Advanced Software Solutions for Civil Engineering Industry

Ar Apurva Bose Dutta, Bengaluru.

Technology and Software Solutions have today revolutionized the world. Name any field and you will find a plethora of software developed to ease out the work and transfer one's vivid imaginations onto paper. The same holds true for the engineering and construction fraternity also where a number of sophisticated computer software have today led to swift solutions, interesting brainstorming sessions and fascinating outputs.


Amongst the many advantages of technology is its saving of time in turn rendering more time for 'design,' besides making designs possible which one could hardly think of with hand. A Computer software should be rightly treated as a tool to conceive our creative ideas.

India's construction industry is such an important part of the economy which has led to a need of good software to solve construction related issues. India remains as one of the major focuses of the Engineering Software vendors where apart from the need for Indian projects, many Indian design and outsourcing firms work with foreign designs and drawing jobs also where software are essentially required.

Mumbai based MIDAS India (R&D Centre) with headquarters in South Korea, offers engineering software development along with analysis & design support for Civil, Structural, Geotechnical & Mechanical Engineering. Angshuman Pandey, Director Operations of the firm adds, "Construction is rampant if you see the metropolitan cities of India today. The state governments also have taken immense initiatives in infrastructure development in the villages / interiors etc which points to a lot of scope to grow for software companies."

Softwares in the Market

Today's engineering and construction responsive environment has varied software right from Project management (for the planning and updating on the project development) to design and detailing software programs (for metal trusses, walls and floors), software for civil works (for optimizing quantities and reducing wastage in cement, steel and concrete blocks), and software used in Environmental, Geotechnical, Hydraulic, Structural, Transportation, and Wind engineering. midas Civil, used for the design of bridges, flyovers and viaducts is a user- friendly and versatile software that can perform construction stage analysis, pre-stress & live load analysis for curved in space girders. Launched by MIDAS India, Angshuman admits, "Due to the booming infrastructure development in many parts of the world especially BRIC nations midas Civil has surpassed the revenue of midas Gen by a few folds which is our flagship product and is used for the design of vertical structures."

Complex structures, forms, frames and fabrication details of materials have today been made easier by the array of 3D and 4D models that can be made. Building Information Modelling (BIM) (by Autodesk), is one of the most used software solutions today for engineers, architects, planners etc and as rightly said is 'not just a model but a process that helps customers use the information inherent in the model to design, visualize, analyze and simulate a project.' Still to penerate fully into the Indian Market, BIM solutions include AutoCAD Civil 3D and AutoCAD Map 3D software for transportation, land development and water projects and Autodesk Revit-based software for the building industry including solutions for architecture, structural and MEP engineering.