It's been a funny old month

Work just seemed to take over in the last few weeks, it looked a little scares for a while, then suddenly I have a lot of paperwork and reading to do, a couple of small jobs came in and I decide that my love afar with Google gmail was coming to an end.

It started as all relationships, full on and lots to talk, but in recent months things have not being going well, I wanted more, so I looked back and decided to take another look at Apples Mail program. I wrote this up in an earlier blog, I had made some mistakes and now needed to sort these out once and for all,,,, it took a while, but I am glad to say I have got it sorted, and a big thank you to Apples Tech support, just excellent, and something Google just does not have.

Back to construction, and a few ideas for papers have piled up in my note book, so I need to look these over some will be downgraded to a blog, some I will keep and expand.

I took a look at Google Earth this week, mostly because I am updating my presentation notes on Architecture, and one of the points I an trying to make is the way shadow's across a building changes, so I have pulled in a screen show to show the way the leading edge of the sun rising at dawn is slightly angles, this angle changes over the months, but its slope shows clearly why France is an hour ahead of us for most of the year,the google map add ons and tools allow you to see this hence todays photo.

So back to the moleskin and a few more notes and sketch's

Sending a round Robin Email without showing the Email List

Want to send a round Robin Email without showing the Email List, and there are good reasons for doing this, mostly privacy, but client security from competitors and the like spring to mind.

Well its not that hard, all you have to do is send the email in question to your self or perhaps a gmail account thats been set up specifically, and then go to the BBC section. This means Blind Carbon Copy, and its where you might add your list. I use the Mac Mail address book, and in there I have set up several groups, so enter the group name into the BCC and hit send.

Dead easy and your list is safe, trying to send" to all", will not include the BCC so again a safe way to send a round robin or Email Circular.

Todays photo is of a Swivl I have for sale on Ebay, 

As Email goes, I have tried several different systems, at the University its the Microsoft system, and at home I started on Mac mail then gave Gmail a long trial, almost permanent, but just the last few days I went back to Apple Mail.

The reason is I use Mac products, and trying to balance life between the two quite different systems is some time not easy, I also did not set up my mail very well on gmail, I have several different mail addresses, and just forwarded a copy to gmail, this resulted in about 60,000 emails just sitting in different email accounts doing absolutely nothing.

They were all in imap format, but they just sat there costing me money, so I decided to invest two days to sort it out once and for all, so back to Apple Mail and I set up new accounts and used a vey simple script to set these up from my service provider, so simple I can only wonder why I did not do it earlier.

But then came to problem of syncing all that mail, it took the best part of a day to delete or save all that mail, I must admit as a lot if not most of it was backed up in gmail, I deleted most of it.

But now I have my Macbook Pro, my iPhone and iPad all syncing via map, and its very slick, mac mail is an excellent tool, but I do miss some of the features of gmail, and before you ask, it was just simpler to do in Mac Mail rather than a more complicated route in google.

I set up a few rules for mail I don't want to read, and thats just to difficult to stop, and several rules for mail I want a hard backup, and have routed these to Evernote.

So Mac is back and I must admit to being happy, no more large email deposits, no having to sync address books, and I am learning to use iCloud, although I don't think google drive will go away just yet, its to good.

So what has this to do with CPD, very little I must admit, although if your starting out and building a practice, think very carefully on what system you choose, Mac or Windows, and think very hard on your email system, Google is excellent, but don't expect an easy ride. I had some difficulty in setting up my Mac and one call to the Apple help line and it was sorted, try doing that with Google, almost none existent.

As for the Apple shops, the genius bar, and the shop staff are excellent, I have access to two shops, one in Solihull and one in Birmingham, make the appointment online and in you go, they can usually sort any problem. Again try this with Google,

Todays photo is a screen grab I took of a tv show that looked at solar power in Singapore.

Konstrukshon CPD Archive up and running

I am happy to tell you, the old site archive of all several 1000 blogs I have made over the last 5 or so years is back on a wordpress.com domain :

https://konstrukshonarchive.wordpress.com

So head over and use the search button to read all those old blogs

I will add a link to all my sites and also to the current domain at Blogger.

For some reason Google Blogger will not allow the files size wordpress exports to be imported into blogger asking you to reduce it, !!

But the free wordpress.com site will allow it and when I tried it, I had no problems, even sent me an email to tell me all is well and site working .

8 Types of Big Data for a construction Project

A single large construction  project is going to collect a lot of data throughout the design and construction phase of its life culminating with all the data it will collect during its operational life of say 60 years. but the types of data can easily be split split into 6 different types of data.

When we look at all the data we generate for a building you might just look at it all and think we are entering the world of Big Data, but here we have to be a little careful on the word "big" as we compare different uses of the word Big, when we look at the 2560 terabytes of data that retailer Walmart collects every hour by capturing customer transactions, and the vast size of all the videos on /youtube although spread over many servers its estimated to be in the several Exabytes,

by comparison Birmingham city Council in 2007 had 7 terabyte of storage just for there immediate data only storage needs for  roughly 35,000 staff, this probable That this doubled every year meaning after 19 years of planning going digital and so many services adding new data types they must be in the 1000 terabytes or more, of data storage.

