style="clear:both;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="https://communities.bentley.com/aggbug?PostID=160705&amp;AppID=4163&amp;AppType=Weblog&amp;ContentType=0" width="1" height="1"&gt;</description><category domain="https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/archive/tags/video%2bbridge%2bbarge">video bridge barge</category></item><item><title>Collapse of the Metrodome</title><link>https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/posts/collapse-of-the-metrodome</link><pubDate>Mon, 13 Dec 2010 20:57:59 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">6dad98f5-dbc9-4c4d-a9ba-e9da8dc6aa8e:d9043c32-4fbd-4c36-b5a6-43f274ea934f</guid><dc:creator>Jason Coleman</dc:creator><slash:comments>1</slash:comments><wfw:commentRss xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/">https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/rsscomments?WeblogPostID=153756</wfw:commentRss><comments>https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/posts/collapse-of-the-metrodome#comments</comments><description>&lt;p&gt;Most people here in the US (and certainly American football fans) saw the &lt;a href="http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/12/13/metrodome-snow-vikings/"&gt;news of the Metrodome in &lt;span style="visibility:visible;" id="search"&gt;Minneapolis &lt;/span&gt;collapsing&lt;/a&gt; under approximately 16 in. of snow. Fortunately, structural failures are relatively uncommon news and this one happened just in time for game day, so it got even more coverage.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/50404000/jpg/_50404907_aerialstadium_ap.jpg" style="max-width:550px;" border="0" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;(image: AP, courtesy of &lt;a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_9280000/newsid_9281900/9281912.stm"&gt;BBC&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;However, just in case you missed the footage, here&amp;#39;s NFL on Fox&amp;#39;s coverage containing some of the security camera footage of the roof rupture:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh5iE5FA84g"&gt;www.youtube.com/watch&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Now, that&amp;#39;s amazing stuff. However, as a structural engineer, the most amazing part to me is that nothing truly devastating happened. Notice those heavy loudspeaker units bouncing about? None fell crashing to the floor. Further, that bulging roof structure gave ample &amp;quot;run time&amp;quot; for anyone who was in the building (it was, thankfully, essentially empty when this happened). Much of the public focuses on this as a failure, but in my mind, this is a complete success of the structure&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt; in terms of servicability and life safety.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt; Granted, I don&amp;#39;t know what the design snow load was. I can only assume it was something less than 1.33 ft.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div style="clear:both;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="https://communities.bentley.com/aggbug?PostID=153756&amp;AppID=4163&amp;AppType=Weblog&amp;ContentType=0" width="1" height="1"&gt;</description><category domain="https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/archive/tags/Metrodome">Metrodome</category><category domain="https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/archive/tags/structural%2bengineering">structural engineering</category><category domain="https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/archive/tags/failure">failure</category></item><item><title>Flipper Bridge in Hong Kong</title><link>https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/posts/flipper-bridge-in-hong-kong</link><pubDate>Fri, 18 Jun 2010 18:37:00 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">6dad98f5-dbc9-4c4d-a9ba-e9da8dc6aa8e:40898f9b-48b4-4ffc-8692-50be02670459</guid><dc:creator>Jason Coleman</dc:creator><slash:comments>0</slash:comments><wfw:commentRss xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/">https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/rsscomments?WeblogPostID=132980</wfw:commentRss><comments>https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/posts/flipper-bridge-in-hong-kong#comments</comments><description>&lt;p&gt;There are places in this world where one drives on the left side of the road- mostly those with a connection to the British empire - and places where one drives on the right side of the road. Relatively few of these places are directly connected to one another and even fewer have a large amounts of traffic that would want to regularly travel back and forth (yes, I haven&amp;#39;t forgotten the Chunnel).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;However, Hong Kong and mainland China are such a place which has the problem. A Dutch architecture firm, &lt;a href="http://www.nlarchitects.nl/"&gt;NL Architects&lt;/a&gt;, has produced some visualizations of an elegant solution. They call it the &amp;quot;flipper bridge.&amp;quot;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img style="max-width:550px;" border="0" src="http://images.fastcompany.com/upload/Dia15____JPG_800x600_q85.jpg" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Image courtesy of &lt;a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/1660258/traffic-report-how-to-switch-to-the-other-side-of-the-road-without-causing-a-70-car-pileup?partner=yahoobuzz"&gt;Fast Company&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;





