Project Gallery
What is the PCSC?
Why Tekla Structures?
What is the timeline?
Who is Tekla?
Georgia Tech
Associate Developers
News Archives
Contact
Project Gallery
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What
is the PCSC?
The
PCSC is a limited liability non-profit company registered
in Colorado.
Member companies each have equal shares and voting rights.
Some precast engineering consultants and software providers
are Associate Members. more...
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What
is the timeline?
April to August 2003 - Tekla provides Tekla Structures
licenses to all PCSC member companies - Tekla and the PCSC conclude
the Final Software Specification; Tekla provides the first upgrade
with generic modeling enhancements.
August 31, 2003 – Last date for p recast
companies to join the PCSC and benefit from the significant commercial
advantages negotiated by the PCSC.
October 16, 2003 – Last date for PCSC members
to pre-purchase specially priced seats at the group volume discount
price.
October 2003 to September 2004 – Tekla releases
four quarterly major upgrades of the software as development progresses.
June - July 2005 - Ghang Lee (GT) and the User
Group Task Force Team distributes a User Group Survey to all PCSC
members asking for their opinions on the make up of a Tekla User
Group. The results are tabulated and distributed shortly thereafter. A
conference call is held, a steering committee is formed and nominations
are taken for Chairman. Nominees include: Mike Hutchinson(IPC),
Dave Mahaffy(Strescon) and Skip Wolodkewitsch(Shockey). Dave Mahaffy
is elected to the position and the Tekla Precast User Group (TPUG)
is born.
August 2005 - A series of Conference Calls are
held to address a number of issues raised in the User Group Survey
- including the acceptance of LEAP to charter the TPUG steering
committee; the shape and content of the new TPUG website; the creation
of an area for User Group Discussion Forums on that website and
planning the Annual TPUG Meeting, etc. Remaining issues will be
discussed at the upcoming annual meeting.
December 2005 - The 1st Annual TPUG Meeting is
scheduled to take place in Clearwater Beach, FL and will be hosted
by LEAP Software.
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Tekla
Inc. is best known in the USA and Canada as the provider of
the Xsteel
structural steel building modeling software package. It is a fully
3D parametric building modeling package tailored for the structural
steel industry. Tekla is a public company (traded on the Helsinki
stock exchange) that employs over 450 people worldwide. Its primary
office in North America is located in Atlanta, GA.
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Georgia
Tech, specifically the College
of Architecture, is well known in the field of CAD development
and has significant
experience with 3D modeling. Prof
Eastman, in particular,
has been directly involved with a previous and parallel
effort in the steel industry including data modeling
and IFC standards development. Their expertise has been
invaluable, especially when carefully evaluating the critical
area
of system capacity and performance.
The
Georgia Tech team is led by Chuck Eastman. Chuck was one
of the developers of solid modeling in the 1970s and an
early developer of building models (3d modeling, database
backend and parametric modeling) in the 1980s. He has over
fifty papers in CAD and engineering databases and has been
honored in numerous publications; most recently in the article
by Jerry Laiserin, "CAD pioneer reflects on
the past and the future", Architectural Record, 01-2001.
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Associate
Developers
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Contact
Hans Klohn
(506) 632-2600
Chuck Eastman (404)
894-3477
more ...
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The August 2004 PCSC Meeting
Atlanta, Georgia August 9-12
There were three PCSC meetings from August 9th to 12th: the update training held in Kennesaw, GA, and in Atlanta, a PCSC executive meeting and a PCSC technical committee meeting.
On July 28th, 2004, Tekla Structures (TS) 10.2b was released to the PCSC. The goal of the update training was to provide the technical committee software reviewers with intensive training in operation of the newly delivered features in TS 10.2b. This enabled PCSC members and Tekla to identify which functions had been and had not been implemented. One member from each organization participated in the update training.
The PCSC Executive committee, Technical committee members, and Tekla met together in the morning of August 11th. The technical committee reported its progress and activities since the last executive meeting. The Technical members and Tekla proposed to extend the development period by three months, to now be released about January 15, 2005. The reasoning for extending the development period by the PCSC technical members and Tekla was reviewed. In the afternoon, the PCSC executive members held a meeting on business issues. Several ghost projects were demonstrated by Shockey, High, and IPC during the meeting. These three projects demonstrated that productivity can possibly increase more than twice by adopting advanced 3D CAD technology and information technology.
