Myles Martin
By Ed Avis
Editor’s Note: Myles Martin, principal of Rozas Ward Architects in New Orleans, is a leader in job site technology, and he will be a speaker at the APDSP conference on Oct. 11-12 in New Orleans. In this Q&A, Martin explains how his firm uses technology and the challenges he faces.
What’s different about job site technology today compared to five years ago?
For one thing, we can do 360 degree photos inside buildings rapidly and accurately and manipulate that data on apps to get quality photogrammetry (measurements from digital photos). In addition we can put the data into point clouds and bring that into Revit. So instead of measuring the inside of a building with a tape measure, which could take three people all day to do, one person can bring in the camera on a tripod and do the whole thing in a quarter of the time.
What other technology are you using today that works well?
Drones are another tool. They give us photogrammetry of the exterior of the buildings. And drones we use are fully automated – they take off, fly a zig zag pattern over the building, and land. We take out the SD card, upload the photos, and create the model. The drones also give
A building designed by Martin's firm, Rozas Ward.
us the site pictures and allow us to do remote inspections. Five years ago we were paying for a plane to fly overhead and take photos. Now we do it on our own schedule with our own drones, and get the advantage of the photogrammetry models.
And the drones are getting smaller and smaller. The new Spark DGI flies indoors – so we’re now using drones for interior inspections when we have a lot of vertical height.
We own our drones, we have a commercial drone license. The drone world is kind of a murky environment. There are lots of FAA rules drone operators need to follow, but I wouldn’t say everyone does. It’s still a little like the wild west. Anyone can go on Amazon and buy a drone, but not everyone knows what to do with it. Taking photos is easy, but taking the next step and creating photogrammetry models is the exciting part.
Another technology is job site plan stations. Large TVs in the jobsite trailer are now standard. We use them to pull up our BIM models and construction administration tools on the screen, so we can talk about the data and view it in a group.
That’s not to say we’ve gone completely away from 2D plans. PDFs are still super important, and we use them in day-to-day workflows. They allow us to post revisions a lot quicker than if we were using paper make the markups. We can plow through redlines 4 times faster than with paper copies. And with BlueBeam, there is a lot more automation in the process. We can even embed 3D models inside the PDF.
What challenges have you faced?
Interoperability is a challenge. You can’t always pull the data coming from one technology into another system. You have to have contextual awareness of the environment.
And virtual reality has been a real head scratcher. We tried it in-house and had some limited success with it, but I finally pulled the plug. We decided we need to wait and come back to this when it has worked its way out.
How do you keep up with the technology?
I attend two or three conferences a year. I also use Twitter as a news source. People post what they’re doing and trying. And getting beta versions of software is critical.
Do you do much printing of drawings anymore?
We don’t print very much at all unless we have to. The New Orleans Building Department no longer accepts paper plans. The whole submittal process is digital. The only time we print is when we need an archival copy. We do still use a repro shop – we do send out things we don’t want to print. And we have two plotters and a scanner that we purchased through a repro company.
What opportunities do you see for reprographics shops in these high-tech areas?
There are certainly opportunities for third-party companies like reprographics shops. I am very tech enabled, but other firms are looking for more turnkey solutions. They want the deliverable without the worrying about the interoperability.
I think the biggest problem with our repro firm is that their name has “blueprints” in it, so I’m not thinking about cutting-edge technology when I think of them. They offer some services that we were oblivious to because we don’t think of a blueprinter as doing those things.