So is our small building to be considered big data, not on its own no,considering the list below I can see all a medium buildings data being kept within say 2 terabytes, but when we start to build our building file structure and link it into a big city data scenario them perhaps yes it is big data, not because of its data storage but use of data, from external sources, like weather centres and traffic data whose storage could easily be considered big data.

Add to that the handling problem from the shear size to the vast array of file types the different types of data and the sorts of error we are bound to see that are so common in big data sets.

So what are we looking at, my best guess is a building well need 7 different file types :

Design & Cad Data

There will be a large collection of CAD files related to any building from simple details to the larger floor files to 3D files for almost all the major cad packages, to ifc files from nay different members of the team as they update their drawings. Plus of course survey files from simple data loggers to point cloud laser scans. Its here all the emails and letters scanned in will be stored for reference.

Quick data

This will be for those files associated with immediate access, marketing web site. a more open access, ideal for web site and public data.

Related Data

Purchased data will form part of the life cycle of may building, looking at weather patterns, sensor data on incoming weather, met office data and the like, stored for easy access by the buildings autonomous software.

Dark Data

Video , pictures and audio files are now forming a great archive record and from the initial survey through to the eventual demolition a building might have several hours of footage taken.

Contractor Data

Manufacturer data of all equipment purchased, by the contractor I differentiate this from the CAD files as it will be generated by the contractors purchases of all materials and equipment, and will be detailed enough to see say an individual toilet purchased and where it was installed in the building.

Sensor Data

Over the life of a building it will record the sensor data from many thousands of small sensors embedded within the fabric of the building, some pinging data hourly some hardly at all, but some on a more frequent basis of perhaps minute by minute.

Operational data

For a building to organise its self it needs to know whats going on in its rooms, so activity booking diaries will be the norm, its not huge, but needs to be accounted for in my data types, Also stored here are the buildings operational or autonomous programs and the add on suites to support it , with records of heating temperatures and fuel use and the like.

Standardised process for the sharing of product data

I see this a lot in the construction industry, a committee wants standardisation. The BIM Task Group in association with the Construction Products Association, BIM4M2 and CIBSE are looking to develop a standardised process for the sharing of product data, You have to ask why, does it not go against the very nature of the development of big data, what Hadoop, Hana and all the other new ways to view and analyse large datasets, which I might add do not need standardisation, rather the opposite.

Large projects need to establish data use before it gets to site, develop rules to show how relations are make and kept, data shared, looking to associations for advice not rules, but thats for an individual project, and it may change as new projects are started, adding the benefits of hind sight and advances seen in the industry, but thats for a good project team to sort out, not a committee.

I sit back an wonder who is pushing for this and why, I feel like writing a paper on this and submitting it, just to outline the danger of rigid control, which seems to be at the for front of the way BIM is being developed, at least in the UK. The USA seem to be a little more open and allow the system to develop on its own.

I had a similar conversation yesterday when I had a tech chat with the some colleagues re the use of Point Cloud and laser scanning, 3D CAD files, IFC, and how we can pull them together, and we have not even scratched to ground re data. As for planning don't even go there.

Are we not inventing a new way of designing and transmitting that design to the construction team, and developing the use of the data we generate, so why control that development with rules right at the start of its development. 3D its use of BIM, and the way we are using it must be aloud to develop on it's own, we the market place will trial and develop, look for new ways, pull in new methods, and most of all talk and develop. Adding rules now, just throttles any thought process.

I am open to the rules if they come in the form of an academic paper for all to see, read, and act upon, but free thinking and market development is the way forward.

You might notice I have not mentioned the law in this piece yet, the courts scare me, and I fear once they get involved because of a spat between contractor and who ever, they will impose rules without any thought to any one but the winning party, but I can live in hope here.

You can add the teaching of this subject, to the list of why I want a free and open development, I am supposed to develop young minds, teach them to think, look at whats happening, and add to the development, not sit there and say, ok we need to control with a few rules, might get out of hand here !.
I want to teach students to look at a 3D cad file and ask, what BIM information can I add that will increase the data pool, that some one will find useful, adding open industry rules that prevent this is wrong. But adding rules to a contract controlling a job is correct.

Food for thought I hope.

Todays photo has no relation to the subject, just a dining table laid for 6 for a dinner party. Notice the gap down the middle, ready for the Terrines. Wine to the far right so I can keep our guests topped up.

Time Lapse Video - So much to see

I am a massive fan of Time Lapse video, I think its an excellent way to teach construction, the number of site videos out there is well worth trawling. But this video is all about weather, and shadow, its effect on a building and how the building deals with it, although the last part is so up the the lecturer to explain, I take my students on a walk though the old Birmingham to show this.
But for the mean time, take a look at how the weather creeps in, and brightens up, plus the shadows.