The recently released AMC Bridge’s Civil 3D® takeoff using Procore® Budget integration presents an innovative approach to streamlining construction takeoff processes. This technology demonstration showcases the seamless transfer of a Civil 3D Bill of Materials (BOM) to Procore Budget. By eliminating the need for manual data entry, it enhances accuracy and ensures that BIM data is synchronized with project budgets, leading to more precise construction cost estimations.

AMC Bridge teams consistently work on creating technology demonstrations for key industries that the company serves. From an educational point of view, these projects help entry-level developers comprehend technologies and acquire hands-on experience. In contrast, for marketing needs, such projects play an important role in showcasing AMC Bridge’s extensive expertise to clients. In this article, we delve into the business value of the technology demonstration with Kyrylo Nazarov, the Delivery Manager who led the project and explored the development process. We will uncover how this integration addresses challenges in construction management, offering an advanced approach to project estimation and financial planning.

From a technical perspective, this technology demonstration is a plug-in designed for the Autodesk® Civil 3D® CAD system that facilitates data exchange with the Procore service. Civil 3D is employed by engineers in the construction industry to create comprehensive models of building projects, encompassing infrastructure and land parcels. Procore is a service tailored for managing all stages of construction projects. The mission of our prototype is to extract data from the Civil 3D model crafted by engineers or architects and transfer it into Procore. With this process, all the required elements and their associated costs can be tracked automatically. For instance, the plug-in can determine the length and types of pipes needed for a project. After transferring this data to Procore, a PM can then oversee the procurement and delivery of these pipes.

The technology demonstration operates in a straightforward manner—it’s registered as a plug-in for Civil 3D, allowing us to expand the UI and functionality of the CAD system. Therefore, it is displayed as an additional button on the Civil 3D menu, opening the interface of our prototype. Within this menu, users can log in to Procore, extract data from the model, and send it to the server. Interaction with the model’s data is conducted through the Civil 3D API, while data exchange utilizes the Procore REST API.

The created technology demonstration significantly simplifies the management of construction projects. Without it, a manager would have to manually go through the list of construction elements, such as pipes, in Civil 3D and record them one by one in a table in Procore. This manual process would require a lot of effort, and the installation of Civil 3D would be necessary for not only the engineer, which would increase the licensing costs.

The development was carried out entirely in C# using WPF for the UI. This combination is highly popular in engineering software today, and we see a significant demand for it. However, creating plug-ins that work with the CAD system’s API usually poses a challenge, and developers need to understand how to use it. Typically, CAD systems have extensive APIs with a wide range of functionalities: working with the UI, handling model data, programmatically editing the model, and so on. Therefore, mastering them thoroughly can take a considerable amount of time. Moreover, these APIs often come with errors, unexpected nuances, or lack of documentation. In this project, we utilized two APIs—the Civil 3D API to extract data from the model and the Procore REST API to send it to the server, which meant developers had to navigate both APIs.

When talking about challenges, undoubtedly, learning and working with APIs are at the top of the list. Once again, under the hood of these systems, there’s a black box, and you don’t always know how a particular function will work until you try it out in practice. Therefore, working on such technology demonstrations is an excellent opportunity to gain new experience and bring new ideas to life.