Some people notice scaffolding only if it’s getting in the way of a perfect, Instagrammable shot—but others view it as beautiful in its own right.
Scaffolding Systems Scaffold Counter provides a solution to customers around the world. Some of the most common systems are included. You can also add your own equipment systems, sizes, as well as customize the default templates provided.
Highly trafficked structures like the Colosseum, Parthenon, Taj Mahal, Travelers Tower, US Capitol Dome, and Washington Monument have all required extensive restoration in recent years, which means someone created scaffolding to fit each of those iconic shapes. New buildings that push architectural boundaries, such as the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs and 432 Park Avenue in New York City, also demand advanced scaffold engineering. Scaffolding design is clearly not a one-size-fits-all endeavor.
On a more quotidian level, scaffolds show up everywhere, erected for new construction, renovations, or even just a fresh coat of paint. So even though scaffolds might all seem the same, they’re not. Every scaffold must be designed, and some scaffolds are actually multiple scaffolding systems put together like a puzzle. But what’s most surprising, and serious, is just how much can go wrong, from construction delays to serious collapses endangering workers and the public.
One technology that is driving change in the industry is reality capture, which creates 3D models from photographs or laser scans for more accurate and precise modeling. One company, Brand Industrial Services, known as BrandSafway, is using the technology to great effect.
“Reality capture allows us to see the work area where the scaffold is intended to be used,” says Rick Dunlap, BrandSafway’s VP of technical services. “It allows us to create our scaffold design, then place it within that reality capture, and then share that with the client to say, ‘This is the scaffold you asked for. Here’s what it looks like in your plant or on the building. Does this meet your requirements?’ And by doing that, we’re able to eliminate a large part of those scaffold modifications and rework.”
BrandSafway follows a scoping process to figure out the best approach for each project, which can involve an experienced supervisor working with a client, or a field activity where clients fill out a form or checklist themselves, documenting what they see.
After this “scope package” is complete, the company then creates a field work package, where it uses a CAD-based engine to engineer and place the scaffold design directly into the project image, using the cloud point data to ensure spatial awareness. “We use Autodesk’s comprehensive suite of products, which allows us to seamlessly transition from CAD to Navisworks,” explains Dunlap, “and ReCap for as-built 3D models.”
The finished visual field work package includes an estimate of labor, scaffold materials required, a CAD-powered DWG file, and a 3D model for a recap. “If we don’t do the visual work package process, a lot of times we spend time, money, and resources to fix the scaffold or tear it down and build the right one. And so by using the visualization, we’re able to take waste and inefficiency out of the process,” Dunlap says.
Because every building has a unique design, scaffolding businesses must consider the size of the scaffold needed, whether it will fit, the amount of use the scaffold will need to endure to complete the project, and other special conditions (such as fire hazard areas requiring all-metal components instead of wooden scaffold planks).
Reality capture narrows the scaffolding design process, and even factors in the materials that will be required. The technology saves BrandSafway clients as much as 35 percent compared to “old-school or traditional ways” of verbal communication of scope and building scaffolds, according to Dunlap. He adds that some projects may involve as high as 50 percent scaffold modifications, which indicates a lack of a clear understanding of a client’s needs. This variance can count for as much as 50 percent of the total man hours on a project spent fixing scaffolds because of poor communication.
There are hundreds of pre-engineered scaffold construction systems, but just a few dominant systems that are well-known in the industry, including: cup-type, pin-type, Safway Systems Scaffold, and tube and clamp. Pre-engineered scaffold systems can be arranged in a variety of potential combinations that have been tested and verified for strength and safety. Dunlap says BrandSafway owns about $2.6 billion worth of scaffold and access equipment.
BrandSafway is often tapped by the likes of Shell, Valero, and Halliburton in the oil and gas industry to build scaffolding meant to hold up over longer spans of time. The oil and gas industry is unique because hundreds—sometimes thousands—of personnel are involved in frequent routine maintenance activity, whereas other industries don’t necessarily perform routine maintenance. A single scaffold could be used by eight different contractors, including inspection, piping, equipment, electrical, and specialty service personnel.
This amount of maintenance required for the industry’s safety standards gets expensive, which means it is in the company’s best interest to get scaffolding design right the first time around. “When you look at a client’s spend for scaffold service, a large element of that spend can be identified as opportunity to reduce waste, or to improve fit for use for that scaffold,” Dunlap says.