&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;This bridge was part of a entry in a &lt;a href="http://www.hkbcf-design.hk/eng/index.php"&gt;competition&lt;/a&gt; connecting Hong Kong, Macau, and&amp;nbsp;Zhuhai.&amp;nbsp;Therefore, it is only fair to note this bridge was not part of the selected entry. And since this is a very uncommon problem, it is a solution we may never see put into place.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div style="clear:both;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="https://communities.bentley.com/aggbug?PostID=132980&amp;AppID=4163&amp;AppType=Weblog&amp;ContentType=0" width="1" height="1"&gt;</description><category domain="https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/archive/tags/Hong%2bKong">Hong Kong</category><category domain="https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/archive/tags/Bridges">Bridges</category></item><item><title>3D Coming to a Web Browser Near You</title><link>https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/posts/3d-coming-to-a-web-browser-near-you</link><pubDate>Fri, 07 Aug 2009 20:46:00 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">6dad98f5-dbc9-4c4d-a9ba-e9da8dc6aa8e:f8368e51-ddd0-455c-8b98-6bfc01b2d30a</guid><dc:creator>Jason Coleman</dc:creator><slash:comments>0</slash:comments><wfw:commentRss xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/">https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/rsscomments?WeblogPostID=76241</wfw:commentRss><comments>https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/posts/3d-coming-to-a-web-browser-near-you#comments</comments><description>&lt;p&gt;
A tech. industry consortium (Kronos) has announced plans to move forward with a 3D graphics standard for the web. But before you break out your folding 3D glass you got out of a cereal box, this won't 3D as in &amp;quot;Jaws 3-D&amp;quot; but rather, 3D as in first-person shooter or a 3D .PDF file you created using MicroStation (those two types of 3D are very different technologies). 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;a href="http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/08/webgl-standard-to-bring-3d-web-without-browser-plugins.ars"&gt;Ars Technica reports&lt;/a&gt;  that their approach will mostly to port the widely adopted OpenGL standard to the web with Javascript, similar to what the Mozilla foundation has been working on already. Google is also apparently working on their own 3D standard for the web.&amp;nbsp;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
So, why is this important? Well, for starters, having &lt;em&gt;native&lt;/em&gt; 3D support in a web-browser could someday mean that you can simply point a client to a web-page to show them your model. You wouldn't have to worry if they had the latest version of a reader or some graphics codec installed. If any of that sounds Greek (with apologies to those who actually speak Greek) to you, then you can appreciate why having native browser support the 3D graphics is a important step forward.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Of course, forming workgroup to start on the problem means we're still years away from having this handy communication tool. We've got some good options for communicating thee-dimensional models to others now, but as Information Modeling technologies see wider adoption, having even more means of communication will be important. 
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div style="clear:both;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="https://communities.bentley.com/aggbug?PostID=76241&amp;AppID=4163&amp;AppType=Weblog&amp;ContentType=0" width="1" height="1"&gt;</description><category domain="https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/archive/tags/Web">Web</category><category domain="https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/archive/tags/3D">3D</category><category domain="https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/archive/tags/browser">browser</category></item><item><title>Opera and Bridge Demolition</title><link>https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/posts/opera-and-bridge-demolition</link><pubDate>Sat, 14 Mar 2009 02:25:00 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">6dad98f5-dbc9-4c4d-a9ba-e9da8dc6aa8e:b9f92cfa-a307-44d2-aef2-998201b908e5</guid><dc:creator>Jason Coleman</dc:creator><slash:comments>0</slash:comments><wfw:commentRss xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/">https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/rsscomments?WeblogPostID=41151</wfw:commentRss><comments>https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/posts/opera-and-bridge-demolition#comments</comments><description>&lt;p&gt;
Okay, as structural engineers, most of us are in the business of getting structures to stand up; not fall down. However, there is a special niche of the industry whose job it is to make structures come down quickly and safely. Unlike most structural engineers who long, hard hours of work go to making something stand up for years (decades? centuries, even?), their work pays off in fractions of a second.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Controlled demolition usually involves prelimary weakening of the structure so it essentially will just support itself under service conditions. Then, explosive charges are set through out. Now, these aren't really there to 'blow the building up.' Rather, they serve as knives to cut many load-bearing elements simultaneously (and with no people around). Once the charges go off, the structure gets sliced up into nice chunks which come down. Further, through some fancy timing, the structure can be made to fall in as safe a manner as possible. Hence: &lt;em&gt;controlled&lt;/em&gt; demolition. 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Now, in case you hadn't guessed by glancing down at the bottom of this blog post, the title relates to the following video produced by &lt;a href="http://www.virginiadot.org/default_noflash.asp"&gt;VDOT&lt;/a&gt;  (that's the Virginia Dept. of Transportation). Explosive demolition of old bridges as set to the&lt;strong&gt; &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Barber of Seville&lt;/em&gt;. Enjoy:
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" width="425" height="350"&gt;
	&lt;param name="src" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/NJJo8CJpGWo&amp;amp;fmt=18" /&gt;
	&lt;param name="width" value="425" /&gt;
	&lt;param name="height" value="350" /&gt;
	&lt;embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/NJJo8CJpGWo&amp;amp;fmt=18" width="425" height="350"&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;
&lt;/object&gt;
 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
As a former bridge engineer who lived in Virginia, I can say that this video was especially fun for me to watch. 
