The labor of manual brainstorming in parking layout, without AI help
During my college years in architecture, I have grown somewhat a bit annoyed when we got quite large projects with sites that require us to manage and arrange parking layouts within a somewhat strange site shape. Usually in that time, i brainstormed and try error some of the layouts of the parking space that i can, at that time with Autodesk Revit, so i modelled each of the layouts say using the annotation tools, or other ones. It's a definitely a tedious process because:
- It took a big effort to brainstorm and sketch
- We could only produce 1-2 design options within say, 3 hours of work (we are talking about students skill, not professionals), so say i have a deadline for tomorrow, i cant really produce many alternatives.
- Even if i somehow managed to design a layout that was well within the requirements, its not quite good, because say the turning radius, the aesthetics, etc.
Nowadays, in 2024 - 2025 until now, we have come such a long way within the introduction of AI, especially with Autodesk releasing several features for AI-oriented workflows, aimed to help us automate our work, one of them is with their AEC products, Autodesk Forma.
Access TestFit from the Autodesk App Store within Forma!
Autodesk Forma's latest release, around November-December 2024, has added an extension that we designers and architects would definitely found to be helpful, which is called TestFit. TestFit is an extension that we could add to our forma project, you can access them from the Autodesk App Store that resides within Autodesk Forma. There, we could just add the extension to our projects,
How to Access This Feature Extension?
TestFit after being added from the app store, it sits nicely in our projects at the handy right tool within the extension bar. Testfit aims to help the designers in producing quick and rapid conceptual of a parking layouts, which by the way are all, AI Assisted, so we could somehow say that this is one of the Automation and Generative AI tools we have currently, that doesnt require any coding knowledge.
The only knowledge required is just the correct way to vehicle movement ergonometric, which helps us to tune the parameters resides within the Autodesk Forma and Test Fit's parameter to create a parking layout that were realistic to be built and follows the local standard. It features a very intuitive user interface, and well programmed to follow Forma's workflow, which includes dragging and setting the place we want the layout to be generated on.
You can watch the Forma and TestFit's demo on how to use it on my youtube channel below, but i made it in Bahasa Indonesia, so you probably would need CC or a translator, here's the link!
