Speckle is accelerating development of its collaborative AEC data hub, replacing clunky file-based processes with powerful new workflows that connect hitherto incompatible BIM tools, writes Martyn Day
Speckle began as a research project during Speckle founder and CEO Dimitrie Stefanescu’s PhD studies at University College London. It evolved into an ‘insider’ industry hack, with Speckle COO and cofounder Matteo Cominetti experimenting with the technology during his time at Foster + Partners. The goal was to find alternative methods for sharing, querying, and viewing BIM models -circumventing proprietary lock-ins, developer APIs, cumbersome ‘everything’ file transactions, and centralised file servers.
From its interoperability beginnings, a community grew, and Speckle eventually secured funding to establish itself as a stand-alone company to accelerate development.
Initially catering to a coding-savvy audience of AEC experts, hackathon enthusiasts, and BIM developers, Speckle has since evolved into a suite of tools and workflow capabilities which can be deployed to drive and automate bespoke project processes. This has helped make Speckle accessible to a much broader audience.
Connect
Speckle is built around the concept of connectors, applets that sit inside commonly used AEC applications that open-up their data to be streamed into and out of a centralised, open granular model (or Common Data Environment – CDE).
These connectors act as an industry wiring harness, bridging applications from different developers that don’t share APIs or struggle to write reliable common open data file formats.
Speckle supports plenty of formats: Revit, Rhino, Blender, Excel, Grasshopper, PowerBI, SketchUp, Dynamo, Navisworks, AutoCAD, Tekla, ArcGIS, Unreal, Unity, among others. If a connector isn’t available, those with the necessary skills can create their own. We understand Tesla wrote one for Dassault Systèmes Catia.
Find this article plus many more in the Nov / Dec 2024 Edition of AEC Magazine
👉 Subscribe FREE here 👈
Collab
The next component is the Speckle central data hub, which handles data, federated project data and teams. Speckle can be hosted in any region or country to meet customer preferences or for compliance requirements. Alternatively, Speckle can host it for you.
Model and project data from all disciplines are streamed in real time to a central project Speckle Workspace, where the model definition can be composed, with overlays, offering view manipulation, filters, comment / discussions, measure etc. Everything is done through a simple-to-use browser-based Speckle viewer, which can also be set to synchronise views between users during collaborative meetings (follow mode).
Team members can now be assigned varying levels of access, whether to entire projects or specific permissions within them. Powerful capabilities include realtime tracking of model changes, down to individual elements. Users can see which objects were removed, added, modified, or remain unchanged.
The new deployable Workspaces and Teams features mark the beginning of Speckle’s move toward offering turnkey project hosting solutions for a broader range of BIM firms – especially those without the in-house expertise to shape and craft a Speckle server workflow or Teams deployment.
This will bring Speckle into contention with relatively high-priced project management BIM tools and cloud hosting services. See later for the business model.
Automate
Speckle launched ‘Automate’ in beta last year (read this AEC Magazine article) which it describes as a CI/CD solution, offering Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD).
Automation loops and processes can be triggered whenever a model changes. For example, if an object in an architectural model is edited, Speckle Automate can automatically run clash detection with geometry from all disciplines in the background, perform quality assurance or code compliance checks, generate reports, or run analyses. Everything is fully customisable – it’s totally down to how each firm wants to architect the automation.
As Speckle can pretty much talk to any API, loops can cross application boundaries, integrating customers’ tech stacks to work as one using Python and .NET.
Over the past year, Speckle recognised that some automation routines were too complex for non-coders. In response, significant improvements have been made to the user interface, making it more accessible and intuitive for project teams. Additionally, Speckle now offers templates for common functions. It appears that Speckle Automate will soon leave beta and become a supported product.
The formulation of Workspaces, Teams and Automate, together with the established connectors and mode hub, has enabled the company to streamline its offerings.
Speckle has traditionally operated with what could be considered a “suicidal business model,” offering everything as open source. The company’s revenue primarily came from those who chose to pay for Speckle server hosting — yet, they were never required to do so.
With the attraction of venture capitalists and development money (Speckle recently raised $12.5m) the company is shifting towards a more sustainable business model. That said, even with this change, the prices we’ve seen for the capabilities on offer remain an absolute bargain.
There are still free options for individuals, open-source software, and customers can opt to host their own Speckle servers.
However, the Workspaces and Automation capabilities will come at a cost per user and are not ‘open source’. There will be three Workspace plans that differ in security options, starting at £12 per seat, per month, rising to £60 per seat, per month with SSO and data region of choice.
Once ‘Automation’ comes out of beta, there will be charges based on automation instances, although a certain amount of usage will be built into enterprise plans.
Conclusion
Speckle continues to support its community by maintaining a free point of entry, while also developing advanced tools that simplify deployment. This approach should appeal to a wider range of firms, especially those with limited coding knowledge in house —previously a potential barrier to entry.
This all goes a long way to make Speckle a modern software company with a turnkey product to sell. There’s still lots of flexibility as to how it’s wired into company and project workflows, but it will be liberating for any project to step outside the silos of their BIM 1.0 tool sets.
In many ways Speckle is a low-cost retrofit that will allow existing software tools to deliver next generation granular, multi-disciplinary workflows, without compromising long grafted in-house skills on mature software. At the same time, it frees project data from proprietary software locked behind shareholder-driven pricing models.
Speckle could well go from being the secret sauce of the BIM illuminati to becoming the champion silo slayer for all project fiefdoms. It’s just too useful for the industry to ignore.
Speckle Con: sharing solutions to real world problems
At the recent Speckle Con event in London, presentations were dominated by users showcasing the wide range of innovative ways in which Speckle has been deployed.
From refining internal processes and developing custom automations to augmenting BIM data with fabrication data, solving structural challenges, and creating new cloudbased applications, the event highlighted the versatility of the platform for solving real world problems. Attendees also demonstrated how they integrated AI into workflows, collaborated on road and rail civil projects, coordinated project teams, and embedded an opensource Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) capability across their practice.
Speakers came in from all around the world: RHDHV, Herzog & de Meuron, BaneDanmark, Perkins and Will, Ramboll and LINK Arkitektur, to name but a few. The presentations will be available online soon and we highly recommend watching them all.
Of particular note was Frederico Borello from Encode, who demonstrated how Speckle served as a powerful connector, bridging the gap between low level of detail architecture to high level of detail fabrication.
Also worthy of mention was Jordana da Castro Rosa and Adam Burnham of Perkins and Will, who used Speckle tech to develop tools that could possibly be commercially sold, all originating out of AEC hackathons.