On August 12th, the PCSC technical committee and Tekla met at the Georgia Tech Student Center and reviewed the development progress at a very detailed level. The goal was to identify and improve "show stoppers" that might prevent the PCSC member companies from using Tekla Structures in real production.
In the next six months, Tekla Structures 10.2b will be reviewed thoroughly using a web-conferencing tool and a video capturing tool. In parallel, the PCSC member companies will keep increasing the use of Tekla Structures in pilot projects and begin use in real production.
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News Archives
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 10/6/2005: The 4 years and 5 months of PCSC's journey has ended 
2/7/2005: The final countdown
8/17/2004: The August 2004 PCSC Meeting
5/3/2004: The April 2004 PCSC Meeting
2/10/2004: Tekla Structures, the New Name for Xengineer
1/26/2004: 2004 January PCSC Meeting
10/24/2003: f=ma: New members and accelerated Xengineer development add momentum to the PCSC effort
8/18/2003: Finalization of Requirements Specifications and Review of Tekla Precast Product Specifications
6/27/2003: PCSC and Tekla Sign Development Contract
6/20/2003: The Upcoming June 2003 PCSC Meeting
6/16/2003: 3rd Basic Training of Xengineer
4/30/2003: PCSC Presentation and Demo During PCI Committee Days
4/16/2003: Join us for committee days!
3/28/2003: Green Light for Go at Full Speed
1/18/2003: The PCSC web has a new face and enhanced functions.
10/10/2002: The PCSC Progress Report at the 2002 PCI Convention
9/18/2002: The PCSC Executive Meeting
6/16/2002: The 2nd Evaluation on Tekla
6/28/2002: The Solidworks-LEAP's Hands-on Training
6/16/2002: The Tekla's Hands-on Training
5/6/2002: The 7th Precast Concrete Software Consortium Meeting
3/6/2002: The 6th Precast Concrete Software Consortium Meeting
1/16/2002: The 5th Precast Concrete Software Consortium Meeting
12/5/2001: The 4th Precast Concrete Software Consortium Meeting
11/8/2001: The 3rd Precast Concrete Software Consortium Meeting
8/22/2001: The 2nd Precast Concrete Software Consortium Meeting
6/13/2001: The 1st Precast Concrete Software Consortium Meeting
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Why
Tekla Structures?
Tekla's Tekla Structures is unique in its ability
to model a precast concrete building as a whole, and not simply as a
collection of different - and potentially non-matching - individual parts.
Tekla Structures allows integrated modeling of hundreds of thousands of parts:
pieces, rebar, embeds, bolts, all defined parametrically, allowing design
changes to be propagated to pieces, reinforcing and connections.
The first full commercial version of the software will be available in
October 2004. Four quarterly releases will be delivered during the
development period. The first commercial release will include the following
functions.
Support for the top-down modeling and automation of piece, connection,
joint, and rebar generation: A building is usually designed from the
whole down to its components, not from the components up to the whole. The
overall building assembly is designed first, with detailing of the assembly
to deal with connection locations, coordinated surface treatments and finish
layouts, assembly level definition of reveals, bull noses, and other
architectural shapes.
Libraries for Parametric Piece, Connection, Joint and Others: By
allowing users to define and save pieces, connections, and joints
parametrically, a new piece, connection, or joint can be designed and
engineered simply by changing the dimensions of parametrically defined
pieces and connections. Special shapes, such as architectural elements, can
be defined from scratch.
Efficient drawing and report generation: Drawings and reports
(including BOM) can be automatically created from a 3D model. Users can
customize their own drawing and report styles and keep them or exchange them
between collaborators.
Automated piece-mark and embed numbering tools: Each company has
different piece and embed number schemes. Also, any one piece can have more
than one identifier (e.g., piece mark, erection sequence number) depending
on project phases. The PCSC and Tekla have defined a solution to support
each company’s existing numbering scheme.
Dual representation of warping, cambering, and elastic shortening of
pieces: A piece is represented as a warped shape in a 3D model and
erection drawings, but is usually manufactured as a flat piece. Tekla Structures
will support dual representation of warping, cambering and elastic
shortening of pieces.
The PCSC and Tekla are currently finalizing detailed requirement
specifications for the first Release of the product. They have also begun
pilot tests of Tekla Structures to better understand the needs in a real context.
The current version has already been delivered to the PCSC member companies.
The first beta version will be released internally in October, 2003.
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