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div style="clear:both;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="https://communities.bentley.com/aggbug?PostID=41151&amp;AppID=4163&amp;AppType=Weblog&amp;ContentType=0" width="1" height="1"&gt;</description></item><item><title>Killer Scifi Interface</title><link>https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/posts/killer-scifi-interface</link><pubDate>Sat, 07 Mar 2009 00:17:00 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">6dad98f5-dbc9-4c4d-a9ba-e9da8dc6aa8e:f477f898-edb7-4354-b440-460224d6ef2d</guid><dc:creator>Jason Coleman</dc:creator><slash:comments>4</slash:comments><wfw:commentRss xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/">https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/rsscomments?WeblogPostID=40715</wfw:commentRss><comments>https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/posts/killer-scifi-interface#comments</comments><description>&lt;p&gt;
Some Friday afternoon fun; here's a terrific short film for us CAD/ Scifi fans:
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" width="400" height="225"&gt;
	&lt;param name="src" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=3365942&amp;amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;amp;show_title=1&amp;amp;show_byline=1&amp;amp;show_portrait=0&amp;amp;color=&amp;amp;fullscreen=1" /&gt;
	&lt;param name="width" value="400" /&gt;
	&lt;param name="height" value="225" /&gt;
	&lt;embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=3365942&amp;amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;amp;show_title=1&amp;amp;show_byline=1&amp;amp;show_portrait=0&amp;amp;color=&amp;amp;fullscreen=1" width="400" height="225"&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;
&lt;/object&gt;
 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&amp;quot;&lt;a href="http://vimeo.com/3365942"&gt;World Builder&lt;/a&gt; &amp;quot; by Bruce Banit. &amp;quot;A strange man builds a world using holographic tools for the woman he loves.&amp;quot;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Many folks seem to call these interfaces &amp;quot;Minority Report&amp;quot; type (after the 2002 film of that name, which was in-turn based on the 1956 short story by genius author, Philip K. Dick - which ironically didn't feature any such interface at all!).&amp;nbsp; Now, I'm not sure if this is quite the interface for the next version of Bentley Structural (or even version 100!).But the idea of haptic interfaces isn't new and is all around us (e.g. - the Nintendo Wii in my living room or the touchscreen on my iPhone). I'd argue even the humble mouse interface was a bigger leap forward in this direction that getting from now to what is shown as the holographic interface in this video. And as these tools find more practical uses, they will likely find their way into the interfaces of CAD software like Microstation and modeling tools like Bentley Structural. 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
But, in the meantime, we can let the futurist writers of science fiction tell us nice little stories like this with great visual effects. 
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div style="clear:both;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="https://communities.bentley.com/aggbug?PostID=40715&amp;AppID=4163&amp;AppType=Weblog&amp;ContentType=0" width="1" height="1"&gt;</description><category domain="https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/archive/tags/science%2bfiction">science fiction</category><category domain="https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/archive/tags/Interface">Interface</category><category domain="https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/archive/tags/scifi">scifi</category></item><item><title>It's in the Details</title><link>https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/posts/it-s-in-the-details</link><pubDate>Sat, 20 Dec 2008 02:04:00 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">6dad98f5-dbc9-4c4d-a9ba-e9da8dc6aa8e:90cb5334-9613-4a05-bc74-8973acbd053d</guid><dc:creator>Jason Coleman</dc:creator><slash:comments>0</slash:comments><wfw:commentRss xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/">https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/rsscomments?WeblogPostID=27352</wfw:commentRss><comments>https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/posts/it-s-in-the-details#comments</comments><description>&lt;p&gt;
It's Friday afternoon, winding down what has been a banner week for the Bentley Structural Team. We had six releases this week, two of which were entirely new products to market. It's true &lt;strong&gt;V8&lt;em&gt;i&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; has been a monumental undertaking for the entire company and this week really brought a lot out of our group. I'm very proud to have been a small part of this, and to be here at a company that produces the very tools I used to use as a practicing engineer just a year ago.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
And that got me thinking about what it was like when I was on the other side, using this software day in and out to analyze and design structures. So, I wanted to take off my employee hat for this post. As odd as it might sound, I've been a nerd for engineering software long before I got to Bentley (one might say it's why I'm here, actually). So I want to go back to that mindset of envangelist for a short while to discuss just one feature that really struck me this week.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
