When entrepreneurial engineer Don Jacob helped launch construction software leader Bluebeam in 2002, its mission was to develop pioneering technologies helping projects run smoother with better access to data.
Twenty-two years on, Jacob, now the company’s Chief Innovation Officer, is part of a team that has more than three million users across the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industries in 160 countries and has accelerated digitalisation and automation.
Bluebeam is now set to introduce new artificial intelligence (AI) features to its flagship product, Revu, and to Bluebeam Cloud. The company is also establishing Bluebeam Labs, an online and interactive innovation space where customers can help co-create and shape future solutions.
“From the get-go, Bluebeam has been about harnessing the very latest technology to get everyone on the same virtual ‘page’ so that projects can be executed more effectively” Jacob told create from his Pasadena office. “But what’s most important to us is introducing new approaches in a mindful way that isn’t overwhelming, but instead useful, to our customers.
“We could bombard them with all the whiz-bang stuff that’s happening nearly every day until their heads are spinning, but our philosophy is very different.”
Cutting through the noise
For Jacob, a pragmatic approach accelerates AI in an intuitive way, resulting in digital tools that bring simplicity and clarity while keeping a results-driven focus.
“We’ve facilitated the move from paper to paperless while retaining familiarity and cutting through the noise so our customers can make sense of it,” he said. “We may be at the forefront of some innovative new technologies for the industry, but we don’t allow ourselves to become overly enamoured by them. We never lose sight of the fact that the project should be king, not the tools.”
Building on prior innovations, including visual search, text recognition and batch processing to boost productivity and efficiency through advances in automation, new AI and other related technologies have been introduced to the latest Bluebeam products.
One example is Auto Align, a new feature coming to Revu that harnesses AI to eliminate tedious user interactions and reduce errors that occur when manually aligning each revision of a drawing. It means that engineers can spot differences up to 80 percent faster.
“There are hundreds, if not thousands, of drawings on projects so when changes are made, it can be difficult to find them,” Jacob said. “Using computer vision techniques, the Auto Align capability in Revu’s Overlay and Drawing Compare functions intelligently inspects drawings and lines them up so they’re identified more quickly.
“Doing it manually used to take up to two minutes per drawing, but now it’s roughly 15 seconds. When we discovered our customers did this process more than five million times last year, we recognized that this functionality alone will provide a significant time saving.”
Ensuring accuracy
Meanwhile, automatic title block recognition will extract key drawing information from title blocks when importing drawings to Bluebeam Cloud, turning the information into digital metadata that can be used throughout the project.
Caption: Title block detection improves accuracy by turning information into digital metadata
“It’s easy to make mistakes when entering title block information manually. It’s another tedious process where AI does it better and faster,” Jacob said. “Now, accuracy will be improved and precious time saved.”
The company is also introducing Bluebeam Labs to engage customers earlier in the development of AI and other innovation concepts. New ideas will be demonstrated in the collaborative workspace in Bluebeam Cloud allowing users to give feedback that will enhance its potential.
“This is one of the most exciting things we’re doing and goes to the heart of our spirit of innovation and staying close to our customers,” Jacob said. “With millions of users and so many emerging technologies it can be bewildering, but now, we’ll start to build more interactive capabilities where our subscribers can access new features and tell us what they think.”
A 3D gamechanger
The lab’s first AI-based feature to be released will be 3D Drawings, a revolutionary new way to render 2D drawings of a project into 3D, enabling better visualisation and understanding.
“Seeing the relationship of the different types of drawings on a project – floor plans, sections, elevations – in ‘project space’ helps shorten the time it takes to understand the intent of a project,” he said.
“Additionally 3D Drawings have the potential to highlight information that may be overlooked in a flat pile of drawings.”
One customer especially loved it for a very particular reason.
“When we showed it to him, he told us it reminded him of back when he used to bend a piece of paper to imagine how elements of a project fit together. So what we’re doing is taking the next leap in digital paper functionality.”
It’s through such feedback that Jacob knows the new products will connect with engineers and make their work easier and more enjoyable.
“Our users often say that they don’t feel they have to use Bluebeam; they really want to. The enthusiasm we hear from them is infectious and inspires us to keep innovating.”
