Hypar Blog

Automating Structural Engineering and Design with Hypar and SkyCiv

4 MIN READ
Article by Ian Keough

When we came up with the original concept for Hypar, one of the key features that we knew it had to have was easy integration with other design and engineering services. As more capabilities in AEC move to the cloud, our functions will make it easy for design and engineering service providers to build connections to Hypar.

Every team designing a building has been through this painful experience. You’ve designed the building, the structural engineers have run their analysis, and everything looks good. Then, there’s a big change. Let’s say, for instance, the owner sends an excited email that she just received a zoning variance that will allow her to add two additional levels to the building. The structural model will need to change, with deeper beams affecting ceiling heights, and larger columns affecting floor plans. Updating the design to accommodate these changes using a typical design and analysis workflow takes weeks.

That is, it used to take weeks. We’ve recently partnered with SkyCiv, the world’s first cloud-based structural analysis solution and together we’re now reducing the entire design and analysis cycle to a few clicks. You can update your design and conduct structural analysis in a matter of minutes.

The integration is still young, but it can already perform some pretty amazing feats. For example, using a structure that you’ve created in Hypar, SkyCiv’s function can generate an analysis model and send it to SkyCiv Structural 3D for analysis. In Hypar, you can visualize loads on the structure and the resulting structural forces in the members, and you can see key metrics on structural performance like the total weight of steel. The process takes no more than a few minutes.

Immediate Cost Estimates, Available Anywhere

Slashing the amount of time it takes to run structural analyses and incorporate major changes into a design is only one of the big advantages of this integration. It also vastly increases the accessibility of structural analysis. Right now, if you want to do structural analysis, you need a Windows desktop computer. None of that is necessary with Hypar and SkyCiv. Because Hypar and SkyCiv are web applications, all you need is a browser.

Together, we’ve created the first design and analysis workflow available to everyone, everywhere. Because Hypar functions work together seamlessly, you can extend your SkyCiv structural workflow using a large number of other functions already available on Hypar, without writing any code. And when it’s time to integrate with your existing Revit workflow, Hypar’s Revit plugin painlessly syncs your Hypar model to Revit.

If shortening design cycles was all this integration could do, it would be worth it, but Hypar also makes it easy to visualize information for making better decisions. Traditionally, cost information is only generated far downstream in the design to construction process. What if you could calculate the cost of a structure while generating the solution? With Hypar and SkyCiv together, we can provide an immediate estimate that enables you to accomplish value engineering much more effectively and efficiently.

We’ve got big plans for the future of this partnership. For instance, we want to incorporate dynamic analysis, quantify the carbon impact of designs and derive wind loads using Hypar’s building location capabilities. But, as I mentioned above, the first version of this integration is now available, and it’s already powerful and increasing its capabilities all the time.

If you’d like to read more, you can find more information in this post from Stuart Gale, API Manager for UK and Europe for SkyCiv. And if you’d like to try it out, get in touch! We’d be happy to set you up.

 

Article by Ian Keough

About Ian Keough

Ian's early work at Buro Happold identified a need for mobile applications to leverage BIM data. His software goBIM, for the first generation iPhone and iPad, was acquired by Vela systems for use in their Vela Field product, which would later be acquired by Autodesk and become BIM 360 Field. While in Autodesk, his open source visual programming language Dynamo would grow to attract a worldwide community of AEC software developers. In 2017 Ian left his position as the software architect for the AEC Generative Design group in Autodesk to start Hypar with the mission to unlock the world's AEC expertise to generate better buildings. Ian has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Michigan and a Master of Architecture degree from Parsons School of Architecture.