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Columbus |
Columbus ReviewsColumbus Professional is a robust option for those who are looking for a serious document management solution that can handle multiple file formats and secure access, particularly for companies that are into CAD services.
Oasys, the computing company for Arup, discovered that utilising established standards and practices was a far more cost-effective - and ultimately successful - solution, than buying in external applications. See the complete article on the CAD User website.
All credit to Ove Arup, both for recognising that the product would be useful to the outside world, and for making it available to users free.
This document-management system (reviewed in Architech, AJ 24.2.00), is a brilliant spin-off from Milton's preoccupation with the nuts and bolts of handling documents. Co-authored by Milton, the free program is a heavyweight application which has won awards, has a lively website and an active plug-in writing forum attached. There is a good chance it will become the industry standard document-management tool. Thousands of people worldwide like it and Arup has a commanding influence over the construction values of many countries.
Columbus incorporates the Rasterex viewing engine, which can view many commercial file formats. As a result Arup users say it makes it easier for them to find, view, edit, print and issue project data since they need not concern themselves with the document type, its location, or any database structure. And Arup points out that because Columbus combines the features of an internal document management system and an extranet system, you can use the same tool to handle both activities. Other features include a very simple interface, fast access to any file, global work sharing support and standardised project structures. Also, users can roam anywhere on LAN, WAN and Internet; it's available to all users, for any work; it automatically extracts title block information from AutoCAD DWGs and provides fast previews of AutoCAD files plus 'Xref aware' full views.
The ability to view, print, amend and issue a variety of documents and files without access to a plethora of specific software seems like a dream. And an expensive one. Thanks to Arup - one of the world's pre-eminent engineering design consultancies, on of the UK's largest CAD users, and Autodesk's only VIP customer in the UK - the software, at least, is free. As well as their prestigious engineering record, the practice has a strong history of software design for the engineering market, sold through their subsidiary Oasys Ltd. In 1996 the practice saw a need for a system that would enable them to manage documents and drawings for large design teams, who often worked in a number of locations. A search for a commercially available solution was fruitless as costs proved astronomical, so the in-house development team set about designing their own software. The result was Columbus. The program soon proved itself across all parts of the organisation and moves were made to sell it alongside other software in the Oasys stable. However, they were quick to realise that they had more to gain by giving it away to the industry as Alec Milton, responsible for Columbus' development, explains, 'Too much time is spent learning to use numerous incompatible systems and re-entering data which should only be entered once. By providing the software free of charge we hope to promote an industry standard and avoid these inefficiencies.'
And so Columbus... In January of 2000, I first started my explorations of Columbus and as Alec Milton (Associate Director - Ove Arup & Partners) I'm sure remembers, began to put their product through it's paces. Several things struck me initially, Columbus was a document manager designed for the Architectural, Engineering and Construction community and it is not simply a drawing file manager. Our adocument_managementinistrative, marketing, and project management staff are beginning to use Columbus to manage their documents as well. Also, Oasys had not made the mistake that I had seen in many of the commercial products, which was to include features just because they could, Columbus is a basic, rugged, and well programmed document manager. Columbus is now thought to be the most widely used document management system in the UK and is rapidly gaining acceptance across the globe. Around half of the downloads are from the USA. Arup's subsidiary Oasys has produced a fine product in Columbus and I look forward to new releases and enhancements as time goes on.
Columbus can view over 200 commercial file formats - showing a thumbnail view of the document at the bottom of the screen. No great surprise there. The shock comes when you see the thumbnails appear almost immediately when you put the cursor on a file. At last here's an end to the infuriating wait while your computer opens a new application each time you need to view a document.
...allows firms to access internal documents and extranet project data through the same interface. Columbus operates on the Windows Explorer interface, allowing clients with limited design knowledge to comprehend the system.
One particular advantage to my practice is that Columbus allows peer-to-peer networks to see all information for a particular project as a seamless series of files, even though the material is held on a series of PCs in geographically dispersed offices. - Mervyn Hill, Archimedia Consulting.
In 1996, Ove Arup Partnership began exploring the uncharted waters of document management systems. The team was unimpressed by what it found. Then an expert from its own computer arm rang. The result is a gift to the industry.
Ove Arup want to see other firms adopting Columbus to facilitate standard working procedures across the construction industry.
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