• I am done — Mr. Mark Kiker argues that a task isn’t truly finished until two crucial steps are completed: communicating with others and documenting the work. He explains that it’s vital to notify people when a task is done, whether it’s a troubleshooting fix or a project deliverable, to keep everyone informed and a project moving. Equally important is documentation, which involves writing down the problem and its solution. This not only helps the individual recall the fix later but also creates a shared knowledge base for the entire team, making workflows more efficient and preventing the same issues from being solved repeatedly. Ultimately, finishing well means ensuring your work is both communicated and recorded for the benefit of everyone involved.

• Technical Design and Application of Gabion Retaining Walls — Ali Al-Azzawi explains how Gabion retaining walls are structures made of wire mesh baskets filled with rock, used for applications like erosion control and slope stabilization due to their modular design, flexibility, and excellent drainage. They function by using their mass to resist lateral earth pressure and can adapt to ground movement without losing integrity. The design process focuses on ensuring external stability against overturning, sliding, and bearing capacity failure. While they offer advantages like rapid installation and environmental friendliness, they are limited in height, and the wire mesh is susceptible to corrosion. Overall, gabion walls are a durable and adaptable solution for low- to medium-height earth retention when properly designed and constructed.

• 24th Annual AUGI Salary Survey — Melanie Stone presents the data gathered from the Annual AUGI Salary Survey, showing how education, experience, work location, market specialties, professional certifications, and more can impact how you are paid.

• Streamlining Land Development with Kobi Took Kit for Civil 3D — Mark Scacco discusses how a civil engineering and surveying firm named CEMCON, Ltd. has found the Kobi Toolkit for Civil 3D to be an invaluable asset for improving efficiency and accuracy in land development projects. The toolkit acts as a powerful add-on to Civil 3D, providing specialized tools that streamline repetitive and complex tasks. By using the Kobi Toolkit, CEMCON can move beyond a “good enough” solution, allowing their team to iterate through design alternatives, reduce rework, and ultimately deliver higher-quality projects in less time.

• No Booths. No Bull. No PowerPoints: Real Talk at the BIM Invitational — Jason Peckovitch explains how the BIM Invitational is a unique, informal conference that brings BIM professionals together for candid, unfiltered discussions on real-world challenges. Key takeaways from the 2025 event included practical solutions for common Revit problems, like choosing Model Groups over Linked Models and the importance of unclipping the survey point for coordinate systems. Attendees also explored the measured use of AI for enhancing workflows, developed strategies for better civil-BIM collaboration, and discussed the evolving role of the BIM Manager, who is becoming a “solution finder” rather than just a standards enforcer. The main message was that the future of BIM relies on people and process just as much as on platforms and plugins, with the community working together to find solutions and improve efficiency.

• How I Used GIA to Streamline Complex Calculated Values in Revit — Jonathan Massaro, was able to streamline a complex calculated value in Revit for occupant load calculations. Facing a challenge of combining two different calculation formulas—one for standard spaces and another for a “Covered Mall” designation—he leveraged GIA to quickly generate a single, conditional formula. This approach eliminated the need for tedious manual troubleshooting of syntax and logic, saving significant time and resulting in a more reliable, maintainable model. He concludes that AI tools are not a replacement for professional expertise but rather a powerful partner that can handle technical complexities, allowing professionals to focus on higher-level design quality and project coordination.

• Smarter Spending in CAD: What the Salary Survey Tells Us and What BricsCAD® Can Do About It — Mr. Craig Swearingen argues that the BricsCAD software is a superior and more cost-effective alternative to other CAD platforms, particularly in the current economic climate where companies are focused on efficiency. He references the AUGIWORLD Salary Survey to highlight that while companies need to be cautious with spending and salaries are modest, they can find savings by switching to BricsCAD. He explains that BricsCAD is a full-featured, DWG-native platform with a lower total cost of ownership due to reduced licensing fees, minimal training needs, and no forced cloud lock-in.

• Inside Track: Revit 2026.2 - Residential Content Pack - Half Baked Treats? — Rina Sahay critically reviews the new Revit 2026.2 Residential Content Pack, expressing frustration with its delivery and organization despite welcoming the new content. Rina points out that the families are installed in a disorganized and outdated folder location, making them difficult to find. She also heavily criticizes the inclusion of a container .rvt file, arguing that this method is inefficient and can lead to bloated project files, preferring instead that families be stored in dedicated library folders and be easily accessible via the online library. While acknowledging that the families are high-quality, “vanilla” assets perfect for early-stage design, Rina concludes that the new content should have been integrated directly into the default Revit library and the online platform, rather than being released as a separate, poorly implemented pack.

Questions about AUGI? Please visit www.AUGI.com to learn more.