I spent three solid years as a very heavy user of the RAM Structural System. From fairly simply, one-story structures to some more elaborate buildings, I built a fair share of models. And, like many users, I was often trying to model structures that didn't always fit the standard building mold. I was one of the many users out there asking when sloping columns would become available. But it wasn't hard to see that such a feature could really complicate one of RAM's strongest design features: it's ability to rapidly model building structures. There's a good reason that RAM is the number one design tool for steel building structues: it's really fast. And in the design office, every bit of efficiency matters.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Of course, this week saw &lt;a href="http://communities.bentley.com/Communities/Other_Communities/The_Bentley_Structural_Team/b/the_bentley_structural_team-blog/archive/2008/12/15/bentley-releases-ram-structural-system-v8i-release-13-0.aspx"&gt;the release of RAM Structural System V8&lt;em&gt;i&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;  and with it the ability to &lt;a href="http://communities.bentley.com/Products/Structural/Structural_Analysis___Design/w/Structural_Analysis_and_Design__Wiki/ram-modeler-tutorial.aspx#Moving%20and%20Sloping%20Columns"&gt;slope columns&lt;/a&gt; . What really struck me is the simple elegance of how this very powerful feature was implemented. From the standpoint of the user interface, basically one additional selection tool was added to the Move Column dialog. You now select if you want to move the bottom, top, or both ends of a column; where the first top options will result in a slope. That's it. No great changes in how a building is laid out by floors. No having to draw in columns from floor-to-floor. No new interface changes or additional dialogs in the modeler. 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;img src="http://communities.bentley.com/photos/the_bentley_structural_team-gallery/images/26168/original.aspx" border="0" width="329" height="413" /&gt; 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
The feature's simplicity belies just how powerful an addition this really is. It opens up using RAM for far more sophisticated structures than previously possible, saving time and money for design firms.&amp;nbsp;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Of course, there are many other aspects to sloped column to help the engineer, not to mention many more important new features in this release which further add to the capabilities of RAM SS. But the elegance in design of this feature has really caught my attention and I couldn't help but congratulate the team responsible for a job well done. This was very well implemented and the details were really well thought out. 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
So, as this week, this year, and V8&lt;em&gt;i&lt;/em&gt; all wind down, let's congratuate jobs well done. But, looking forward, the bar has indeed been raised and next year will no doubt see equally impressive new tools for the structural engineer. 
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div style="clear:both;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="https://communities.bentley.com/aggbug?PostID=27352&amp;AppID=4163&amp;AppType=Weblog&amp;ContentType=0" width="1" height="1"&gt;</description></item><item><title>Burying Carbon in Concrete</title><link>https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/posts/burying-carbon-in-concrete</link><pubDate>Mon, 20 Oct 2008 22:52:00 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">6dad98f5-dbc9-4c4d-a9ba-e9da8dc6aa8e:9d19937c-e3cd-41c6-b7d4-c34142a3a060</guid><dc:creator>Jason Coleman</dc:creator><slash:comments>0</slash:comments><wfw:commentRss xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/">https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/rsscomments?WeblogPostID=17152</wfw:commentRss><comments>https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/posts/burying-carbon-in-concrete#comments</comments><description>&lt;p&gt;
Here at Bentley, we make products which help engineers, architects, and other design professionals sustain the world's infrastructure. Another big part of building a sustainable environment for humans is in the process of material selections. Many of the materials which go into structures or roads take a large toll on the environment in their extraction, refinement, and fabrication. However, that may soon no longer be true.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/69/173262365_9257a4797b.jpg" border="0" width="500" height="362" /&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;em&gt;&amp;emsp; &amp;emsp; New cement technology may help to trap greenhouse gas emissions. (Photo: &lt;a href="http://flickr.com/photos/stewiedewie/173262365/"&gt;Concrete Bench&lt;/a&gt;  by&amp;nbsp;Stewart Leiwakabessy).&lt;/em&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Several companies are now developing methods of generating carbon &lt;em&gt;negative&lt;/em&gt; cement. That's right, not only can this cement be carbon-free to produce, but actually sequester carbon emissions from other sources. This would take a product that the EPA estimates is the third largest source of greenhouse gases in the U.S. and make it a place to store carbon from other sources.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
And this solution is feasible with current technology. 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;a href="http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=cement-from-carbon-dioxide"&gt;Scientific American reports on one-such company&lt;/a&gt;  &amp;ndash; California-based &lt;a href="http://www.calera.biz"&gt;Calera&lt;/a&gt;  &amp;ndash; that has found a Portland cement substitute&amp;nbsp; that actually helps &lt;em&gt;reduce&lt;/em&gt; global climate change:
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;blockquote&gt;
	&lt;p&gt;
	While Calera's process of making calcium carbonate cement wouldn't eliminate all CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; emissions, it would reverse that equation. &amp;quot;For every ton of cement we make, we are sequestering half a ton of CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt;,&amp;quot; says crystallographer Brent Constantz, founder of Calera. &amp;quot;We probably have the best carbon capture and storage technique there is by a long shot.&amp;quot;
	&lt;/p&gt;
	&lt;p&gt;
	Carbon capture and storage has been identified by experts ranging from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to the leaders of the world's eight richest nations (G8) as crucial to the fight against climate change. The idea is to capture the CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; and other greenhouse gases produced when burning fossil fuels, such as coal or natural gas, and then permanently store it
