reviewinsight
Interface
Once I had logged into ReviewInsight the first thing that I noticed was the refreshingly clean look of
the interface. ReviewInsight has adopted the Microsoft® Office 2007 look, this combined with the
clean toolbar layout and easy to identify icons gives ReviewInsight a very inviting and simple to use
interface.
Below are a few screen shots of ReviewInsight interface, for illustration purposes:
Creating a Comment
Before I jump straight into the heart of ReviewInsihgt, which is the creating of comments, I think it is probably
best to explain how ReviewInsight is designed to be used. Ticodi licenses ReviewInsight on a single postal
address site wide license, which means that you can install ReviewInsight on as many machines as you wish within a location.
This is key to the efficiency of ReviewInsight as a tool, ReviewInsight is designed to be available on all designers, engineers and client machines on a project,
regardless of location. Giving the flexibility to use ReviewInsight as a day to day work-sharing tool,
as well as ensuring that designers are immediately made aware of new comments.
Creating comments is quick and easy to do, and the comments can be as simple of as detailed in information and
annotation as you wish. ReviewInsight uses a screen capture facility to allow you to capture an image of your model,
drawing, isometric etc. basically anything that is on your screen you can create a comment for. ReviewInsight
can also be integrated with Ticodi's ModelInsight 3D visualisation tool, providing advanced functionality,
which we will be covering later in this review. However I will concentrate on standalone installation. You
can capture and image using a number of methods, define the area you wish to capture using a cursor window,
entire screen or a predefined region. The predefined region is a nice touch as most designer or if you
are in a formal model review will generally have their applications set-up in a standard layout. What the
screen region option allows you to do is, define a region of your screen that will always be captured, therefore
allowing quick image capture.
So I have captured a screen image of the model that I wish to raise a comment for, and now
I need to enter some information about the comment. ReviewInsight allows you enter as much
or as little information about the comment as you wish. There are various fields that allow
you to quickly enter information, such as, discipline, construction area, deadline date, work-share location,
type of comment e.g. clash, design change (all of these drop down's are fully customisable from within
the administration module of ReviewInsight). There are then two free text fields which allow you
to enter a description of the comment and the suggested action for the designer on how to correct
the comment, which is a unique idea as this allows you to guide your designer on how to resolve
the comment. Obviously the more information you enter about a comment makes it easier to be found by
users when searching or filtering your comments. Then comes annotating the screen image, ReviewInsight has a simple 2D annotation
facility that allows you to quickly and easily add mark-up to the comment image. All mark-up elements
are placed on individual layers under specific users, which means that you can go back at any point and modify your
mark-up elements. But also allows other users to add additional mark-up elements on their own
layers from your original mark-up, therefore creating a complete history mark-up solution.
With any comment that you raise you are able to specify whether the comment should be visible to clients or not. This gives you the flexibility to be allow clients to see comments that have been raised in a formal model review, but does not allow clients to see your day-to-day work-share comments.