Digital utilities for architects and engineers
It goes without saying that, to this day, we spend more hours in front of the computer than in the work itself. Digitization is our new weapon and construction tools have become applications to improve our workflow.
Update us, update us, update us! This will be our constant if we want to survive as a company in the architecture, construction or engineering sector and here, the online digital options for our office that we use on a daily basis will help us strongly.
At the time we already talked about apps for augmented reality. Now, it's utilities and digital tools that we constantly manage and that we believe can add extra value to our daily work …
1.- Best online 2D and 3D viewer
An excellent architecture tool and engineering. The idea is … "Work anywhere, on any device and at any time" with all kinds of CAD files (2d and 3D), whether with your mobile or with any desktop computer, even if it is not yours.
Directly and no nonsense, we are talking about Autodesk 360 and totally free.
- We register on the web
- We create a project
- And we can already see it, handle it in 2D and visualize it in 3D, move, zoom in on the drawing and even record a video.
Actually, there are many tools on the Internet and applications to view DWG files online on the market, but few provide us with quality, speed and ease of use with the possibility of sharing work with colleagues and of course, without having 1000 elements advertising surrounding us.
We have already commented on this application from the article on how to find hundreds of blocks and Autocad and BIM libraries totally free and in a legal way.
A 10 Like engineering tool or the architecture office.
2.- Scale for the mobile
This application has saved our lives many times and it is very useful. A scale on the mobile, as is! …
We are talking about the App Scala Architectural and Engineering Scale (Only for Ios - iPhone. For Android you can use the Ruler Scaler, even if it is not of the same quality). Provides accurate measurements for any printed drawing at any scale. The application is simple and easy to use, it includes architecture and engineering scales.
Also, recently, we talked about 3D point cloud renders with an app that is literally crazy and that we can read from here.
3.- Write articles and projects talking
It may be that some users write quickly in front of the computer, either because of perseverance or because of those typing classes that you hardly remember, but not all of us have that luck.
For those of us who are "slow" to type, there is an online tool that is insane. It's the famous Speechnotes!… You just have to speak and it will be transcribed to text.
First we connect a microphone to the computer. We enter Speechnotes and, later, in the upper right we will have a red microphone. When you click with the mouse, start blinking … Now you can talk! That the application will transcribe your voice to text.
Note: You have to practice a bit and "tame" your voice (Don't be discouraged the first day), but you will see that after a few days, you are a fierce writing text.
4. -Improve the translation of texts
We live in a global world and this means that we work in different languages. For some engineers or architects, this is not a barrier, but for many others, the language represents a very high wall.
From a writing and translation perspective, we must directly use the Deepl tool "yes or yes" (no need to register). Although we already talked about how to improve our translated texts with the Google translator, the difference in quality in the transcriptions that Deepl practices compared to Google Translate are enormous!
For example, we translate a technical text from English to Spanish …
Unfortunately, for now and for free, we can only translate a maximum of 5000 characters. Remember that you can regenerate the screen and re-translate as many times as you want.
5.- Create mind maps and diagrams
This is directly one of our best free utilities to make brief summaries in presentations and projects that need some kind of outlined explanation.
We use mind maps a lot and from the Draw.io tool it is very easy to work, in an intuitive way and can be saved in different options. ! Highly recommended!
Another one we recommend for creating notes, flowcharts, and mind maps is the Whimsical online application. It is Free - Premium, but in the free version you can do many things, and it is also very visual!
6.- To register with the company email
If you are continuously connected to the Internet throughout the week, you can register on various web portals that you will never enter again. This implies that this company email becomes the "Email Spam" that every day you will have to endure loads of spam emails.
Solution!… Use a Temporary email. The objective is simple, they provide us with a free Email that will be active for a short period of time so that we can receive any type of email when we register. For example, when we want to download plans from the Internet and they ask us for an Email, for saying something.
I think the concept is understood and its practical usefulness, too!… You can access the application from Temp-email and stop having so much spam in the mail.
7.- Handle PDF like a professional
The Ilovepdf online application is for handle PDF and convert them in whatever you want with a few simple clicks and without the need to register. Very good, easy to use and that will save us a lot of time in our daily work.
We can join PDFs, divide them, compress them, convert them to any format or go from Word to Pdf, to give just a few examples.
8.- Manipulate text quickly
When we work on a project many times we need, for example, to add prefixes and suffixes to lines of text, eliminate line breaks, extract columns, etc. Ultimately, we manipulate the text in some way.