	&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
The raw materials are essentially limitless for this process, which has the potential of reducing the cost of the cement used:
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;blockquote&gt;
	&lt;p&gt;
	The Calera process essentially mimics marine cement, which is produced by coral when making their shells and reefs, taking the calcium and magnesium in seawater and using it to form carbonates at normal temperatures and pressures. &amp;quot;We are turning CO2 into carbonic acid and then making carbonate,&amp;quot; Constantz says. &amp;quot;All we need is water and pollution.&amp;quot;
	&lt;/p&gt;
	&lt;p&gt;
	&amp;hellip;&amp;nbsp;
	&lt;/p&gt;
	&lt;p&gt;
	Nor are there any limitations on the raw materials of the Calera cement: Seawater containing billions of tons of calcium and magnesium covers 70 percent of the planet and the 2,775 power plants in the U.S. alone pumped out 2.5 billion metric tons of CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; in 2006. The process results in seawater that is stripped of calcium and magnesium-ideal for desalinization technologies-but safe to be dumped back into the ocean. And attaching the Calera process to the nation's more than 600 coal-fired power plants or even steel mills and other industrial sources is even more attractive as burning coal results in flue gas with as much as 150,000 parts per million of CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt;.
	&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
At this point, the hurdles are mainly regulatory. As anyone in the construction industry knows, the adoption of new technologies and materials is often very slow (and not without good reason). However, global climate change is a very hot issue right now&amp;nbsp;&amp;ndash; both on the minds of the public and the politicians they serve (both U.S. presidential candidates have plans for carbon reductions, for example. Further, it's not a problem that is going to be solved overnight and have large-scale, sustainable plans such as this will be crucial to solve it. Just how large scale is carbon emissions from concrete?
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;blockquote&gt;
	&lt;p&gt;
	The U.S. used more than 122 million metric tons of Portland cement in 2006, according to the Portland Cement Association (PCA), an industry group, and China used at least 800 million metric tons.&amp;nbsp;
	&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
The scale of concrete use creates results in about 5% of the planet's CO2 emissions (&lt;a href="http://www.truthout.org/article/green-cement-may-set-co2-fate-concrete"&gt;source&lt;/a&gt;). 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Currently, CALTRANS (The California Department of Transportation) and Dynegy (a California energy supplier) have expresses interest in the technology.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
The article doesn't mention any of the relative material properties of the Calera carbonate cement to Portland cement. This, of course, will be crucial for using the material as a replacement (or cementatious material addition to a concrete mix).Until some material properties are known, little can be said about what changes &amp;ndash; if any &amp;ndash; will be needed in specifying concrete which includes Calera's carbon-sequestering cement. 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&amp;nbsp;
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div style="clear:both;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="https://communities.bentley.com/aggbug?PostID=17152&amp;AppID=4163&amp;AppType=Weblog&amp;ContentType=0" width="1" height="1"&gt;</description></item><item><title>Bentley's New Logo - In Black</title><link>https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/posts/bentley-s-new-logo-in-black</link><pubDate>Fri, 06 Jun 2008 09:03:00 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">6dad98f5-dbc9-4c4d-a9ba-e9da8dc6aa8e:d75b5778-4ff5-452d-b5ef-f4b52d0e26fe</guid><dc:creator>Jason Coleman</dc:creator><slash:comments>4</slash:comments><wfw:commentRss xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/">https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/rsscomments?WeblogPostID=8003</wfw:commentRss><comments>https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/posts/bentley-s-new-logo-in-black#comments</comments><description>&lt;p&gt;
A couple of weeks ago I was visiting our Huntsville, AL office for the day. One of the first things I notices that morning while walking through the office was a really cool poster someone had plotted with the Bentley &amp;quot;B&amp;quot; logo, but with the Bentley name in a cool looking, green typeface. My initial thought was &amp;quot;Hey! I kind of wished our official logo looked that great!&amp;quot; (not something I might have fessed up to at that point, though). I just figured it was one or two of the employees there getting creative. For those of you who don't know, Huntsville is where a lot of the plotting for Bentley goes on. Not in a scheming sense, but in terms of print-drivers (they have the biggest plotter I've ever seen in my life down there). So, it didn't surprise me that they might have gotten a bit artsy in hoping to show off some of their stuff.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Well, at that same time in my e-mail inbox was the announcement of the all new Bentley branding - with that same logo. Someone apparently had just plotted it off while I was driving into the office. Suffice it to say, I'm thrilled with the new look of&amp;nbsp; Bentley. It speaks of a modern and sleek company. The motto &amp;quot;sustaining infrastructure&amp;quot; points to a grand direction that Bentley is more than just CAD or design software, but the software that helps to keep cities, nations, and even the entire world going for the human race. That may sound like a pretty lofty statement; but who are we if we don't dream big?
