Bluebeam Harnesses the Power of AI and Customer Passion to Drive Innovation in the Built World

Bluebeam announced the introduction of two new AI features in the works for early 2024 and Bluebeam Labs, a collaborative, co-creation workspace in Bluebeam Cloud.

Bluebeam has invested in AI for more than a decade in its flagship product Bluebeam Revu and has a rich history of delivering innovation for AEC professionals. These newest AI innovations build on existing features like visual search, text recognition and batch processing to elevate how Bluebeam solutions increase productivity, augment creative problem-solving, and automate tedious tasks for its customers.

“For more than 20 years, Bluebeam has pioneered paperless transformation for many in the AEC industry, fundamentally changing how teams create, collaborate and communicate information,” said Frank Sarno, VP of Construction Process and Technology at Adolfson & Peterson Construction. “Today, demand for new and innovative ways of designing and building is accelerating. The industry is being asked to deliver higher quality work faster, more sustainably and at a lower cost. Through their commitment to innovation, involving their customers into the process, and solving for real world challenges, Bluebeam is helping companies like ours meet these demands.”

Bluebeam’s latest product release planned for April 2024 will include two new AI-enhanced features.

Auto Align for drawing overlays and comparisons in Revu 21. Auto Align will reduce the tedious, error-prone steps of manually aligning three points on each drawing revision, so users can understand the differences between them faster. Bluebeam customers currently use the Overlay and Compare features more than five million times a year. While powerful, the process takes several clicks and up to two minutes per drawing. With the Auto Align option and a revamped feature interface, this can be streamlined to as little as 15 seconds, helping users understand the differences up to 80 percent faster.

Automatic title block recognition when importing drawings to Bluebeam Cloud. The title block of a drawing holds valuable information that users shouldn’t have to waste time or risk mistakes entering manually. Aided by AI, Bluebeam Cloud instantly extracts the key drawing information as metadata that can be leveraged throughout the project, saving time and increasing accuracy.

A key factor that sets Bluebeam apart from competitors is a passionate user base that has historically helped determine the company’s product roadmap. To harness that more directly, Bluebeam is introducing Bluebeam Labs. Built to involve customers in the company’s development of new solutions, this cloud-based, collaborative workspace offers the ability to demonstrate and validate ideas and technologies before they are launched and available to all customers. Bluebeam Cloud users are invited to shape the future of early concepts before they are integrated into production software.

“We believe that AI should be about pragmatic innovation that enhances the customer experience, productivity and value they get from Bluebeam," said Usman Shuja, CEO of Bluebeam. "Through Bluebeam Labs, we invite customers into our innovation process earlier, to co-create our solutions with much more engagement and feedback. This is how we’ll continue to lead the industry for many years to come."

The first AI-based feature showcased via Bluebeam Labs will be 3D Drawings. 3D Drawings uses AI to position up to hundreds of 2D drawings in 3D space. Like digital origami, the program intuitively understands where to make the folds for the highest quality 3D visualization and increased understanding of the project. 

Source: Bluebeam media announcement