Although my Architectural training was Pre-CAD Days, by the time I went back to do a Masters in Computing and Design it was possible as a student to gain access to free Bentley Microstation Software at the university. It was also possible to Purchase a student Licence at a knock down price which gave you full access to the software features. I guess the Bentley establishment trusted that you wouldn’t go on to start your own practice and continue using the software for commercial purposes. By the time I moved to a Practice that used Bentley Microstation I was considered a Guru in the office, the Go to Person.
I find that these days however students are graduating from university fully trained up on Rhino and Grasshopper and have never even heard of Bentley / Microstation / AECOsim ????
In some cases where there are projects requiring the use of Bentley they must completely retrain to get up to speed.
It seems that Bentleys policy on catching the younger generation of professionals has slipped and (as is the case where I work) practices are gradually shifting onto various other bits of software by other vendors because they simply cannot meet the demand for fully trained staff to man the projects using Bentley products.
Students! Students!! Students!!! Everybody wants to be popular... with students.
For architectural students, my impression is that Mstn only gets used if there is a tutor that pushes it. It was also popular for students that wanted to work at one of the big 'High Tech' firms in London like Fosters, Rogers etc. But these days, these firms are moving away from Mstn and Aecosim never really got any traction. Rhino seems to be very popular at the moment despite its lack of BIM, constraints solving, solid modeling, real Ref files, drawing extractions etc.. probably because of its flexible 'old skool CAD' approach to modeling and large ecosystem of addons, the most impotant being Grasshopper.
For architectural firms, getting new hires with the skills to hit the ground running is a big commercial advantage; and has been a long standing problem for Bentley users. I would say that this easily adds a couple of years subscribtion costs to each new hire due to the down time and lost productivity, distraction of existing staff who will be inundated with questions. Never mind any additional training costs.
There are also the 'parallel' licensing costs as the new hires will often revert to what they know and try to convert to dgn, in order to meet their deadlines. This also often leads to a huge desire at all levels to get rid of Mstn/Aecosim and replace it with something more 'mainstream' and seen to be less clunky to use. Bentley products seem to be extremely vulnerable to this complaint, with its big need for text-based configuration/workflows; half-baked dangling tools that never seem to be finished/debugged; fragmented/duplicated tools, and general work-a-round as standard (no complete workflows- just a number of small-scale 'agile' projects strung together and stumbling between platform development schedules) etc.
This makes building a spark in the new-hire/student's eyes and igniting some self-directed learning extremely difficult. Never mind trying to entice the best and brightest or even the too-kool-for-skool poser crowd.
Train the Tutor: as mentioned above, STAAD owes its wide adoption due to its use in the universities. What would be the equivalent in the architectural education world? Need to delve into the architectural circulum a bit to answer this. What the heck do the schools actually teach has been controversial and differs quite a bit between countries. Apps are seen as digital media, that have recently overshadowed the traditional 'analogue' media that architects go to school to master.
Most undergradute foundation programes would look at:
1. Form: I suppose Rhino and FormZ would be the popular choices here. Sketchup less so. There would be more niche modeler like Zbrush for voxel based 'forms' etc; and more algorithmic tools like Grasshopper or Digital Project or R*vit later. Mathematica etc for the hard core geometry explorers. GraphiCalc in Mstn?
2. Colour: probably some apps out there for this. Not sure what would be 'rigorous' enough for use in academia.
3. Materials: now subsumed under rendering software? Bauhaus / Ulm HfG-influenced schools would encourage time in the wood / metal / ceramics / glass etc etc
4. Light: used to be approached using photography. Now sidelined by Photoshop? And lighting and daylighting software?
5. Information Visualisation: this would be an outgrowth of the importance given to the ability to generate 'concept sketches' and 'diagrammes'. Illustrator seems to be the most used tool here. Processing for scripting platform. I suppose something like Visio would be used for flowcharts.
6. Model making: machine-based apps for laser cutting, CNC, casting, 3d printing (TinkerCAD?) Progenio 3d with its nesting, woodworking CNC background combined with Mstn's GC and solids capability would be a good entry point for students looking to automate/speed up modelmaking.
7. Rendering / Visualisation: Vray/3dsMAX seems to be king. Probably to be overtaken by Vray/Rhino when it gets less buggy? Unity/Unreal seem to be growing in importance. Mstn could make a case by offering cloud based rendering and ContextCapture services. Vue and LumenRT would be interesting whenever they get bedded in. Looking at the rate that the bugs and gaps piling up, I expect students to turn their noses away for a while yet, especially when there are less buggy alternatives that are available for free.
