The FreeCAD BIM features have had another monthly summary of improvements by lead developer Yorik van Havre. For October 2020, we’re looking at new TechDraw patterns, new Draft styling controls, a new BIM image plane tool, a new awning window preset, and many new fixes and UI improvements. ...

The VI-Suite user manual has been released and is now available on the documentation page on the website. The VI-Suite is an open-source add-on to the 3D modelling and animation package Blender. It provides a set of tools for the analysis of environmental factors within and around buildings. It uses Blender’s node system to provide a user interface that allows quick and custom analyses to be created. ...

There’s been a new BlenderBIM Add-on release! The BlenderBIM Add-on v0.0.201115 comes with 52 new features and fixes. The BlenderBIM Add-on is 100% free and open source software that lets you author and document BIM data fully to ISO standards. Highlights include improved material and presentation layer support, improved geolocation support, and many more vendor workarounds. ...

Ladybug Tools has been working hard on creating a new cloud-based environmental simulation platform called Pollination. Pollination is unique compared to other cloud-based environmental simulation platforms in that it doesn’t operate as a black box, and instead operates as a high fidelity task runner for environmental analysis engines. The task descriptions are standardised as a set of nodes, each describing a single step in the analysis process. This is called a “recipe”. Together, these tasks allow environmental simulationists to scale their analysis easily whilst ensuring that the validity of their simulation is never sacrificed. ...