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Not settling for just our software products and services help to be sustaining infrastructure, Bentley has made it a goal for us to reduce our carbon footprint as a company. It's a good goal, both for helping the planet as well as being good business sense. So, as much as I like this logo, I needed to tweak it a bit with this in mind. You see, having a lot of white space on your monitor has a couple of drawbacks: it can be hard on your eyes (as almost any CAD technician can attest to) and it also uses quite a bit more energy than a dark screen. So, I created the Bentley Black desktop wallpaper with this in mind. Use this as your desktop wallpaper. When you're not using a program, go ahead an minimize it. The mostly black pixels require less energy from you machine and that takes just a bit more carbon out of the atmosphere in the long run.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Just click on the thumbnail of the Windows desktop below to view and download a 1920x1200 version of the Bentley Black desktop wallpaper for your own use.&amp;nbsp;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;a href="http://communities.bentley.com/photos/jason_colemans_images/images/8000/original.aspx" title="Bentley Black Desktop wallpaper"&gt;&lt;img src="http://communities.bentley.com/photos/jason_colemans_images/images/8002/original.aspx" border="0" alt="Bentley Black desktop" title="Bentley Black desktop" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;  
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div style="clear:both;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="https://communities.bentley.com/aggbug?PostID=8003&amp;AppID=4163&amp;AppType=Weblog&amp;ContentType=0" width="1" height="1"&gt;</description></item><item><title>Pseudo-Flexible Diaphragms in RAM Frame Screencast</title><link>https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/posts/screencast-002-pseudo-flexible-diaphragms-in-ram-frame</link><pubDate>Wed, 14 May 2008 21:41:00 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">6dad98f5-dbc9-4c4d-a9ba-e9da8dc6aa8e:e4fe0e33-6277-4cd7-98d3-72b945c85dd7</guid><dc:creator>Jason Coleman</dc:creator><slash:comments>1</slash:comments><wfw:commentRss xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/">https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/rsscomments?WeblogPostID=7039</wfw:commentRss><comments>https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/posts/screencast-002-pseudo-flexible-diaphragms-in-ram-frame#comments</comments><description>&lt;p&gt;
This blog post and &lt;a href="http://communities.bentley.com/Communities/Other_Communities/The_Bentley_Structural_Team/b/the_bentley_structural_team-blog/archive/2008/05/13/pseudo_5F00_flexible_5F00_diaphragms_5F00_in_5F00_ram_5F00_frame_5F00_screencast.aspx" title="Screencast at the Bentley Structural Team blog"&gt;screencast have moved to the Bentley Structural Team blog&lt;/a&gt;. Please note that all future screencasts will be posted there.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div style="clear:both;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="https://communities.bentley.com/aggbug?PostID=7039&amp;AppID=4163&amp;AppType=Weblog&amp;ContentType=0" width="1" height="1"&gt;</description><category domain="https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/archive/tags/analysis">analysis</category><category domain="https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/archive/tags/diaphragms">diaphragms</category><category domain="https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/archive/tags/video">video</category><category domain="https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/archive/tags/structural%2bengineering">structural engineering</category><category domain="https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/archive/tags/screencast">screencast</category><category domain="https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/archive/tags/RAM%2bFrame">RAM Frame</category><category domain="https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/archive/tags/RAM">RAM</category></item><item><title>RAM Revit Link Demo Video</title><link>https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/posts/ram-revit-link-demo-video</link><pubDate>Wed, 16 Apr 2008 01:42:00 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">6dad98f5-dbc9-4c4d-a9ba-e9da8dc6aa8e:8b2a6860-cc97-4958-857e-749fee42850a</guid><dc:creator>Jason Coleman</dc:creator><slash:comments>1</slash:comments><wfw:commentRss xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/">https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/rsscomments?WeblogPostID=6106</wfw:commentRss><comments>https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/posts/ram-revit-link-demo-video#comments</comments><description>&lt;p&gt;