To do it quickly, we have a online digital tool based on the browser called TextMechanic (Although it is in English it is very easy to use)
To name a few utilities (Which has many others), we add a screenshot …
We can recognize that these utilities can be performed in Excel and Word, but we will not always have the applications at our fingertips.
9.- Retouch and create free images
There are many online applications for image management, But not all of them do their job consistently, nor are they easy to use.
So we are going to tell which ones we use and that, without a doubt, will save you a lot of work:
- The first and the best known is the Pixlr application. Where we can work quickly and has an extensive catalog of very useful filters and effects.
- The second is used to optimize the weight of the image or transform it into other types of files; jpg.webp, png, etc … It is the Squoosh application (Essential to incorporate images in online projects and it is also from Google)
- The third is to combine images with really impressive results. We can access it from HERE. In the following video is a brief introduction …
10.- Retouch and create videos for free
If you handle social networks you need create videos; be it to explain a project or present it, to tell a story or whatever comes to your mind.
Video is already a fundamental part of the Internet and if we need to tell a story, we will need one of the following tools.
- The first is an application called lumen5. It is the fastest to create videos and in its free version, it leaves us with a resolution of 480 pixels (Enough quality for social networks) and although in the end it will add the company logo, we can do very interesting things.
An example would be the following video we made about an article in which we talked about Feng Shui (By the way, you can read it from here)
- The second video editor is more complex, but it will leave us more options. It is a Free - Premium tool called Headliner (To start with the free version we have enough, it leaves us 10 videos a month, and with 1080p quality without adding a watermark)
Once we finish the video, click on "export" and our email account will receive a link to download it with the possibility, also, of sharing it on social networks. A very useful editor!
11.- Create charts in a minute
Sometimes we need to create a chart on a data series and we just go crazy with Excel.
For that, there is the Visuafy from HERE. That we can't create an online chart in less than a minute, but in addition to being intuitively very easy to use, the graphics created are really good. To try it!
We just have to choose the type of graph desired to enter the page where we can find the data. Once done, we can change colors, formats and even the type of graph using the same numbers, available in an extremely intuitive side menu.
12.- Use Feedly for news
In the digital age, information surpasses us and more so if we talk about news. To organize ourselves a bit, there is a digital app cool called Feedly.
Although I suppose many of you already know it, we could say that it is a web to filter and segment news ordering them.
It works with what is called "Feed". It is a source that is used to keep up to date with the contents of a web page or blog.
With this tool we will be aware of the latest news and trends in the architecture and engineering sector. Essential in any office that wants to be informed of the latest events.
To search for interesting content you have 3 options to enter in your search engine:
- A name
- A hashtag
- Or a web portal URL
Afterwards, you will only have to create or assign a category to what you have found. Very easy and you can also have alerts, if you consider it appropriate.
13.- Google Data Studio
Of all the tools that we have named, the Google Data Studio application may be the most powerful and this involves, although it is free, it is much more complex.
We could say that serves for Big Data-style data analysis. Obviously, as it is from Google, it connects seamlessly with all its applications; Google Analytics, Google Search console, Google Cloud, etc. So for digital marketing, it's perfect!
But, due to your interest in data analysis, connectors have been created to be able to use it (More than 150), for example, with Excel tables (See also the article on free Excel courses for all levels)
It is impossible to explain its operation directly but I highly recommend this video that explains its usefulness in Digital Marketing or the following YouTube channel.
A tool that is revolutionizing the Internet and that, for companies, represents an important advance from a data analysis and project progress perspective. Its use is highly recommended!
14.- Tools to increase digital productivity
With the rise of online programs that perform different types of tasks, they are appearing free digital tools (They all include a Pro version) to increase digital productivity.
As a note, from the digital automation article you can already see the potential of the No Code movement.
The overriding goal is simple; automate repetitive digital tasks to save time that we can allocate to other tasks. Here you have to understand that there are software from simple to really complicated and, almost all the programs that work in a decent way, are in English. An example is with Notion in the following video:
We recommend trying: Ideanote (The simplest), Startinfinity, to Notion Which is excellent (There are a lot of explanatory videos in Spanish) or its cheaper version, if we opt for Pro features, which is Nimbusweb.
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We can recognize that we still lack many utilities to explore or know, for example, the Trello (He's a very good project and task manager). But it is impossible to list them all in one article.
By the way, if you have any useful suggestions. Comment!
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