AECtech+ LA | Hackathon, Symposium, Workshops

AECtech+ LA | Hackathon, Symposium, Workshops

September 20-22, 2024
Los Angeles, CA
Register here!

Put your skills to the test and embark on an exhilarating 24-hour hackathon!

Join Thornton Tomasetti | CORE studio and USC on September 20-22 as they host the second AECtech+ Los Angeles. This in-person event will be held at USC in downtown Los Angeles and is open to students, professionals, hackers, and everyone interested in technology in the AEC space.

Kick off the weekend early on Friday with a round of Workshops taking a deep dive into new software/workflows within the AEC space. These 3-hour workshops will give you the foundations to implement these technologies back at the office or in the hackathon. Workshops include a comprehensive walkthrough of Web API calls from Grasshopper with Swiftlet by its author Sergey Pigach and an introductory crash course in AI, specifically LLM and NLP for the AEC Industry with Omid Sajedi from CORE AI.

Get inspired by a fantastic panel of presenters at the LA Symposium speaking on a diverse range of innovations within AEC, from Platforms to Processes to Projects.

• CORE studio | Thornton Tomasetti: Sophie Moore & Eesha Jain

• The University of Southern California: Dr. David Gerber 

• SUMPOINT.io & Hathaway Dinwiddie: James Coleman, Brian Murray

• HYPAR: Ian Keough

• HKS: Cory Brugger

• Morphosis: Kerenza Harris

• Martin Bros. Construction: Andrew Kragness

On Saturday, immerse yourself in a hands-on learning experience at the 24-Hour Hackathon. Join forces with fellow participants to tackle real-world industry challenges using cutting-edge technologies and computational approaches. This concentrated event will provide an opportunity for hands-on collaboration, problem-solving, and prototyping, as you work against the clock to develop innovative solutions. Participants of all experience levels will have the opportunity to collaborate, learn from each other, build new relationships, and generate innovations for the AEC community.

Are you new to Hackathons? AECtech provides a unique opportunity to learn from a diverse peer group with varied domain expertise, all working together towards a common goal. Need some inspiration? Check out what has been created in over ten years of AECtech hackathons. 

Visit the event site to learn more and register here to secure your spot. Space is very limited!

Rhino User Webinar: Advancing Computational Design Workflows at MORPH

 

Rhino User Webinar

Advancing Computational Design Workflows at MORPH
25 September 2024 at 4:00 pm (CEST)

MORPH creates and materializes innovative solutions across design, architecture, and engineering, handling everything from small-scale interior spaces and detailed designs to large-scale projects like stadiums, Master Plans, feasibility studies, and construction.

The webinar 'Advancing Computational Design Workflows at MORPH' explores the increasing complexity of computational design workflows, spanning from small-scale concepts to extensive, interdisciplinary projects. As this complexity grows, maintaining flexibility becomes a significant challenge.

The presentation highlights recent advancements at MORPH, including the optimization of their Rhino plugin development process with the new Rhino 8 ScriptEditor. It also showcases improvements in interoperability, particularly with Speckle, demonstrating MORPH’s commitment to enhancing design integration and efficiency.

About the speakers: 

• Jon Tolosa, Leon Brohmann and Sergio Rodriguez are part of the Computational Design Team at MORPH's R&D department in the heart of Madrid. With a background in Architecture and research they are passionate about pushing boundaries and tackling challenges with enthusiasm.
  
  

Complete details and registration...

Free 3D Puzzle and Robot Toy Files (.3dm, .STL)

Articulated robot toys for 3D printing

Dinosaur puzzles for 3D printing

PlusPlastic has created some amazing 3D models you can print at home with your own 3D printer! They designed fun 3D dinosaur puzzles and articulated robot toys that you can download for free in .3dm and .STL formats from food4rhino. 

On their blog, they shared photos and videos that give you a behind-the-scenes look at the modeling and fabrication process.

• Making of 3D dinosaur puzzles (in Korean)...
• Making of 3D articulated robot toys (in Korean)...

Download free 3D dinosaur puzzle files (.3dm, .STL) from food4Rhino...

Download free 3D robot toy files (.3dm, .STL) from food4Rhino...

 

Large-Scale Solar Analysis: Useful methods for Rhino and Ladybug Tools

Large-Scale Solar Analysis

Solar studies at the city scale can be conducted easily with GIS and 2.5D data. But we love 3D. 

What about 3D CAD software like Rhinoceros and Ladybug Tools?

Many research papers categorize Ladybug Tools as a software appropriate at the building scale or neighborhood, but we explored how it works at the city scale.

The study conducted at GATE Institute, Sofia, considers the calculation of solar radiation in 3D at the city scale. The context includes the mountains around the city and 3D data for 150 000 buildings.

First of all, we relocate geometry closer to the origin and simplify geometry to edge minimum size equal or greater than 1 meter to reduce the range of numbers. To generate clean solids, building footprints in .shp format are extruded using Heron for Grasshopper.

The key parameter in the simulation is a face count of meshes dedicated for analysis, which is approximately 2,000,000 faces on a regular machine with 32 GB RAM. Increasing the RAM leads to the ability to analyze more faces. This principle can work for a single district where all building surfaces are evaluated with a 3-meter grid size or, for example, for a city where all the residential rooftops are analyzed. Therefore, two cases were considered at the city and district scales, respectively. 

As for the shading context, the Incident Radiation component allows adding a really large shading mesh. This can be very useful when there is a need to consider a hilly region that impacts shading patterns in the city. 

The final step visualizes enriched building data in a 3D Web environment using baked textures.

 

More detailed information...