The following is a short-form video meant to demonstrate Bentley's import/export plugin for Revit Structure and &lt;strong&gt;RAM Structural System&lt;/strong&gt;. The software demonstration was taken from an &lt;a href="http://www.bentley.com/en-US/Promo/Structural+Team/RSS+Revit.htm" title="RAM Revit eSeminar"&gt;eSeminar by Steve Crabtree&lt;/a&gt; , a Technical Product Support Specialist here at Bentley. I condensed the content in a brief, seven minute overview to introduce users to the topic. 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=ynBB9d7dkag" title="RAM Revit Link video on YouTube"&gt;&lt;img src="http://communities.bentley.com/photos/jason_colemans_images/images/7160/original.aspx" border="0" title="RAM Revit Link Video" width="480" height="395" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;object classid="clsid:166B1BCA-3F9C-11CF-8075-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/director/sw.cab#version=8,5,1,0" width="425" height="355"&gt;
	&lt;param name="sound" value="true" /&gt;
	&lt;param name="progress" value="true" /&gt;
	&lt;param name="autostart" value="true" /&gt;
	&lt;param name="swliveconnect" value="false" /&gt;
	&lt;param name="swstretchstyle" value="none" /&gt;
	&lt;param name="swstretchhalign" value="none" /&gt;
	&lt;param name="swstretchvalign" value="none" /&gt;
	&lt;param name="src" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ynBB9d7dkag&amp;amp;hl=en" /&gt;
	&lt;param name="width" value="425" /&gt;
	&lt;param name="height" value="355" /&gt;
	&lt;embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ynBB9d7dkag&amp;amp;hl=en" width="425" height="355"&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;
&lt;/object&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Well, for some reason the Flash video isn't showing up in this post, despite it showing up in the preview. I'll see what I can do about that. In the meantime, you can view the video &lt;a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=ynBB9d7dkag" title="Video at YouTube"&gt;here at YouTube&lt;/a&gt; . Speaking of YouTube videos, be sure to check out all of the videos of Bentley software that &lt;a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/bentleyplant" title="BentleyPlant on YouTube"&gt;BentleyPlant&lt;/a&gt; has posted online. Lots of great stuff there.
&lt;div style="clear:both;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="https://communities.bentley.com/aggbug?PostID=6106&amp;AppID=4163&amp;AppType=Weblog&amp;ContentType=0" width="1" height="1"&gt;</description><category domain="https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/archive/tags/video">video</category><category domain="https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/archive/tags/BIM">BIM</category><category domain="https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/archive/tags/RAM">RAM</category></item><item><title>Bentley Provides Structural Synergy</title><link>https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/posts/bentley-provide-s-structural-synergy</link><pubDate>Thu, 06 Mar 2008 14:28:00 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">6dad98f5-dbc9-4c4d-a9ba-e9da8dc6aa8e:8da5cfe7-e642-4fcd-9147-e8c50fb46e89</guid><dc:creator>Jason Coleman</dc:creator><slash:comments>0</slash:comments><wfw:commentRss xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/">https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/rsscomments?WeblogPostID=4551</wfw:commentRss><comments>https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/posts/bentley-provide-s-structural-synergy#comments</comments><description>&lt;p&gt;
Just in case anyone missed it (I didn't read it until just today), make sure you read Melanie Lawson's terrific article in this month's &lt;em&gt;Structural Engineer&lt;/em&gt; magazine. Titled &amp;quot;&lt;span class="header-highlight"&gt;&lt;a href="http://gostructural.com/article.asp?id=2699" title="Structures: Structural Synergy"&gt;Manufacturers Turn: Structural synergy&lt;/a&gt; ,&amp;quot; the article describes how the structural design process of a new high school in Murrieta, California was streamlined using Bentely's &lt;a href="http://www.bentley.com/en-US/Products/RAM+Structural+System/?market=Structural" title="RAM Structural System"&gt;RAM Structural System&lt;/a&gt; .&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&amp;nbsp;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;div style="width:300px;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://www.bentley.com/NR/rdonlyres/43EABF9A-3749-4113-9302-377306C7E051/0/MurriettaTheater.jpg" title="Theatre at Murrieta Mesa High School, Murrieta, CA - courtesy: KNA Consulting Engineers, Inc."&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.bentley.com/NR/rdonlyres/CD901B71-C552-4396-A398-DFFCCFC8F6FB/0/MurriettaTheater.jpg" border="0" alt="Theatre at Murrieta Mesa High School, Murrieta, CA - courtesy: KNA Consulting Engineers, Inc." title="Theatre at Murrieta Mesa High School, Murrieta, CA - courtesy: KNA Consulting Engineers, Inc." width="350" height="252" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt; 
Theatre at Murieta Mesa High School - Image courtesy of KNA Consulting Engineers, Inc. / Modeled in RAM Structural System.
