Last week we visited the Revit Technology Conference North America in Scottsdale (near Phoenix) Arizona. Partnering with Read|Thomas and Bimstore we had the most interesting booth with most visitors at the whole RTC. Having a look at our booth, it is not hard to imagine why:
Booth Enscape RTC NA 2016
Inviting Speakers for a Drink
Speaker Reception RTC NA
Already the first evening even before the conference really started was a great surprise. We were invited to the speakers dinner, where networking revealed that we were not only known to many customers, but that we even had a speaker presenting Enscape without our
knowledge. All this took place at over 40° Celsius (or over 104° F). Due to the conditions (let’s blame it on that), the budget for drinks was already used up fairly early.
The RTC would not be the RTC if you could not find a solution for this problem. Jim Balding, a doer and organizer of the conference, stepped up to me and asked if we could help out and match him. Of course, Enscape wants to help the AEC community in every possible way, and so we stepped in here. The people greatly appreciated that.
Changing Perception of Enscape at the RTC NA 2016
VR on a Laptop
While at the first RTC Event for Enscape in Budapest not many people had heared of Enscape, that had already changed in north america. So many of our customers at the RTC and happy to talk to us. Among them were KPF, CannonDesign, Robert A.M. Stern and BSA LifeStructures to name a few. It was overwhelming to get all the positive feedback. That shows that Enscape by now is an established brand.
At the booth, Enscape had a surprise to offer for everyone. People who saw Enscape for the first time, were just amazed by the quality and the ease of use. The surprise for the existing customers was the new version with improved quality and XBox controller support.
Especially using the controller convinced everyone. Glenn K. from Stanford University gave it go after saying he had never played computers or used a controller before. After literally 10 seconds, he walked around the building as if he had done this for years. Now he is convinced his students will love it even more.
The next surprise was one for ourselves. It was astonishing to see how well Enscape runs with Oculus on a Laptop even with a fairly large project. (Thanks Sean for helping out)
A great Enscape story we heard at the booth came from a student, who amazed his teachers and fellow students with the speed in which he was able to create these beautiful renderings. He kept asking his dad whether he should tell everyone that there was Enscape for that. In the end he told everyone – however after the semester ended 🙂 Now he really dislikes that his next class will be in Rhino instead of Revit.
Presentations of Enscape Use Cases
Over all Enscape was mentioned in a least four presentations during the conference. In two, Enscape was the main topic they talked about. Thanks to Jacob D’Albora and Brian Mackey for sharing their experience and best practices.
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- Presentation Enscape RTC NA 2106
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- RPA presentation of Enscape
On the images, you can get an impression of the presentations.
So what were the takeaways from the presentations? There are too many, so I will concentrate the top five takeaways:
- Client approval – Being able to change designs on the fly allows you to leave a meeting with signoff from you customer.
- Space planning – This becomes much easier since you can directly see the visual reference directly in 3D.
- User group meetings – Design options from Revit allow you have a well-prepared client meeting.
- Single data base – Usually there are many different visualization solutions like 3DS Max, V-Ray, etc. throughout the company with different materials applied every time. With Enscape there is only one model with all the information.
- Quick Demo – You can run a demo of every project in seconds to a few minutes.
Enscape within the Revit Ecosystem
Autodesk Keynote
The RTC allows you to meet not only clients, but also partners. With the next version of Enscape, RPC objects will be implemeted natively. We met with Randall Stevens to discuss further colloaboration between the two companies.
Of course Autodesk is was there and in their keynote they said they wanted to be more open about what comes next – and so they were. One of the more exciting topincs from our perspective is immersion. After that, of course they had to talk to us 😉 I am glad to say that they were impressed with what they saw at our booth.
Now we all know Autodesk is working on a project for themselves. It was very sad to hear that their team that is working on it was shying away from a comparison, which was originally planned for one session. I might have become clear that there might be aspects different enough for both to coexist. We are open to further discussion and we will see how things develop.
Then we met our partners form Read|Thomas as mentioned earlier but also CTC and Axoscape who were also showing Enscape at their booth. This means that with only one year on the market, Enscape has been able to achive great visibility and standing in the market.
Last but not least – the Parties
The RTC is great to meet people from all over the place. How better to get to know everyone than at a party. This was the message from “the guy with the jacket” who had arganised a party that is hard to put into words. Great show, great band, great artists, great drinks, great food and really, really, really great people. However there was one tiny disappointment – I was not one of the ten persons to sing with him on stage and to get an iPad with lipstick. Maybe he knew that for the listeners not having me sing was the better option.
In Summary
…the RTC for Enscape was hugely successful, very informative, quite exhausting and also a little bit of fun 😀
What is left to say is that we are all a bit sad that this RTC is already over, but we are looking forward to the next one.
THANKS TO THE RTC-TEAM – who did a brilliant job.