The immense global competition in oil and gas adds to the pressure to work as efficiently as possible. “I don’t think the scaffolds we build are necessarily more difficult,” Dunlap says. “We’re competing with Asia in general, the EU, and others. If they can make petrochemicals more efficiently and cost-effectively somewhere else, then that’s what’s going to happen. So we have to get better at what we’re doing.”
Getting better, for BrandSafway, means exploring and making full use of available technologies. Once tech such as reality capture becomes commonplace, the company says it will consider even more advanced simulation technologies such as augmented reality and virtual reality. So even though it’s easy to take scaffolding for granted, despite its vital importance to any infrastructure, the scaffolding design process will continue to evolve, increasing safety and efficiency along the way.
Scaffolding, as used in computing, refers to one of two techniques: The first is a code generation technique related to database access in some model–view–controllerframeworks; the second is a project generation technique supported by various tools.
- 1Code generation
Code generation[edit]
Scaffolding is a technique supported by some model–view–controllerframeworks, in which the programmer can specify how the application database may be used. The compiler or framework uses this specification, together with pre-defined code templates, to generate the final code that the application can use to create, read, update and delete database entries, effectively treating the templates as a 'scaffold' on which to build a more powerful application.
Scaffolding is an evolution of database code generators from earlier development environments, such as Oracle's CASE Generator, and many other 4GL client-server software development products.
Scaffolding was made popular by the Ruby on Rails framework. It has been adapted to other software frameworks, including OutSystems Platform, Express Framework, Play framework, Django, web2py, MonoRail, Brail, Symfony, Laravel, CodeIgniter, Yii, CakePHP, Phalcon PHP, Model-Glue, PRADO, Grails, Catalyst, Mojolicious, Seam Framework, Spring Roo, JHipster, ASP.NET Dynamic Data, KumbiaPHP and ASP.NET MVC framework's Metadata Template Helpers.
Run-time vs. design-time scaffolding[edit]
Scaffolding can occur at two different phases of the program lifecycle: design time and run time. Design time scaffolding produces files of code that can later be modified by the programmer to customize the way the application database is used. However, for large-scale applications this approach may be difficult to maintain due to the sheer number of files produced, and the fact that the design of the files was largely fixed when they were generated or copied from the original templates. Alternatively, run time scaffolding produces code on the fly. It allows changes to the design of the templates to be immediately reflected throughout the application. But modifying the design of the templates may be more difficult or impractical in the case of run time scaffolding.
Scaffolding in Ruby on Rails[edit]
When the line
scaffold :model_name
is added to a controller, Rails will automatically generate all of the appropriate data interfaces at run time. Since the API is generated on the fly, the programmer cannot easily modify the interfaces generated this way. Such a simple scaffold is often used for prototyping applications and entering test data into a database.The programmer may also run an external command to generate Ruby code for the scaffold in advance:
rails generate scaffold model_name
. The generate
script will produce files of Ruby code that the application can use to interact with the database. It is somewhat less convenient than dynamic scaffolding, but gives the programmer the flexibility of modifying and customizing the generated APIs.Note: As of Rails 2.0, dynamic scaffolding is no longer stored.
Server side vs Client side Scaffolding[edit]
Scaffolding techniques based on the application database typically involve Server side frameworks. Server side web frameworks commonly perform operations directly against database entries, and code generation for these operations may be considered Server side Scaffolding. Alternatively, Client side development often uses frameworks that perform data transport operations instead of directly accessing the database. The focus of Client side Scaffolding is thus more on generating a starter template for the application as a whole, rather than generating code to access a database.
Some Client side web frameworks, such as Meteor, allow the client to perform database operations in a manner similar to Server side frameworks. In this case, Scaffolding techniques can go beyond merely generating a starter template. They can perform run time scaffolding of web forms on the Client side to create, read, update and delete database entries. One example of this is provided by an add-on to Meteor called aldeed:autoform [1].
Project generation[edit]
Complicated software projects often share certain conventions on project structure and requirements. For example, they often have separate folders for source code, binaries and code tests, as well as files containing license agreements, release notes and contact information. To simplify the creation of projects following those conventions, 'scaffolding' tools can automatically generate them at the beginning of each project. Such tools include Yeoman and Cargo.
See also[edit]
- Accelerator (Productivity)
- KumbiaPHP
External links[edit]
- Getting Up and Running Quickly with Scaffolding, Scaffolding Method Reference (From rubyonrails.org)
- Rails Scaffolder's Toolbox - A GUI for the Rails Scaffolder Generators (Mac only application, from the Mac App Store)
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