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BIM, Future and Directions


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So you have your Building Information Model created.

Its accurate right down to the last screw,nail, wall tile, floor tile and door hinge, each piece in place, every fixture and fittings in place.

Its nothing out of the ordinary, a four storey block of flats. Data at your fingertips for everything within it.

Every detail is there, just in case you want to cut a live section through it to show the detail, that's "anywhere" within the building.

(How many different section details to show construction and materials of a wall in one building do you need anyway?)

Despite the fact that you may only need to show a sample section to give the detail, the whole model is "lumbered" with this computational overhead.

So an ideas how big this file's going to be, and what sort of computional overhead that's going amount to when viewing and moving this around in 3D view?

Any ideas as to what type of computer, on your desktop, is going to have the power to do this ?

As for hitting the "render with hidden line view" command.

Although I'm not an Architect, most of the work I do in VW is 3D modelling.

Most average file sizes are at least 70+ MB with the level of detail I put in. A drop in the ocean compared to what you guy's are discussing. Converted to 2D line for construction drawings they'd come in at around 4 MBs.

I can't see under the current software designs and hardware specs this being a reality any time soon.

Don't get me wrong, I think you need to get more meaningful information from what you are creating rather than "dead" lines, images on a drawing sheet but I think maybe its getting like "Hollywood".

Alan

[ 10-27-2005, 10:07 AM: Message edited by: alanmac ]

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Christiaan, You are correct, and so was Robert. There are lots of terms being thrown around here, and whatever the reason, they might mean different things to each if us.

Just to clarify *my* interpretation of these terms:

1) Design drawings/models - drawings and/or models of a mainly conceptual nature whose main purpose is two-fold: first they allow us as designers to discover how a building (or any product?) might layout or go together in terms of floorplan(s), bulk, scale, density, placement on site, roof alignment(s) etc. etc. And second, they (hopefully) allow the client to understand the project at an early stage, thereby (again hopefully) avoiding that dreaded statement during the actual construction, "I had no idea it would look like this".

IMO, and in my own every day use, VectorWorks is a very powerful tool for these types of presentations, especially because I can work pretty much directly from these to....

2) Construction Drawings (in the US these are AKA 'Working Drawings', the 'construction set', and probably other names as well) - These drawings are almost always 2d and are detailed enough for the construction of all of the major components of a building such as plan layout/wall placement, foundation, wall framing, roof framing, etc. and may or may not contain much more detailed information on some of what might be called sub-components of the building. One example of this is cabinetry (or millwork). However, these more detailed drawings usually fall into the next catagory....

3) Shop Drawings - are highly detailed, piece-by-piece, material and assembly drawings used to create individual elements (what I called 'subcomponents' above) like cabinets, complex HVAC systems, custom milled trim (like an ornate rafter tail), and many, many other things.

VW's is also very good at producing number 2 & number 3, and can be used to do this in (at least) two distinct ways: first, the 2d drawings might be derived, in whole or in part, from a 3d model. [As stated here, if you want VW's to 'automatically' create completed 2d drawings from 3d models, then each part must be modeled and it must be locationally and anatomically correct. For my day-to-day use I find it quite acceptable to have VW's take me part of the way there, and to add enhanced details into VP annotations...] Second, the 2d drawing may be created solely in 2d, the old fashioned way, which VW's is also very good at.

All that said, my personal feeling is this: VW's as always, should strive to be as versatile and flexible as possible so that each of can choose the method we are most comfortable with. I would also add that "live sections" do allow VW's to go much further than it has in past versions in the creation of 2d drawings from 3d models. My sense is that this functionality is only in its infancy (at least in VW''s) and that as it continues to mature we will all be amazed at its increased power.....

Regards,

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Take heart Alanmac! What you describe is in fact reality now for most mechanical designers using so called mid range 3D solid modelling packages like SolidWorks, SolidEdge or Inventor. Using these it is not uncommon to have assemblies with tens of thousands of parts and still be usable. There are various techniques and methods used such as lightweight assemblies and drawings where only the relevant parts are edited as needed.

Sectioning and hidden line in these apps is pretty much instantaneous. VectorWorks, for all its merits, lags way way behind these kinds of apps in this respect.

I see no technical reason why this can't be done with architectural design software.

As for "how much detail do you need" well that is indeed the crux of the issue. Personally, I see no good reason why, for example, in defining a wall, you cannot assign section view characteristics for hatching and insulation and line styles, or even notation as part of the model definition.

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[

quote:

Originally posted by Christiaan:

On the other hand I don't think Nemetschek would be right to draw a rigid line between concept-construction data and actual construction data.

Robert, I don't know about the U.S. but certainly in the UK and NZ architects drawings are not only used to produce more detailed construction data but they are also used on site by site managers and builders to build from.

In the link you provide, it says, "[architects] documents do not contain sufficient information to construct the project, and much more information is required before the work can be done."

This may often be the case but it's an oversimplification in many cases, and in some circumstances even incorrect. For instance, in the case of a light timber frame building in New Zealand, the architect produces a set of drawings that may well be the only construction data ever produced, especially if the builder is an experienced one. (Such drawings are produced with the aid of a national standard for light timber frame construction.) The main point I'm making is that there is some crossover between concept-construction data and actual-construction data and Vectorworks needs to reflect this.

I quite agree with christiaan. And I've practiced in China, UK, the nederlands and Belgium. I don't think it is only a question of region. It is also a question of philosophy of work. In our office, we do draw some of the shop drawings, I'd say most of them. I understand Robert's point tough. for exemple, we try to avoid drawing the aluminium windows' detail as assembling those pieces is worse then making a giant puzzle. They all look the same and there's no point in drawing them anyway since they are completely standardized. We do draw wooden windows though, down to the nailing details... The reason why we do this is because the contractor do not draw them the way we want them (they think money and ease of construction, we thing concept and aesthetic). And detailing is very important for the final feeling of the building. We believe that they are wholy part of the concept. Without them, you don't get the same coherence in the building. That's what I admire most in the work of architect such as Herzog and De Meuron or Peter Zumthor in Swiss.

Even when we do let the contractor provide the shop drawings, we ask them to send them to us in exchangeable format (hence the importance of export) we correct the drawings and send them back.

I also agree with Alan : huge files. My files have an average of 50Mb. I blame the windows :-)...

Even in 2D, the fact that striked me most when I started with VW was the size of the files. Take the exemple of a single window's detail : it is 2MB (Autocad equivalent was 500K)...

So I don't think that modeling the building to the last nail is reasonable, nor usefull. But I also would be fairly interested in a compromise, say having sections that do have the general details (wall cavities, since I've defined them) but not the windows, since i've got to draw them anyway, and can be then turned into clean 2D's section that I shall then improve manually. Something close to what we do with elevations... (Thought I'd like those one to be cleaner). Talking about the elevations, It would be nice to keep only the visible line (being able to remove the hidden line and drastically reduce the size of the file and the number of line)...

I don't agree with you Alan (sorry) when you say that you don't need that many section, computers help us to conceive complex geometries and those need quite a lot of section to be correctly described in plans. being able to generate a model that would then issue all the needed section with just the need of some cosmetic improvements would be highly usefull. (sorry for my drastic english)...

I find CipesDesign's comments very close to what we do for the moment. 1) in 3D and 2) 3) in 2D. Would be nice if the 2D's could be pregenerated...

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