Seamless Integration

Solution

In response, Staircraft decided to look for a partner and quickly started working with Graitec, an Autodesk Platinum Reseller, and developer of pioneering applications and software covering a multitude of disciplines and market sectors including manufacturing (MFG) architectural, engineering & construction (AEC), infrastructure (ENI) and media & entertainment (M&E) industries.

Dr Luke Whale, Technical Director, Staircraft said: “It was key to us that Graitec were both expert resellers of Autodesk solutions and also had their own internal software development team. Critically, they were able to demonstrate the capability to export data from both our stair design and floor design software and from those outputs, create native fully functional Revit models just like architects would have drawn for themselves. That clinched the deal for us and we took the decision to appoint Graitec. They have proven to be a great company to work with throughout the project and have been very flexible and accommodating in making changes when required as the work has evolved.”

Thanks in part to the software development work that Graitec has carried out, architects, housebuilders and designers can now access fully 3D-rendered output of their stair designs and floor designs which they can drag and drop into their building drawings to visualise how they look and check if they fit and integrate with the rest of the model. Graitec has subsequently also developed a Revit plug-in which Staircraft provides to its customers, enabling them to pull stair and floor models directly into their Revit models.

Staircraft works closely in partnership with its customers to address and tackle any issues they may have. It runs forums every six months, which are typically attended by the top 20 housebuilding companies that are using Revit. At these events, Staircraft addresses the functionality these organisations already have and reviews if anything else is needed. Staircraft also participates in a newly established building information modelling (BIM) working group, involving major housebuilders that are using Revit, which has been set up to play its part in helping the design process go smoothly. That group is growing fast because every year, Staircraft sees two or three more house building companies switching over to Autodesk Revit from Autodesk® AutoCAD®.

While most of the work for the current Revit project has been completed, tweaks and amendments to the approach continue to be made all the time whenever the working group of building companies feeds information to Staircraft on what features it would like to add.