For the middle years:
8. Cultural Studies:
9. History and Theory:
10. Environmental Studies: Ecotect/GBS, Sketchup+OpenStudio etc? Bentley could offer up AES, Hevacomp. 'Assured' interop with SimaPro, GaBi 4 for Lifecyle assessment? AGI32 or Dialux for lighting? As mentioned elsewhere, some simple 2d coldbridging analysis tools would be great, even if it didn't attract many students.
11. Building Assembly: Big topic! but Using Allen & Rand as a checklist:
Controlling / accommodating:
Constructibility:
Aesthetics: >??
12 Building Structures: I would like to say STAAD, but this would probably be too difficult out of the box. It would be good to be able to configure/enhance the CE physical modeler to do 'baby statics for architects'.
What would make Mstn compelling for archie tutors/students, given the wide and diverse to do list ?
1. Geometry generation: seems like Rhino/GH is the main competition. Mstn main advantage here is its newly inbuilt constraints tools. It would be good to cement this lead by allowing GC to work with constraints. Geometry generation is one of 'choke point' type tasks that Mstn should be well suited for.
2. Interoperability: in the medium term, it would be a given that Mstn/Bentley would not be able to incorporate all the niche and emerging tools. That said, it would go a lot way if Bentley could look at the translation process between the apps and step in to close any gaps. This would mean looking at things like expanding the batch processing tools to cover more formats, providing a FME / i.model Transformer-type visual UI tools, GeometryGym-type C# libraries for transfering to/from all those Adobe, 3d rendering/gaming formats as well as the specialists analytical tools mentioned above.
The first step may be as simple as providing a cloud-based subscription or referal service for a suite of helper/glue apps to students that would help them interop. Having the service cloud-based would give Bentley an inside view of the workflows and minimise de-bugging costs. The old way of building everything 'up to the last mile' and the user will do or suffer through the rest is not going to work if you are looking to expand market share here. Students are inherently lazy bunch and especially hate programming. Yea, Bah Humbug to you, too!
3. ??
For the upper years, in additional to the diploma / thesis submission:
13. Professional Practice: ??
14. Specifications: Specwave?
15. Estimating: Procureware? A bit of stretch. Maybe better if Bentley could broker a way students to get a license for Sigma Estimates.
Stuff that doesn't seem to be covered in academia:
16. Code Compliance: SpecWave?
17. Space planning: Bentley Facilities Planner
18. Scheduling: Synchro
Hi Eric,
Eric Milberger said:I wish it was offered free to Architectural and Engineering Schools because when it is not they go to Revit.
in my opinion it's not about the price only. And in many cases it's even not the most important factor.
More (at least equal) important is whether training materials, scripts and books are available in local language, based on local requirements and standards. Teachers have no time to create their own, so when there is a requirement to teach e.g. BIM software, they will choose that has the best "academic support", not the free one or the best one.
From my local (Czech) perspective Bentley does nothing. When I talked with Bentley representatives last year about support of schools, I received information "how many schools use Bentley software". But it's more about creating a marketing mist, because the only important things and what counts in competitive fight are results. And they are in fact zero. What I hear from my customers, is that nearly nobody from newly hired students knows Bentley, depending on school and profession: general MicroStation - I heard about it, but I have no practice; geo/cartography - zero knowledge; surveying - maybe some people; building - zero, nobody know ABD and Bentley BIM; civil - it's probably the best, but will change, because ORD still has not proper customization for Czech market. Similar information from friends and customers from other European countries.
My feeling is that especially in Europe Bentley lost ability to act locally completely. I can watch only how Bentley competitors for years efficiently use local resources (students, teachers, customers) to create trainings, learning materials, books and macros. Of course, they are local, they do not suit company and international standards, but students, teacher and users do not care about it. More important is they are based on local standards, they are in local language and they respect local conditions and requirements. Cost is minimal, people are motivated e.g. to be invited to some conference for free or some grant (which usually is not huge amount of money) is offered to create the materials.
With regards,
Jan
Bentley Accredited Developer: iTwin Platform - AssociateLabyrinth Technology | dev.notes() | cad.point
Is it . . .??? Not as at the last time I checked. As far as I know free access to the Learn server (as in not having to pay £400.00 for a 1 hour Lecture - Not absolutely sure what the correct pricings are. . .) is covered by the annual Bentley Select Subscription paid per single licence such as I have, or for several licences which a larger practice will have. This then enables each employee of the comapany access to the learn server without having to pay. The big joke however is that 97.5% of such employees are unaware that this facility exists. However correct me if I am wrong and something has changed. !!
dominic SEAH said:No, LEARN is free.