What is Dassault Systemes Live Buildings?

Today I got this email from a reader:

I have read with big interest your post about DS building live. I’m working in one of the leading building companies in Europe. We use for special buildings for modeling and estimating SolidWorks and like the work with it very much. The most AEC-CADs are based on old technology, are not real 3D and don’t support a real 3D-based building lifecycle management like CAD/CAE/PLM in the automotive or mechanical industry. Our goal is to get powerful 3D tools (not 2,5D!) on a high level to design high detailed in 3D (with building information) what we estimate, simulate and build in real, managed and organized on a PLM for construction industry. We are convinced that the technology of DS V6 could be a very big future in AEC and would help us to start the next step of the evolution in the construction industry.

The building live video looks really great and looks really easy to use. But can I do only simple geometry or can I do complex detailed geometry and generate drawings from it? What’s behind this technology? Is this a own product for AEC from DS or a partner product with Gehry Technologies Digital Project? Do you know if Siemens, PTC or others from the MCAD-market want to start in the AEC-market?

Best regards

Alexander

So what exactly is this Live Building from Dassault Systemes? I have no idea apart from this video which shows something like SketchUp working on 3D solids. There is a community called “Buildings in Life” at 3ds.com which I tried to join a few days ago. I was asked to fill out a short questionnaire regarding what I hoped to get from the community and how I hoped to contribute to it and then never heard back from them. Maybe Dassault Systemes doesn’t want nosy people like me close to their new technology.

If any of you have answers to the questions that Alexander posed, please do leave a comment.