Autodesk & Esri
Global leaders partnering to drive a more sustainable, resilient, future
Esri & Autodesk
Location and design working to address global challenges
Growing populations, mass urbanisation and climate change are creating enormous challenges for the world's infrastructure—but also enormous opportunity. It is estimated that by 2050, 68% of the world's population will be living in cities. And we will need an estimated 1,000 new structures a year just to keep up.
What's new
It’s all about context
Think about roads, bridges, waste management plants, gas lines and so on, not just in context of one another and the topology of their natural environment, but in the context of larger environmental factors—air quality, wind resource potential, solar potential, storm impact, flood behaviour, fire behaviour, aircraft noise, soil quality and so on.
Data at the centre
Esri and Autodesk are working to bring together GIS and BIM (building information modelling) across multi-disciplinary teams and project life cycles. The vision is that of an integrated and collaborative workflow that advances understanding of projects in context and reduces inefficiencies, data loss and cycle times.
InfraWorks connects to Esri’s ArcGIS Online
Designers and engineers can now bring GIS content from ArcGIS Online into InfraWorks through the Autodesk Connector for ArcGIS. Content such as roads, pipelines, and electrical transformers can now be directly imported based on an authoritative, current geographic system of record.
Common questions
What is the Esri + Autodesk alliance about?
Announced on November 15, 2017, the alliance between Esri and Autodesk helps to connect “Make Anything” with “The Science of Where” through more tightly integrated BIM and GIS workflows, enhancing how infrastructure assets are planned, designed, built and operated. Together with Esri, this alliance enables Autodesk to better deliver on the promise of helping customers imagine, design and create a better world.
Autodesk and Esri are committed to the development of more seamless exchange of spatial and attribute data typically captured in Esri’s GIS systems and the information from 3D BIM models in Autodesk’s design software.
Who will benefit from this alliance?
The alliance of Esri and Autodesk is aimed at improving efficiency and collaboration for owner/operators, such as city and regional government planners and executives and AEC firms who plan, design and carry out capital projects for the owner/operators.
What is BIM?
BIM (Building Information Modeling) is an intelligent 3D model-based process that gives architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) professionals the insight and tools to more efficiently plan, design, construct and manage buildings and infrastructure.
Technology is transforming the way that buildings and infrastructure are designed, constructed and operated. And it’s helping to improve decision making and performance across the building and infrastructure lifecycle.
What is GIS?
A geographic information system (GIS) is a system designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyse, manage and present all types of geographical data. This data is typically associated with spatial characteristics; i.e., having some reference to specific location information.
In GIS, geospatial location data is usually coupled with attribute data – this provides users with information about “where” as well as “what” for a given geographical area. The combination of these data types makes GIS a highly effective planning and problem-solving tool, allowing users to use location as a key index in interactive queries to better understand relationships, patterns and trends between places and things.
Why connect GIS and BIM?
With the integration of GIS and BIM at the centre of infrastructure projects – houses, schools, roads, inter-modal transit facilities, drainage and energy networks, etc. – are no longer planned, designed and built in isolation of everything around it. Infrastructure assets can be better viewed in relation to how that asset fits and interacts with the surrounding ecosystem. More tightly connected GIS and BIM workflows aid stakeholders involved in planning and design to better understand how the natural and existing built environment connects with the new assets to be built.
The promise of more tightly integrating GIS and BIM is to empower AEC firms and project owners to focus not only on what to design and build, but also better understand where and why, helping them to deliver more sustainable and resilient infrastructure through more economical, social and environmentally responsible practices.
Testimonial
Innovative and strategic
I’m thrilled to learn of the Autodesk and Esri strategic partnership. I’m optimistic this will produce dynamic software synergies. The combined technology sets has potential to benefit our clients.
John Kizior
Global Director, Project Technologies, AECOM
