Annual Review 2020 - Dlubal Software

The year 2020 will likely be remembered as the year of COVID. A virus suddenly changed the lives of so many people and brought one of the greatest challenges the world has ever seen. As a company, we have also felt this impact. These new challenges demanded a new thought process and approach for our company. Working from home, online meetings and social distancing have presented us with a new working dimension. However, this crisis has shown as a team we can achieve our goals and therefore, have not only made it through the year but did so successfully.

We would like to take the opportunity to present to you a company year-end review, and to look back on great projects, events and achievements.

Dlubal’s Continued Growth

At the beginning of January, we opened a new office in Munich. We continued our course of company expansion. In addition to the Tiefenbach headquarters and the branch office in Leipzig, Munich is the third Germany office location. Initially, the new office was located in the "Design Offices München Nove" office complex in Arnulfpark, but now we have moved to a larger office in Arnulfpark. In the Munich office, we're expanding our video marketing and focusing on the creation of new e-learning videos, tutorials and online courses.

We also moved to a new office in the Czech city Brno in early February. The new location is located in the Sumavska Tower on the 18th floor with a wonderful view of the city. In addition to many working students, one of our development teams mainly responsible for programming interfaces is also located in Brno.

In 2020, as a company, we have grown to more than 280 employees. Every day, our team does the best to continually improve Dlubal products.

digitalBAU in Cologne

In early 2020, life was a little more normal before Europe and Germany experienced any impact from the virus. For example, digitalBAU took place for the first time in February. After many difficult years for typical construction software trade fairs, this is the first successful repositioning of a trade fair in this industry. It is also remarkable that the event focused exclusively on software and thus, as is often the case, this industry segment was not lost due to the presence of other manufacturers of construction products like bricks or gutters.

It is already clear that it was a get-together for all well-known software manufacturers in the construction industry in general and for structural analysis and design in particular. If you closely follow the developments in recent years, you can see some trends and digitalBau was also a good opportunity to realize it.

New Programs, Features and Modules

Although RWIND Simulation was released in late 2019, we strongly believe this product will revolutionize wind load calculations in structural engineering. RWIND Simulation is a stand-alone program for numerical simulations of wind flow (digital wind tunnel) around buildings or any other objects and generating wind loads, i.e. forces acting on these objects. RWIND Simulation is specially designed for the wind load determination on buildings and requires only a description of the wind load besides the 3D model.

Another popular trend among engineers is the use of parameterized models and their generation. To keep up with the demand, we implemented the Rhino and Grasshopper interfaces directly in RFEM last year in December.

In Spring 2020, we have published the cross -section program SHAPE-THIN 9. With this stand-alone cross-section program, cold-formed cross-section properties and stresses can be calculated. In addition to this cold-formed development, the new RF-/STEEL Cold-Formed Sections add-on module was also released as an extension of the RF-/STEEL EC3 add-on module.

We have also integrated other unique features such as the camera flight mode, the transfer format glTF/glb and expanded our material database.

COVID, Working From Home and Online Training

In early spring, the virus impact had begun its toll on Germany and around the world. On-site events were canceled, employees began working from home and training took place exclusively online. The online training was a bit unfamiliar at first, but over time appreciated by both attendees and Dlubal employees. We were extremely pleased to see the participation outcome for this new service. In addition, we continued our ongoing support for students and universities with free online training sessions.

Within a very short time, we managed to prepare and present 6 different online training courses (RSTAB/RFEM Basics, Eurocode 2, EC3, EC5 & EC8) in 7 different languages. Each participant received a certificate, the training materials and the recording.

The Increased Importance of Digital Education

In addition to the online training courses, we expanded our free online resources which include independent software learning videos. In April, we published the first E-Learning online course in all languages, which offered beginners the ideal opportunity to begin modeling in the finite element program RFEM. More E-Learning video series have been added over time. The Infotainment series is also closely related to E-Learning. This video series provided an interesting mix of entertainment along with useful structural engineering information.

New Online Services support Engineers at daily work

As a young engineer, I always wanted to know how experienced structural engineers create their structural models. Since May 2020, you can find structural models for download on our website. Download a vast number of free RFEM/RSTAB models at any time. You can use these models for a quick start in the program or as an added opportunity to practice your skills with RFEM/RSTAB.

Released in June 2020, cross-section properties of standard cross-sections or parameterized cross-sections are available as a free online tool. Select standard cross-sections or define parameterized cross-sections from an extensive cross-section database. Display the calculated cross-section properties numerically or graphically with the ability to print this information (PDF).

Dlubal Podcasts

Yes, you read that correctly. Launched in the Fall of 2020, we now offer our own company podcast. The enthusiasm for such audio formats has been increasing over the past several years. There are many exciting formats for news, politics, or entertainment in general. And while a few podcasts related to technology are available, little can be found specifically for the construction industry. Therefore, we decided to begin our podcast focused on BIM and digitization in construction.

After finding our second voice, one episode after another was produced. We are very pleased with this successful start to the Dlubal podcast, which has received great feedback from our listeners. We look forward to producing additional episodes in the new year.

Happy New Year 2021

At this point, I would like to thank all fans, customers, users, friends and our team at Dlubal Software for the great cooperation. I wish you a happy new year 2021. Stay healthy!