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style="width:300px;"&gt;
&amp;nbsp;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
As someone who used RAM Structural System for design as recently as last year, I can attest to just how well the RAM analysis and design components are integrated together. In fact, as a user, one hardly even notices they've gone from one program to the next. The workflow is clearly laid out and all the data is pulled from a single model, which helps to reduce errors. As with the new Murrieta high school, structural elements of different types and materials can all be analyzed, designed, and - with the use of tools like RAM Connection - even detailed.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
What's going to make this even better? All of Bentley's &lt;a href="http://www.bentley.com/en-US/Promo/Bentleys+Winning+Team/" title="Bentley's Winning Team"&gt;Structural Team&lt;/a&gt;  products are all getting integrated together, linking to one another or through Bentley Structure and the Integrated Structural Model (ISM - coming soon!). It doesn't matter if the model starts in RAM, STAAD, Bentley Structural, even Revit - the data moves between applications and the engineer can choose the best tool for their needs.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div style="clear:both;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="https://communities.bentley.com/aggbug?PostID=4551&amp;AppID=4163&amp;AppType=Weblog&amp;ContentType=0" width="1" height="1"&gt;</description><category domain="https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/archive/tags/RAM">RAM</category><category domain="https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/archive/tags/Building">Building</category></item><item><title>Computer Modeling on the High Seas</title><link>https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/posts/computer-modelling-on-the-high-seas</link><pubDate>Thu, 28 Feb 2008 07:55:00 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">6dad98f5-dbc9-4c4d-a9ba-e9da8dc6aa8e:6b31565d-ff2c-48bc-9352-55dd88240de4</guid><dc:creator>Jason Coleman</dc:creator><slash:comments>0</slash:comments><wfw:commentRss xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/">https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/rsscomments?WeblogPostID=4370</wfw:commentRss><comments>https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/posts/computer-modelling-on-the-high-seas#comments</comments><description>&lt;p&gt;
Most of us involved in engineering rarely think about finding jobs full of action and danger for ourselves. However, just in case there are those of you out there who were looking for such things; they do exist!
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
This month's issue of Wired magazine has a terrific &lt;a href="http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-03/ff_seacowboys" title="High Tech Cowboys of the Deep Seas"&gt;article about Titan Salvage and their rescue of the cargo ship &lt;em&gt;Cougar Ace&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; . The team of Titan Salvage is made up some real-life Indiana Jones type guys. One of whom - on this mission - is computer modeler Marty Johnson. He uses some relatively obscure hydrostatic modeling software [no, not Bentley software - we can't make everything!] to create 3D models of the ship to determine what modifications need to be made to right it.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
I'm often amazed at how engineering software gets portrayed in movies and on television. It is usually the case of some archetypal wiz-kid writing their own software from scratch overnight to do something no computer on Earth is capable of. However, people like Johnson are the real McCoy: someone who really does create intricate computer models to answer questions fast.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Most of us never have that much pressure on us. However, in reality, the tools that Bentley produces for engineers allow us to solve incredibly complex problems in fractions of the time that were required even a decade or two ago. Just be glad that we get to do it in a comfortable office instead of on a ship listed 60 degrees off of the Aleutian Islands.
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div style="clear:both;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="https://communities.bentley.com/aggbug?PostID=4370&amp;AppID=4163&amp;AppType=Weblog&amp;ContentType=0" width="1" height="1"&gt;</description><category domain="https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/archive/tags/Modeling">Modeling</category><category domain="https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/archive/tags/accident">accident</category><category domain="https://communities.bentley.com/other/old_site_member_blogs/bentley_employees/b/jason_colemans_blog/archive/tags/adventure">adventure</category></item></channel></rss>