Autodesk: Think aggressive

[Anonymous]

Thanks Matt. The main curtainwall was done using 'bruningcad' and a custom
program I wrote on HP Basic which used linear algebra to generate a
development of the glass planes so that all the 'horizontals' and glass
sizes could be shown true size. I and the archie from IM Pie played with
the cutting planes until we liked the look. The really nasty one was the
sunscreen tubes. I wrote another program which set up the cutting planes
for each of the 36 bays, and calculated the distances from the sides of the
parabolic steel trusses for each tube - 14,600+ tubes of various sizes - the
cutting list was over 80 pages long - each tube labelled as to it's panel
number & bay number (average panel length around 6' - adjusted for each bay)
The 3 lenses were much simpler - I only had to solve 1/2 of one of them!

At the top is where most bottleneck's occur.

Much design work is really 2D work anyway. When I lay out a new hospital
floor plan in an existing building the process is 90% 2D. There are certain
rooms that require the use of 3d objects and we apply it then. If anyone
thinks that we're spending hours drawing interior elevations - well we just
don't need to much of the time. Exceptions usually being millwork and
headwalls, and special accent/finished areas - which are few and far between
in a Canadian hospital. So I don't see where going all 3D would help. I
was being rather facetious when I said 1 or 10 TB, but the issues are still
there.

And our consultants and owners would have no one capable of handling a large
3d model - the owner can't even maintain a layering system or draw a door
without using a line and a circle!

And really why should they? They are hospital workers - not cad gurus. Why
should they make any investment in this area? They have far more important
things to do like saving people's lives. And do you think that all the
firms that input graphical data are going to use the same cad standards you
have set up? That's pie in the sky thinking. Hand these guys a 3d model?
After what I see them do to a floor plan?

Although plan is misleading - our 'floor plan' has all of the information
for the entire floor either on or xref'd in - so ceilings, lighting, hvac,
floor patterns, fire separations, zones etc are all available - simply using
layer states.
They have the door information right on the plan, along with the room
finishes and equipment info along with the spreadsheets of that data.

There is a use for 3D, and some archie firms are doing very well with it.
Manufacture learned long ago that 3d was the way for 90% of them. However
sheet metal, glass, fabric cutting machines all get the data in 2D.

--
Princess Jamie,

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.
- Anais Nin