Portsmouth, N.H. — Mad*Pow Media Solutions announced its collaboration with Autodesk to demonstrate the company’s technology concept for a new sustainability analysis dashboard. In combination with the Revit platform for building information modeling (BIM), the new concept demonstrates how architects, engineers and designers could benefit from real-time graphical feedback about impact of design decisions on the potential LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) green building rating of a project.  

Autodesk tapped Mad*Pow’s design expertise and innovative thinking to help demonstrate Autodesk’s interface concept and ignite industry discussion around ways that new technology can facilitate sustainable design and green building. Mad*Pow worked with a special team to effectively demonstrate the concept on an oversized, multi-touch display, with multiple designers collaborating in real-time.

A short video showing users working with the concept was unveiled at the 2007 Greenbuild Expo, in Chicago, the premiere green building conference in the world. The seven-minute video showed multiple designers and planners interacting with data and attributes of a given design in order to maximize the number of LEED credits granted by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). Standing in front of a three by eight feet multi-touch display, the users work with both hands to drag and drop different material options into the three-dimensional building schematics. In real time, a robust dashboard of meters and graphs visually represents various LEED credit trade-offs that result from alternative configurations, allowing design professionals to make more informed decisions. To view the video of the technology concept visit www.autodesk.com/greenresearch.

Mad*Pow used its expertise to help Autodesk design and develop an easy-to-use interface to demonstrate the power of the technology concept. First, the team worked directly with Autodesk product engineers to help identify the most important user scenarios. Next, the Mad*Pow team analyzed existing concepts to help Autodesk best match the prioritized scenarios. Once the concept was finalized, Mad*Pow helped design multiple visual themes, each with a unique approach to fonts, color, graphics, charts and toolbars. With an approved look and feel in hand, the design and development teams worked together to animate and code the demonstration so that it would function seamlessly on a giant multi-touch display, without the use of a mouse.

“When you have that much screen real estate to work with and the opportunity to design for multi-touch interactions, it opens up new challenges, and with that, endless opportunities,” remarked Will Powley, Mad*Pow’s founder and chief creative officer. “Our expertise exists where people interact with information, and the Autodesk initiative is clearly representative of what the future holds.”

The project resulted from Autodesk’s ongoing collaboration with the USGBC. Together with the organization, Autodesk continues to explore new technology developments that will accelerate green building practices globally. Further details about Autodesk’s green building focus can be found at www.autodesk.com/green.

For more information, visit www.madpow.net.