E-Business
Issue No. 8 - December/ 2002/january
QikLink - the Document Management Solution
Many readers in the design and construction industries would be familiar with QikDraw, the computer-assisted design (CAD) software developed in South Australia by IT and engineering expert, Peter Chan.
Once operating branch offices in all Australian capital cities, the downturn in the building industry during the 1990s forced QikDraw to withdraw to one Adelaide office.
While supporting a reduced community of QikDraw users, Peter is evolving new angles for his powerful software and he has succeeded with his QikLink solution.
QikLink is really two solutions in one; it provides a layered, quickly accessible archive for working material – including complicated graphics – and doubles as a highly flexible platform for presentations.
Working from a database, QikLink retrieves complex batches of information. It can then record the documentation onto a CD-ROM together with a run-time ‘driver’ to create a portable package that works on any PC.
QikDraw can link together a virtually limitless range of data. High resolution images and precise vector drawings pose no problem. A ‘Hot Link’ function allows all the records to be linked in the most appropriate way for quick and easy retrieval.
During presentations the presenter can move around the screen at will, zoom to points of interest and write on or over what is on the screen. The system becomes a tool rather than the fixed slide show of pictures (although this mode can be activated if required).
Lindsay Doherty, a senior engineer with Arup Water Consulting Engineers and a university lecturer, was a pioneer user of QikLink for SA Water’s recently completed reservoir project at Upper Paskeville in the Yorke Peninsula.
“In addition to aspects such as buried pipework the project required significant intricate construction procedures which were deemed important to record in detail to aid the tracking of any problems which could pos...
